1-in-5 in US Homes Speaks a Second Language after English

About one in five people in America speak a second language at home.

That is 68 million people.

Dina Arid of California, who is the mother of three children, is one of them.

She grew up speaking Arabic at home.

She said it is true that the country is “a melting pot,” a place where many cultures come together.

She said some of her cousins “didn't get to learn Arabic.”

They “always wished that their parents spoke to them in Arabic more so that they have that language,” she noted.

More than 41 million people — about 12 times more than the other most common second languages — speak Spanish at home.

Hispanics are the largest minority group in the United States.

Fifty-five percent of Spanish speakers were born in the United States.

The other languages in the top five are Chinese, Tagalog and Vietnamese.

Jenny Nguyen is studying dentistry in Virginia.

Her parents emigrated from Vietnam, so they spoke both English and Vietnamese at home.

She was able to put her language skills to use when she traveled to Vietnam to offer free dental care to poor communities.

Many of her co-workers there were also Vietnamese Americans.

“They couldn't really communicate with the patients,” Nguyen says.

“I was one of the very few young volunteers that were able to speak with the patients and communicate with them what was going on.”

Erway is using a language application to improve her ability in her mother's native Mandarin Chinese.

She said her parents used Chinese between them to talk secretly when their young children were listening

The Census Bureau reports that the number of people who spoke only English at home also increased – by about 25 percent – during the same period.