European Day of Languages

THE 10 MOST SPOKEN LANGUAGES IN EUROPE

1. RUSSIAN - the most spoken language in Europe with 120 million native speakers on the continent

( while most languages in Europe use the Latin alphabet, Russian uses the Cyrillic alphabet instead - this is very tricky when you want to learn Russian)

2. GERMAN - the sole official language of Germany, Austria and Liechtenstein, and it’s a co-official language in Switzerland, Belgium and Luxembourg.

3. FRENCH - about 80 million native speakers.

It is the official language of France (of course), as well as a co-official language of Belgium, Switzerland and Luxembourg

4. ENGLISH - English, the global lingua franca has 400 million native speakers worldwide, with around 70 million living in Europe. It’s the de facto (but not “official”) language of the United Kingdom and the Republic of Ireland.

5. TURKISH - Turkish is the official language of Turkey and has about 70 million native speakers. It also has co-official status in Cypress and is widely spoken around the Mediterranean, particularly in Macedonia, Greece and Serbia.

6. ITALIAN - The 69 million Italian native speakers in Europe are experts on la dolce vita. Italian is naturally the official language of Italy, but it’s also a co-official language of Switzerland (it’s the third most spoken language by the Swiss, after German and French) and of Vatican City, the city-state for the Roman Catholic Church.

7. SPANISH - 45 million Europeans claim Spanish as their mother tongue.

8. UKRAINIAN - The national language of Ukraine is spoken by 45 million native speakers, with the majority residing in Europe.

9. POLISH - There are 40 million Polish native speakers that live in Europe.

10. DUTCH - Dutch is the official language of the Netherlands but also enjoys co-official status in Belgium. In total, 22 million Europeans speak Dutch as their mother tongue, meaning that around 5% of the European population is a Dutch native speaker.

INFORMATION FOUND HERE https://www.babbel.com/en/magazine/most-spoken-languages-europe/