The picture gives an illustration of the percentage of English native speaking women and men who studied one of nine foreign languages at a foreign language school in UK in 2020
Overall, Mandarin was the most popular language studied by both genders, while the reverse was true for Italian. Additionally, Mandarin accounted for the largest disparity in the proportion of foreign languages.
To commence with, Mandarin was the most favored language among women, with 27% of learners choosing it. Spanish was the second most popular language, accounting for 19%, while Polish ranked third at 11%. Other languages, including Arabic, French, and Japanese, had moderate participation rates, generally ranging between 7% and 10%. In contrast, Welsh and Italian were the least studied languages, accounting for 4% and 3%, respectively.
Looking at the graph in more detail, it was observed that 22% of male native English speakers opted Arabic to learn, which was 3% higher than the figure for Spanish. Languages such as Mandarin, German and Japanese also attracted more male learners, with percentages ranging between 10% and 14%. Conversely, languages like Polish and Italian had a noticeably lower percentage of male learners, with figures below 5%.