Friday, November 16, 2007

Learning Languages in U.S.

Interest in language study at American colleges and universities has increased significantly since 2002, according to a comprehensive new survey released today by the Modern Language Association of America (MLA). Interest in language study has been increasing steadily since 1998. While the study of the most popular languages, Spanish, French, and German, continues to grow and together represents more than 70% of language enrollments, their dominance is slowly decreasing in the face of growing interest in languages such as Arabic (up 127%), Chinese (up 51%), and Korean (up 37%). Enrollments in American Sign Language increased nearly 30% from 2002, making it the fourth most studied language on college campuses, slightly ahead of Italian.
Enrollments in Languages Other Than English in United States Institutions of Higher Education, Fall 2006
Source: Modern Language Association

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