In 2015, almost 19 million primary school pupils (or 84% of all the pupils at this level) in the European Union (EU) were studying at least one foreign language, including 1 million (around 5%) who were studying two foreign languages or more. In Cyprus 100% of the primary school pupils learn a foreign language (91.2% just one and another 8.8% two or more), which is English for the 99.8% of them and French for the 2.3%.
English was by far the most popular language also in the EU, studied by 17.5 million pupils (83.5% of the primary school population). French (0.8 million or 4.8%) came second, followed by German (almost 0.7 million or 3.9%), Spanish (0.1 million or 0.6%), Russian (54 thousand or 0.3%) and Italian (33 thousand or 0.2%). English is the most common foreign language studied at primary level in every EU Member State, except Belgium and Luxembourg, both multilingual countries.
All or nearly all pupils at primary level in 2015 attended foreign language classes in Cyprus, Luxembourg, Malta and Austria (all 100%), Croatia (99.9%), Spain (99.4%), and France (99.2%), as well as in Italy (98.6%), Romania (98.3%) and Poland (97.6%). At EU level, this share stood at 84.3%.
In some Member States, young pupils were studying two or more foreign languages, particularly in Luxembourg (83.7%), followed at a distance by Estonia (30.7%) and Greece (28.9%). In contrast, less than half of primary school pupils were studying a foreign language in 2015 in Portugal (35.4%), Belgium (36.7%), the Netherlands (42.9%) and Slovenia.
According to Eurostat, the second most common foreign language gives a more varied picture. German, which is the most learnt foreign language in Luxembourg, was the second main foreign language studied by primary school pupils in eight other Member States, with the highest shares of learners recorded in Croatia (20.9%) and Hungary (20.2%). French occupied this position on the EU level and in seven Member States, with the largest proportions being notably recorded in Luxembourg (83.5%), Greece (15.8%) and Romania (15.2%).
Meanwhile, learning is very common also at the lower secondary level, says Eurostat, with more than 17 million lower secondary school pupils (or 98.6% of all pupils at this education level) studying at least one foreign language in 2015. Among them, more than 10 million (58.8%) were studying two foreign languages or more.
According to Eurostat, out of the 27100 lower secondary level pupils in Cyprus in 2015, the 98.0% was studying at least one foreign language. More specifically a 10.0% was studying more than one foreign language and another 88.0% just one. English was the first foreign language of choice for the vast majority (98.7%), followed by French (89.2%).
English was by far the most popular language at lower secondary level also in the EU, studied by nearly 17 million pupils (97.3%). French (5 million or 33.8%) came second, followed by German (3 million or 23.1%) and Spanish (2 million or 13.6%).
In 2015, all or nearly all lower secondary school pupils learnt at least two foreign languages in Luxembourg (100%), Finland (98.4%), Italy (95.8%), Estonia (95.4%) and Romania (95.2%). In contrast, fewer than 10% of pupils were studying two or more languages in Hungary (6.0%) and Austria (8.8%).
English is by far the main foreign language studied during lower secondary education in the vast majority of Member States. In particular, all pupils attend English classes in Denmark, Malta and Sweden. French is one of the two main foreign languages studied by all pupils in Luxembourg and is also the top foreign language studied in Ireland (by 60.4% of pupils) and Belgium (52.8%). In addition, French is the second most popular foreign language studied at lower secondary level in nine Member States, with the highest shares of learners recorded in Cyprus (89.2%), Romania (83.6%), Portugal (66.6%), Italy (65.4%) and the Netherlands (55.6%). Besides being studied by all pupils in Luxembourg, German ranks second in eight Member States, with the highest shares being registered in Denmark (73.6%), Poland (69.2%) and Slovakia (53.6%). Learning Spanish is notably popular in Sweden (43.7%) and France (39.0%), while Russian, the only commonly studied non-EU language, came second in the three Baltic States – Lithuania (66.2%), Estonia (63.6%) and Latvia (59.7%) – as well as in Bulgaria (16.9%).
These data are issued by Eurostat, the statistical office of the European Union, on the occasion of the European Day of Languages. Currently there are 24 official languages recognized within the EU. In addition, there are regional languages, minority languages, and languages spoken by migrant populations. It should also be noted that several EU Member States have more than one official language.