the charts compare the share of British students, studying at a university in England, who can speak languages rather than English in two separate years, in 2000 and 2010. Overall, students stuck only in English and the other three unknown languages followed an upward trend, while figures for three major European languages (Spanish, German, and French) bucked the foregoing tendency, with the German experiencing no change.
In the first year, the proportion of students who know only English started at 30% and then it was followed by a considerable growth to just over a third in 2010, maintaining the dominance in both years. While the numbers of students speaking one more and two more languages besides the main also saw a gradual rise by 5% for both to a fifth and 15% respectively
As for Spanish, despite being ranked second with 20% initially, then it halved in 2010. 15% of the total university was able to speak French, with a subsequent drop to a tenth. However, the German language was the only category that stagnated over a decade, ensuring that in the final year, 1 out of 10 students knew one of those three languages