Why do people learn languages?

The survey

This survey is based on an online poll carried out on all ESL-Language Studies Abroad (or regional equivalent) websites. 48,910 people took part in the survey.

When navigating on an ESL website, web users who were visiting a country or language profile page were asked to answer the following question: “why learn…?” – the ellipsis representing the language displayed on the screen. The web user could choose one option among the following six:

• I need it for work purposes/to help me in my job search
• I need it for my studies
• I simply like the language
• I live in a city/region/country where this language is spoken
• I have friend who speaks that language
• Others

Main results

A great majority of web users said they learn languages out of interest in languages, while the need to learn languages, mostly for work purposes, comes second. However, we observed great differences between languages. For instance, most people learn Dutch because they need it for work rather than because they like the language (13%). The results vary according to the region surveyed too, showing that a majority of Belgian people learn Dutch for professional purposes (53%) while few of them declare having an interest in the language itself (3.5%). On the other hand, a majority of French people learn Dutch out of interest in it (43%) and very few (16%) of them need it for work.

A majority of people learn English because it is useful, mostly for studies (35%) and professional reasons (33%).

When it comes to learning a language because your partner speaks it, Thai (33%) and Turkish (22.5%) are at the top of the list.

The main motivation for learning Danish (20%) is living in a Danish-speaking environment. French comes second in this category, with a lesser percentage of 9%.

Behind English, German is the second most important language that people need to learn for their studies. This result varies according to the country. 45% of French-speaking Swiss people declare they need to learn German for their studies, while this motivation concerns only 15% of English people.