Mandarin Chinese tops the list of the most widely spoken languages in the world, with about 885 million people who speak it as a first language.
On average, one world language begins to die out every 10 days because children are no longer speaking or learning it.
Here’s a list of the top 10 languages and the countries or regions in which each is a leading language:
- Mandarin Chinese: China, Taiwan, Singapore
- Spanish: Spain, parts of North, Central, and South America
- English: Great Britain, the United States, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, numerous former British colonies in Asia and Africa
- Hindi: India
- Portuguese: Portugal, Brazil
- Russian: Russia, several former Soviet republics
- Japanese: Japan
- German: Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg
- Wu Chinese: China
