The charts illustrate the percentage of 14-to-16-year-old adolescents learning a foreign language among people who communicate in English, and three languages that they comprehend in 1984 and 2007.
Overall, it can be seen that girls outnumbered boys in the rate of learning a language in both years, and the French language had the highest rate of learning among children, maintaining it throughout the period.
In 1984, girls learned languages very intensively and showed a record percentage of just under 50%, while boys showed 30%, respectively. By 2007, the level of language learning in the girls’ sector had significantly decreased by almost 10%, to 40% in total. Boys experienced a slight dip, falling to approximately 25% in 2007.
French accounted for 50% of those who learned a language in 1984. In contrast, for that period, German had less than half the total percentage of French, at 20%. The lowest level of learning depicted Spanish, at just under 10% in 1984. French decreased throughout the years to below 40%, while German increased to around 24%. Spanish significantly rose to 10% throughout the period.