I have recently been asked by a client about what 5 languages should he use to go international with his website. Well, beside translating in the obvious English language, I did not know which one should he go next.
I think 10 is the magic number on this, so I will enumerate just the first 10 of them. If you are interested in more than 10 languages, then the order is not quite important
- Top 10 languages by native speakers
- Top 10 languages by total numbers of speakers
- Top 10 internet users by languages
- Top 10 internet content by languages
- Top 10 internet usage by country
- End lastly my top 5 list 😉
Languages by number of native speakers
However, all such rankings should be used with caution.[1] First, it is difficult to define the difference between a language and a dialect, or between a language and a macro language; for example, Chinese is sometimes considered a single language and sometimes a macro language whose many varieties are all independent languages.
Top 10 languages by population around the globe.
| Rank | Language | Native speakers in millions |
Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Mandarin | 935 | 14.1% |
| 2 | Spanish | 390 | 5.85% |
| 3 | English | 365 | 5.52% |
| 4 | Hindi | 295 | 4.46% |
| 5 | Arabic | 280 | 4.23% |
| 6 | Portuguese | 205 | 3.08% |
| 7 | Bengali | 200 | 3.05% |
| 8 | Russian | 160 | 2.42% |
| 9 | Japanese | 125 | 1.92% |
| 10 | Punjabi | 95 | 1.44% |
List of languages by total number of speakers (multilingual)
Please note that this list may include the same person 2 or 3 times if that person is speaking 2 or 3 languages. Also there is no single criterion for how much knowledge is sufficient to be counted as a second-language speaker. So use this lists with caution.
| Rank | Language | First languages (millions) | Second language (millions) | Total (millions) |
| 1 | total Chinese | 1,200 | ? | >1,200 |
| 2 | Mandarin | 850 | 180 in China | 1,030 |
| 3 | English | 340 | 510 | 840 |
| 4 | Arabic | 240 | 250 | 490 |
| 5 | Spanish | 400 | 90 | 490 |
| 6 | Modern Standard Hindi | 260 | 120 in India | 380 |
| 7 | Russian | 170 | ? | >170 |
| 8 | Portuguese | 200 | ? | >200 |
| 9 | Bengali | 190 | 20 in Bangladesh | 210 |
| 10 | French | 80 | 140 | 220 |
Stats for all internet users by language
We have just seen the languages by total number of speakers. But how much of this people are actually Internet users? You would be surprised…
| Rank | Language | Internet
users |
Percentage |
|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 873 | 25.9% |
| 2 | Chinese | 704.5 | 0.9% |
| 3 | Spanish | 256.8 | 7.6% |
| 4 | Arabic | 168.2 | 5.0% |
| 5 | Portuguese | 131.9 | 9% |
| 6 | Japanese | 115 | 3.4% |
| 7 | Russian | 103.1 | 3.1% |
| 8 | Malay | 98.9 | 2.9% |
| 9 | French | 97.2 | 2.9% |
| 10 | German | 83.7 | 2.5% |
| 11–36 | Others | 734 | 21.8% |
| Total | 3.37 Billion | 100% |
Languages used on the Internet to write content
This is the list of most used languages to write content on the Internet. You can look at it and think “How much competition will I have?” Well, a lot if you go for English 😉
This are the estimated percentages of the about 10.1 million websites using various content languages as of 18 March 2015
| Rank | Language | Percentage |
|---|---|---|
| 1 | English | 55.5% |
| 2 | Russian | 5.9% |
| 3 | German | 5.8% |
| 4 | Japanese | 5.0% |
| 5 | Spanish | 4.6% |
| 6 | French | 4.0% |
| 7 | Chinese | 2.8% |
| 8 | Portuguese | 2.5% |
| 9 | Italian | 1.9% |
| 10 | Polish | 1.7% |
List of Countries by Internet Usage
But think about it a little bit more. We may be looking at this the wrong way. How much people have access to the internet if I am interested in a specific country localization instead of a language? This could be a good question to decide your expansion.
| Rank | Country | Internet Users (millions) | Total Country Population (millions) | Country % of World Population | Country % of World Internet Users |
| 1 | China | 641.6 | 1,393.8 | 19.24% | 21.97% |
| 2 | United States | 279.8 | 322.6 | 4.45% | 9.58% |
| 3 | India | 243.2 | 1,267.4 | 17.50% | 8.33% |
| 4 | Japan | 109.3 | 127 | 1.75% | 3.74% |
| 5 | Brazil | 107.8 | 202.0 | 2.79% | 3.69% |
| 6 | Russia | 84.4 | 142.5 | 1.97% | 2.89% |
| 7 | Germany | 71.7 | 82.7 | 1.14% | 2.46% |
| 8 | Nigeria | 67.1 | 178.5 | 2.46% | 2.30% |
| 9 | United Kingdom | 57.1 | 63.5 | 0.88% | 1.95% |
| 10 | France | 55.4 | 64.6 | 0.89% | 1.90% |
So which are the most used languages all over the places, and which one should I choose to translate my website?
After all this lists and language statistics, this still is a good question. Which is the best language for localization? Remember this depends of lots of factors like your website niche, audience and the product or service that you are selling.
Anyway, I will give a shot and provide you with a list of 5 languages.
| Rank | Language |
|---|---|
| 1 | English |
| 2 | Chinese |
| 3 | Arabic |
| 4 | Russian |
| 5 | Spanish |
Please let me know which are your top 10 language to translate to and it will be interesting knowing why ? But you have to think fast because this is the evolution of user using the internet and it is growing really fast:
You can read more on this subject on the Wikipedia website: