Spanish is a beautiful and useful language spoken by hundreds of millions of people worldwide!
It is estimated that more than 400 million people speak Spanish as a native language, which qualifies it as second on the lists of languages by number of native speakers.[8] There are an estimated 470 million Spanish speakers with native competence and 560 million Spanish speakers as a first or second language, including speakers with limited competence and 20 million students of Spanish as a foreign language.[9] It is the third language by total speakers behind Mandarin and English.[10][11][12][13]
Spanish is the official or national language in Spain, Equatorial Guinea, and 19 countries in the Americas. Speakers in the Western Hemisphere total some 418 million. In the European Union, Spanish is the mother tongue of 8% of the population, with an additional 7% speaking it as a second language.[14] Spanish is the most popular second language learned in the United States.[15] In 2011 it was estimated by the American Community Survey that of the 55 million Hispanic United States residents who are five years of age and over, 38 million speak Spanish at home.[16]
