Italian language education

• Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first non-native language of pupils; in fact, Italian generally is the fourth or fifth most taught second-language in the world.[20]
• In anglophone parts of Canada, Italian is, after French, the third most taught language. In the United States and the United Kingdom, Italian ranks fourth (after Spanish-French-German and French-German-Spanish respectively). Throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught non-native language, after English, French, Spanish, and German.[21]
• In the European Union, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population (64 million, mainly in Italy itself) and as a second language by 3% (14 million); among EU member states, it is most likely to be desired (and therefore learned) as a second language in Malta (61%), Croatia (14%), Slovenia (12%), Austria (11%), Romania (8%), France (6%), and Greece (6%).[22] It is also an important second language in Albania and Switzerland, which are not EU members or candidates.