Poll: In your opinion, which is the most spoken language worldwide in 2025? Thread poster: ProZ.com Staff
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This forum topic is for the discussion of the poll question "In your opinion, which is the most spoken language worldwide in 2025?".
View the poll results »
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Are we talking about native speakers or speakers overall - any level?
| | | | | | | My opinion has nothing to do with it | May 7 |
Around me, the most widely spoken language is Danish.
Danish is spoken in surprising or less surprising places all round the world, but the population of Denmark is less than 6 million. Many Danes also speak English of one sort or another, so from my point of view it could be one of those two languages. 
However, the kind of English some Danes speak is not the same as my native British English, and my ex-pat idiol... See more Around me, the most widely spoken language is Danish.
Danish is spoken in surprising or less surprising places all round the world, but the population of Denmark is less than 6 million. Many Danes also speak English of one sort or another, so from my point of view it could be one of those two languages.
However, the kind of English some Danes speak is not the same as my native British English, and my ex-pat idiolect is not the same as many dialects spoken in the UK today ...
Although my world may be centred on Denmark, I have memories of living and travelling in other countries ...
I like the comment in Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers
All such rankings of human languages ranked by their number of native speakers should be used with caution, because it is not possible to devise a coherent set of linguistic criteria for distinguishing languages in a dialect continuum. For example, a language is often defined as a set of mutually intelligible varieties, but independent national standard languages may be considered separate languages even though they are largely mutually intelligible, as in the case of Danish and Norwegian. Conversely, many commonly accepted languages, including German, Italian, and English, encompass varieties that are not mutually intelligible. While Arabic is sometimes considered a single language centred on Modern Standard Arabic, other authors consider its mutually unintelligible varieties separate languages. Similarly, Chinese is sometimes viewed as a single language because of a shared culture and common literary language. It is also common to describe various Chinese dialect groups, such as Mandarin, Wu, and Yue, as languages, even though each of these groups contains many mutually unintelligible varieties.
my emphasis
[Edited at 2025-05-08 08:24 GMT] ▲ Collapse
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As far as I know, this refers to speakers in general. If only native speakers are considered, Mandarin seems to lead.
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On Youtube, Hispanophone songs easily pull tens or hundreds millions of 'likes' as no other language does (my own non systemic observation)
[Редактировалось 2025-05-07 20:40 GMT]
| | | | | I think that it is English! | May 7 |
I would say that I have seen many English speakers and non-native speakers in my life from everywhere. I think that English is a very easy and simple language to learn. For that reason, it is the first second language that schools around the world prefer to teach. But I also have to say that Spanish and Chinese have become very popular recently.
| | | | Mario Chávez
United States
Local time: 19:33
Member (2024)
English to Spanish
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| The most spoken language worldwide? | May 7 |
I wish they taught rhetoric and oratory at high schools because the poll's question is so wrong on several levels.
And I have no opinion, because you'll end up with tens of thousands of opinions, none of them too useful anyways.
It's a slow day at Proz.com
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Samuel Murray 
Netherlands
Local time: 01:33
Member (2006)
English to Afrikaans
+ ...
Spanish, perhaps. I'm told that Spanish speakers tend to talk a lot, and if that is true, Spanish people may speak more Spanish than English people speak English, making Spanish the most spoken language in the list. That said, ChatGPT says that Spanish people speak only about 2-3% more than English speakers.
We must not forget that ProZ.com is an international community (and it has international staff), so naturally some of the poll questions will exhibit poor composition in what ... See more Spanish, perhaps. I'm told that Spanish speakers tend to talk a lot, and if that is true, Spanish people may speak more Spanish than English people speak English, making Spanish the most spoken language in the list. That said, ChatGPT says that Spanish people speak only about 2-3% more than English speakers.
We must not forget that ProZ.com is an international community (and it has international staff), so naturally some of the poll questions will exhibit poor composition in what must probably not be the poll poster's native language. That's okay, we can work around it. It's possible that the poll author meant "which language has the most speakers".
[Edited at 2025-05-08 06:21 GMT] ▲ Collapse
| | | | | Danish, Swedish ... | May 8 |
Christine Andersen wrote:
Around me, the most widely spoken language is Danish.
This reminds me of my time in Sweden when I studied agronomy and put a lot of effort in learning Swedish - quite successfully, as I mastered it at C1 level within a year. A Swede was baffled by my efforts and said: "Why the %*# are you learning Swedish? No one speaks it!" I replied: "Well .... quite many people over here do!" 
[Edited at 2025-05-08 06:58 GMT]
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