➡️ Swipe: English and Mandarin Are the Most Spoken Languages, but for Different Reasons

Key Takeaways

• English is the most spoken language, with 1.5 billion speakers in 2025.
• However, only about 25% (or 390 million people) speak it natively
• For another 1.1 billion speakers, English is a second language.
• Meanwhile, Mandarin has the most native speakers (990 million), versus the 194 million that speak it as a second language.