What is the second most important language of European Union?

Question

I heard that English is the official language for EU, but what would be the second most important language?

Answer 1

I would say German, it is the second most taught foreign language in the EU after English.

Answer 2

English is the most spoken second language of the people of Europe but it only around 65 million people are native speakers, that is comprised of the UK, Ireland and Malta. It is a lingua Franca but only to a certain extent. English, French and German are the main languages of the EU institutions.

Anyone that says the EU is becoming the Tower of Babel should remember. Babel had one language one culture, the EU is the opposite of this. It promotes diversity in culture and language, it has recognised Irish as one of the offical languages of the EU and promotes regionalism.

Answer 3

English is NOT the official language as you say, just one of them.

The European Union has been operating in 20 official languages since ten new member states joined the legislative body last year. With annual translation costs set to rise to 1.3 billion dollars (U.S.), some people question whether EU institutions are becoming overburdened by multilingualism.

Brussels, Belgium, the European Union's headquarters city, is fast getting a reputation as the new Babel. Parliamentary sessions are conducted 20 languages simultaneously. With further countries soon to join the EU, some analysts fear the effectiveness of its institutions could be getting lost in translation.

For more go to:
http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2005/02/0222_050222_translation.html

Answer 4

Well, there probably isn't one, really, because if you've decided on a lingua franca, you don't need a backup--if everyone speaks English, you'll just use that. My guess based on personal experience in Europe, though, would be French. A French-speaking friend and I traveled through 12 different countries in Western Europe and if English didn't work to communicate with someone, particularly in Germany and Italy, French usually did.

Answer 5

there are about 95 million german native speakers throughout europe (82 mio in germany, 7 mio in austria, some in switzerland, liechtenstein, luxembourg, and parts of rumania, poland...), so it's the language with the most native speakers in the EU.
you can't say that english is the first official language in the EU, it's just one of them, together with german, french and all the other ones, even if these are less important in number.

Answer 6

I would say there are two: German and French because of the great amount of people who speak or can understand these languages.

Answer 7

it relatively is not approximately what extra human beings communicate it relatively is approximately what the expert language of the international is and that's English. it relatively is approximately verbal replace and communicate between countries, English is the undemanding language so because it relatively is the main needed for my area. no person provides you you a definitive answer by fact there is not any documentation pointing out it relatively is the main "considerable".

Answer 8

French then German.