15.4 million people worldwide are learning German today
As Deutsche Welle reports, 56 pages were prepared by the German Foreign Ministry together with the media company Deutsche Welle, the Goethe-Institut, the German Academic Exchange Service DAAD, and the Central Agency for Schools Abroad (ZfA). The German Foreign Ministry publishes such a collection every five years.
After 2015, when the number of people interested in German exceeded 15 million, interest in German in schools, universities, and language courses has remained stable worldwide. Currently, there are 15.4 million people learning German worldwide.
Minister of State at the German Foreign Office Michelle Müntefering is pleased with these figures. "The study results are encouraging and show us that we are on the right track. Language is the best means for dialogue," she says.
Most of those learning German live in Europe. In total, their number is about 9.4 million people. In Denmark, the Netherlands, and France, the number of German fans is growing very rapidly (growth up to 62% annually).
However, in other European countries, the ranks of German enthusiasts have noticeably thinned. The situation in Poland (minus 15%) and Great Britain (minus 25%) is particularly telling, as German had been very popular in these countries for many years.
In second place worldwide in terms of the number of people learning German are post-Soviet states (2.5 million people), which apparently were combined into one region for ease of calculation. Next come Africa (1.6 million), Asia (969,000), the USA and Canada (454,000), Latin America (359,000), Australia and New Zealand (105,000), and the Middle East (82,000).
A particular surge of interest in German has been observed in recent years in Asia and Africa. For example, in the Republic of Côte d'Ivoire, the number of those attending German classes has more than doubled. A similar trend is seen in Kenya (plus 117%) and Egypt (plus 60%). In Asia, the number of German learners is also growing rapidly – primarily in India (plus 37%) and China (plus 33%).
The study also covers the online audience for the first time. And it turns out to be quite impressive. For example, in 2019, traffic on the online German courses offered by Deutsche Welle and the Goethe-Institut alone amounted to nearly 42 million visits.
"These figures indicate an important trend that we have been observing for a long time: the growing popularity of online learning," emphasized DW Director General Peter Limburg. According to him, the number of users learning German through online courses offered on DW platforms increased particularly during the lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic. Doubled!
The coronavirus pandemic and the associated restrictions have suddenly drawn attention to how important digital components are in the transfer of knowledge.