The South China Morning Post commissioned the infographic from acclaimed visual journalist Alberto Lucas Lopez; it represents the 4.1 billion people who speak the most popular languages globally.
Click the image to enlarge… use your noggin.
What is interesting to note, is how Chinese is the biggest spoken language, but lags far behind when it comes to languages being learned. English, which is relatively small in comparison to Chinese, is the largest when it comes to new learners globally.
Sure, Captain obvious… there are like a gazillion Chinese people which is why they lead the pack in speakers; still very interesting how they lag so far behind English in learners. People have been saying that Chinese – more specifically Mandarin — is the language of the future and soon everyone will speak it, but the stats tell a much different story.
First published on TheSouthAfrican.com