1. English (1,452 million speakers) According to Ethnologue, English is the most-spoken language in the world including native and non-native speakers.
The five most commonly spoken languages in the world are English (1.3 billion speakers), Madarin Chinese (1.1 billion), Hindi (637 million), Spanish (537 million), and French (267 million). These are the world's most spoken languages and together are spoken by about half the world's population.
According to Ethnologue, Chinese (and all of its varieties such as Mandarin and Wu) is by far the most spoken language across the world with 1.31 billion speakers. That's approximately 16 percent of the world's population.
1. Chinese — 1.3 Billion Native Speakers. Numbers vary widely — Ethnologue puts the number of native speakers at 1.3 billion native speakers, roughly 900 million of whom speak Mandarin — but there's no doubt it's the most spoken language in the world.
Mandarin is the second most spoken language in Australia, according to the latest 2021 consensus. At least 2.5% of Australians, or 596,703 people, use Mandarin as their primary language at home, making it the most frequently language spoken in the country after English.
The crucial point creating the difference is that Mandarin uses two or several meaningful characters to create a new concept and each character has its own meaning relate to the new concept. This is a huge advantage over English in the aspect of efficiency.
One reason Mandarin is seen as the most challenging language to learn is because its writing system uses characters that might be difficult to grasp for those accustomed to writing with the Latin alphabet, Babbel says.
Looking at total speakers, Mandarin is the second most widely spoken language in the world. However, it's the most spoken language in the world if you count only first-language (native) speakers due to China's significant population. Mandarin is not actually a language, but a set of dialects of the Chinese language.
1. Mandarin. As mentioned before, Mandarin is unanimously considered the most difficult language to master in the world! Spoken by over a billion people in the world, the language can be extremely difficult for people whose native languages use the Latin writing system.
China's first contact with the English language occurred between Chinese and English traders, and the first missionary schools to teach English were established in Macau in the 1630s. Between 1911 and 1949, English was popular, it was taught in missionary schools and thirteen Christian colleges.
Yet is is no match for a country of just 7.6m inhabitants in the Pacific Ocean: Papua New Guinea. There are nearly 850 languages spoken in the country, making it the most linguistically diverse place on earth.
Chinese is a language made up of characters or symbols. Each character or word has an individual meaning. English, on the other hand, is made up of 26 alphabet letters. Each letter has no meaning of its own; a word is a combination of letters.
China ranks 68th in English proficiency, out of 111 non-English-speaking countries. According to the English Proficiency Index, China has ranked 68th out of 111 non English-speaking countries. Topping the list within China was Hong Kong, Shanghai and Beijing.
Chinese is One of the Hardest Languages to Learn
The Chinese language is vastly different from English, which is one reason why English speakers have a hard time learning it. Chinese has a different writing system. It has a different sound and pronunciation style. It also has different grammar.
Mandarin Chinese
Interestingly, the hardest language to learn is also the most widely spoken native language in the world. Mandarin Chinese is challenging for a number of reasons. First and foremost, the writing system is extremely difficult for English speakers (and anyone else) accustomed to the Latin alphabet.
The most common verbal greeting is a simple “Hey”, “Hello”, or “Hi”. Some people may use Australian slang and say “G'day” or “G'day mate”. However, this is less common in cities. Many Australians greet by saying “Hey, how are you?”.
The majority of Australians speak English as a first or other language, however a significant number of people also speak languages other than English.
Aramaic is best known as the language Jesus spoke. It is a Semitic language originating in the middle Euphrates. In 800-600 BC it spread from there to Syria and Mesopotamia. The oldest preserved inscriptions are from this period and written in Old Aramaic.
An extinct language is a language that no longer exists due to there being no speakers or users, in linguistics or otherwise.