English proficiency among Hispanics U.S. 2021 | Statista (2024)

FAQs

What percentage of U.S. Latinos are proficient in English? ›

Among Hispanics ages 5 and older, 35 million reported being English-proficient, and 14 million reported speaking only English at home. Among Latinos born in the United States, roughly 90 percent reported being proficient in English, versus 35 percent of foreign-born Latinos.

62.6 million

The Hispanic population of the United States as of July 1, 2021, making people of Hispanic origin the nation's largest racial or ethnic minority — 18.9% of the total population.

In fact most Mexicans in general don't speak English. According to a 2023 report only 5% of Mexicans speak English even though basic English is a mandatory subject in all schools across the country.

Finally, bilingual respondents are those who say they are proficient in both English and Spanish. Using this measure, the survey finds that 38% of Hispanic adults are Spanish dominant, another 38% are bilingual and the remainder, 24%, are English dominant.

Over three-quarters of ELL students were Hispanic (77.7 percent, or 3.8 million students). Asian students were the second largest group (10.5 percent), with 511,700 ELL students. White students accounted for 6.1 percent (294,800 students) of ELL students, and Black students accounted for 3.7 percent (178,100 students).

Nearly nine out of ten individuals with LEP are adults, the largest share of whom are between ages 35-54 (38%) (Figure 1). Hispanic people account for nearly two-thirds (62%) of the LEP population, while over a fifth (22%) of individuals with LEP are Asian.

The short answers to these questions are “yes,” and “it's complicated.” Hispanic refers to a person with ancestry from a country whose primary language is Spanish. Latino and its variations refer to a person with origins from anywhere in Latin America (Mexico, South and Central America) and the Caribbean.

As of January 2024, there were about 5 billion global Internet users, constituting 66% of the world population. The Han Chinese are the world's largest single ethnic group, constituting over 19% of the global population in 2011.

Overview (Demographics)

In 2020, among Hispanic subgroups , Mexicans ranked as the largest at 61.6 percent. Following this group are Puerto Ricans (9.6 percent), Central Americans (9.3 percent), South Americans (6.4 percent), Other Hispanic/Latino (including Spanish) (5.8 percent), and Cuban (3.9 percent).

As of 2021, 78.37% of the US population speak English at home, while just 21.63% speak another language. This makes English the most spoken language in the US with 245.48 million home speakers. The second-most common language spoken in US homes is Spanish, with 41.25 million speakers.

How much of the Spanish population speaks English? ›

Around 27% of the population in Spain can speak English.

This English-speaking proficiency stands much lower than in other European countries like Malta and The Netherlands. Despite Spain not being the most English-proficient country, there have been efforts to increase this.

Argentina scored 560 out of a maximum of 800 points in the English Proficiency Index 2022. That was the highest score among all Latin American countries included in the survey. The Argentine capital, Buenos Aires, also received the highest English proficiency score among all the Latin American cities analyzed.

The study reveals that, in 2021, 72% of Latinos over the age of five spoke English fluently, compared to 59% in 2000. US-born Latinos are driving this growth, as their share in this measure has grown from 81% to 91% during the same timespan.

While North part of the Americas mostly speaks English, the main languages spoken in South America are Spanish and Portuguese. However, in both Central and South America, there are a handful of countries where English is an official language, such as Belize in Central America and Guyana in South America.

The proportion of Latina adults holding a bachelor's degree or higher almost quadrupled from 5.4% in 2000 to 20% in 2021.

Key findings: While most U.S. Latinos speak Spanish, not all do. 24% of all Latino adults say they can only carry on a conversation in Spanish a little or not at all.