Britannica
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How many people speak English around the world?
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English language
Map showing the use of English as a first language, as an important second language, and as an official language in countries around the world.
As of the early 2020s, there are approximately 1.5 billion English speakers worldwide, making it the most spoken language globally.1
It is important to distinguish between native and non-native speakers when discussing these figures. While English has fewer than 400 million native speakers, it functions as a major lingua franca, with more than 1 billion people having learned it as a non-native language to facilitate communication across boundaries.2
For comparison, the total number of speakers for English is estimated at 1,456,448,320, placing it ahead of Mandarin Chinese and Hindi in terms of total global reach.21