Most Important Language In Europe (after German & French)?

[Davy-040]

Originally Posted by Ariete

Not true. In Finland and Sweden Spanish is much more widely spoken than Italian

Okay, East of the Benelux and France excluding Scandinavia.

[masonbauknight]

@Linda. The OP was not only vague in his post (what does "most important language in Europe, after German and French" mean?). I addressed a vague post in three ways. My categories address different things: in the first, number of native speakers plus others who learn the language. There, I gave Catalan an edge because few people other than Poles learn Polish; non-Ukrainians don't generally bother to learn Ukrainian.

In the second category, I refer to total speakers in the world. Some 329 million people speak Spanish (aka Castillian) as a mother tongue, and many others learn it as a second language. That's a huge number, and some enclyclopedias and almanacs place Spanish before English in the world. In the third category, I refer to most important language of communication in Europe, what you call "the most useful." English is the lingua franca of Europe (if there is one). Many young Europeans take it as a compulsory subject. Countries such as France don't make English compulsory in schools (e.g., for historical and political reasons, the French government will not admit that English has a privileged status in Europe, as English is the biggest rival of French). Yet 95% of French kids still choose English as their first foreign language anyway.

Your category "most useful in Europe" can mean many things to many Europeans, and the German language's second-place status means that one would like to learn German, as Germany is the largest and most dynamic economy in Europe (with jobs for other Europeans). In practice, however, few Europeans outside of Germany's border lands (Holland and Poland, yes, but not France) learn German at more than a basic level. That's too bad, but it's a fact. The Netherlands and Scandinavia are not the rest of Europe, and foreign-language skills outside of Holland and Scandinavia are generally pretty limited except for English. German is the second most-studied foreign language in France, but (very) few French people can hold a conversation in German. It's 2013, not 1913.

[Davy-040]

4th Most Important Language in Europe (After English/German/French)... Italian or Spanish?


Italian is more spoken than Spanish in ALL European Countries except the Nordic Countries, British Isles, Benelux and Iberia.

Not sure about France.

[Davy-040]

More people can speak Italian than Spanish in these European Countries (28):

Italy
San Marino
Malta
Monaco
Switzerland
Liechtenstein
Germany
Poland
Czechia
Slovakia
Austria
Hungary
Slovenia
Croatia
Bosnia
Montenegro
Serbia
Albania
Macedonia
Greece
Bulgaria
Romania
Moldova
Ukraine
Belarus
Lithuania
Latvia
Estonia

[mar89]

Originally Posted by Davy-040

More people can speak Italian than Spanish in these European Countries (28):

Really? I didn't know that!
However, as an Italian speaker, I feel that my mother language isn't any important internationally

[Marmel]

in Belarus no, Spanish is I think more popular. At least there are schools that teach it, and hardly any such schools for Italian.

[mrcricket300]

Russian. There are more than 100 million speakers in European part of Russia, also millions of people in Ukraine and Belarus speak Russian. Plus Baltics also have large Russian speaking minority.


There are other Eastern European countries as well, which were/are under Russian sphere of influence that have large Russian speaking minority.

[Ariete]

Originally Posted by mrcricket300

There are other Eastern European countries as well, which were/are under Russian sphere of influence that have large Russian speaking minority.

What countries do you mean?

[Muscovite]

It seems to me that Spanish is more popular than Italian in my country too.

But actually I think that Italian might be more useful. I guess it's more useful for people connected with fashion industry, or with furniture industry.

Truth to be told, I don't see any logical reasons, why Italian seems less popular (if it's indeed less popular) than Spanish. I mean in Europe, not in South and North Americas.

[ulta]

Spanish just because I've met far more Europeans from all over who can speak spanish and learned it at school, than italian speakers.

Italian is actually seldom spoken or heard in places outside Italy and the italian-speaking parts of switzerland.

As far as italian in other EU countries being spoken by a lot of people, that is because Italian immigrants being massive in so many EU countries.... but get out of that variable and you barely even come across anything italian.