According to Spain’s Cervantes Institute, Spanish has officially become the world’s second most used language on Twitter after English. With the most speakers of any language globally, Chinese is in third place. And while China does have its own version of Twitter, Weibo, it is undeniable that Spanish is currently seeing a growing presence on the internet in general.
With more than 500 million Spanish speakers worldwide, and counting, the language currently occupies the place of third most used language online. And even with that, it is estimated that roughly 60% of Latin Americans still have not joined the web. In the non-digital world, the Cervantes Institute reports that the number of people learning Spanish globally is witnessing an 8% increase year on year.
Much of that growth is taking place in the U.S., which is estimated to have the largest Spanish-speaking population in the world within three or four generations, but it’s also happening in Asia. Indeed, the demand to learn Spanish in China currently far exceeds teacher availability — resulting in many applications to learn it being rejected. The Asia-Pacific region as a whole is seeing an increase in Spanish language instruction spurred by economic growth and close ties to another region making strong economic gains — Latin America.