A recent report has revealed that 1,117,343 individuals in the U.S. currently speak Korean at home. (Image : Yonhap)
SEOUL, Nov.6 (Korea Bizwire) – A recent report has revealed that 1,117,343 individuals in the U.S. currently speak Korean at home.
Local newspapers from the Korean community reported that there are currently 60,361,574 people speaking a foreign language other than English in the U.S., which is equivalent to 20 percent of the population over five years of age. The data was reported by the American Community Survey (ACS).
There were 37,458,470 people who spoke Spanish at home, ranking first with an overwhelming lead. The Chinese-speaking population ranked second (2,896,766), followed by the Tagalog language spoken by Filipinos (1,613,346), Vietnamese (1,399,936), French (1,253,560) and Korean.
California had the most Korean speakers at 372,742, followed by New York (109,551) and New Jersey (76,224). In LA County, California, where Koreans are densely populated, the number of Korean speakers reached 183,007.
The survey also revealed that the Korean-speaking population is poor in English compared to those who speak other foreign languages. At 60.8 percent, a majority of the Korean speakers answered that their English speaking levels were low. This is was highest portion among the population of the 10 foreign languages that are spoken the most.
The census results also showed that there are 350 foreign languages currently being spoken in the U.S., which was much greater than the 39 foreign languages that had been investigated previously.
By M.H.Lee (mhlee@koreabizwire.com)
