The bar charts compare the proportion of male and female students studying a foreign language and three languages studied most by students from 1984 to 2007. Overall, there was a downward trend in the percentage of students learning a foreign language, in which the rate of female students was more dominant than that of male counterparts while top three languages studied by students also decreased, apart from Spanish.
Upon closer inspection, in 1984, the percentage of girls studied a foreign language peaked at nearly 49%, which was higher than that of boys at 30%. Likewise, despite the slump of rate of students studying a foreign language in 2007, there was still a similar pattern compared to 1984. In particular, 40% of girls were significantly higher than the figure for boys, at approximately 25%.
In terms of the remaining chart, the majority of students showed a big interest in French, reaching at nearly 50%, after which this language slumped to about 25% in 2007. Parallel to this, Germany was the most second language learned by students, peaking at 20% in 1984 and subsequently this figure witnessed a 5% decrease in 2007. Conversely, although Spanish was ranked lowest in top 3 language studied by students, its figure saw a double growth throughout the observed years, particularly from 5% to 10%.