There are currently over 6,912 languages in the world, spoken by more than 6.6 billion people. Here is a list of the ten most spoken languages, with their ranking, and the actual number of people who speak it as a first language…

These figures represent approximate population numbers, complied by various agencies, and gathered through several sources, and, as most data of the sort, vary greatly from one estimate to another.

Chinese is the most spoken language in the world, with more than 1.2 billion native speakers, mainly in China, Taiwan, Malaysia, and Singapore. This includes both Mandarin and Cantonese. In addition, 178 million people speak Chinese as a second language.

Hindi is the second most spoken language, mainly in India and Fiji. However, it is estimated that over 900 million people have a significant knowledge of the language.

Spanish comes third, with native speakers, in South America: Mexico, Colombia, Argentina, Venezuela, Peru, Chile, Cuba, Ecuador, Dominican Republic, El Salvador, Honduras, Guatemala, Nicaragua, Bolivia, Puerto Rico, Costa Rica, Uruguay, Panama, Belize, and also Spain, Andorra, Gibraltar, and the United States. According to the latest estimates, over 100 million people also speak it as a second language.

English, as a first language, is spoken by 341 million people. This comprises the United States, the United Kingdom, Ireland, Canada, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa, Singapore, Bermuda, and a few other countries. English is the most widely spoken second language, with over 870 million people using it worldwide.

Arabic is spoken in most of the Middle East, as well as parts of Africa: Egypt, Algeria, Morocco, Iraq, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Yemen, Syria, Tunisia, Libya, Lebanon, Jordan, Mauritania, Palestinian Territories, Israel, the United Arab Emirates, Kuwait, Qatar, and Somalia.

Portuguese is mostly spoken in Brazil and Portugal and by more than 20 million people as a second language.

Bengali is spoken through parts of India, and in Bangladesh.
Russian is spoken by over 160 million people in countries such as Russia, Ukraine, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Latvia, Georgia, Estonia, Lithuania, and Turkmenistan. Moreover, Russian is the second language of about 110 million people.

Japanese is spoken by over 125 million people, and is the only language to be spoken in only one country: Japan. An estimate of 2 million people speak Japanese as a second language.

German is spoken in Germany, Austria, and Switzerland. This amounts to about 100 million people.