Spanish ranked as most valuable language to learn for English speakers worldwide

SPANISH has been ranked as the most valuable language to learn for English speakers worldwide, according to a new study.

Official-Canada-eta.com analysed the number of people who speak each language, as well as the hours it takes to learn each one, to reveal the most valuable one to learn.

Around 480 million people in the world speak Spanish, with 15 countries listing it as their first language, including Mexico, Colombia and Argentina.

This makes Spanish the second most widely spoken language worldwide, behind Mandarin, which has around 918 million speakers.

However, Spanish tops the chart of popular languages as it takes infinitely less time on average to learn it, with only 588 hours, compared to Mandarin’s 2,200.

It has been suggested that Spanish is easier to learn for native English speakers due to similarities in culture, alphabet and has less grammatical irregularities compared to other Latin based languages.

According to Official-Canada-eta.com Spanish scores 76 out of 100, closely followed by Mandarin on 74 and Portuguese coming in third on 62.

Out of the top 10 most valuable languages, eight are European and two are Asian.

Additional research from Official-esta.com also shows that Spain is one of the top countries that Brits will visit after lockdown restrictions are lifted.

Director of International Development at Official-Canada-eta.com, Jayne Forrester said: “With additional research showing that Spain is one of the top countries for Brits to visit after lockdown, it seems fitting that the most valuable language to learn is Spanish. 

“Whilst many of us are exploring more productive ways to spend our free time, learning a new language is a valuable skill for not only work, but for those wishing to travel the world. 

“It’s also much easier than you may initially expect with many languages taking around three weeks to master.”