LingQ 2023 Language Trends Recap

One more turn around the sun and what a turn it’s been. Wars, environmental disasters, AI one step closer to human domination, we’ve seen it all. When times get challenging and all us common folk can do is watch, it can feel especially empowering to focus on self improvement, and more and more we are choosing to learn a new language.

In this post we will share the languages that LingQers chose to learn this year, the languages that have fallen out of favour and more!

The top 10 languages learned worldwide in 2023

Though English, Spanish, French, German and Japanese remain in spots one through five, there have been some interesting changes in the top 10 languages learned worldwide.

Korean learning is on the rise

It’s no surprise that more people are interested in learning Korean with the popularity of K-pop bands like BTS and the awesome shows and movies coming out of Korea of late. Korean moved up one spot in the worldwide top 10 and either entered the top 10 or moved up one or more spots in most countries.

For example, in the UK and Spain Korean entered the top 10 for the first time, in Brazil Korean went from position 10 to seven and in the USA from nine to eight.

Arabic has entered the top 10

Arabic has squeaked into the worldwide top 10 for the first time in position 10. The language entered the top 10 in Germany, the USA, Japan and Italy and moved from ninth position to eighth in the UK.

With more high school and university students in countries like the USA and the UK choosing Arabic courses it will be interesting to see where the language sits on the list this time next year.

Huge increase in Canadians learning Ukrainian

Ukrainian Canadians make up roughly 4% of the population in Canada (1.36 million of 38 million). As a Canadian company with LingQ team members in Ukraine we wanted to show our support in as many ways as we could during the country’s time of need. One of the ways we decided to show support was by making Ukrainian free to learn on LingQ, and it seems that Canadians especially jumped at the opportunity. 2023 saw a 75% increase in Canadians learning Ukrainian and the language entered the top 10 for the first time in position nine!

English takes first place in France and Italy

English toppled French and Italian from first place in France and Italy in 2023. With English showing no signs of being replaced as the lingua franca, this is no surprise. English stayed in first position in all other countries and actually moved up from position six to two in the USA.

There is a downside to the continued growth of English: other languages are under threat. Due to the prevalence of English in the digital world, Icelandic youth are no longer building a strong foundation in Icelandic and English is gaining dominance in Icelandic culture. This inspired Icelandic tour guide and standup comedian Rökkvi Vésteinsson to reach out and create and source more Icelandic content for LingQ. We then made Icelandic free to learn. Who knows, maybe Icelandic will break the top 10 next year!

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Overall it’s been a great year for language learning with more people choosing to start their language learning journey. Whatever 2024 holds, at least us language learners can move through it with the knowledge that, when AI does takeover, we will be able to plead with them in multiple languages!