Since World War Two, especially in the last few decades of the 20th century, lar

Since World War Two, especially in the last few decades of the 20th century, large groups of foreigners have come and settled in the United States. The result is that many Americans speak a foreign language at home. Today, one in seven Americans speaks a language other than English. Spanish is the leading foreign language spoken by 17 million Americans. All together,31.8 million Americans speak 329 foreign languages in the households. That means there is an increase of 34 percent in foreign language usage since 1980. Asian languages are used by 14 percent of foreign language speakers. That reflects the new wave of immigrants from Asian countries such as India, Japan, Korea and the Philippines. However, fewer European languages are heard in American families than before.