why is german often placed as the third global language after English and French?

Question

why isnt the third global language portuguese with 220 million native speakers? german natives speakers are only 100 million maybe 120 million as a 2nd language. I did say "GLOBAL LANGUAGE" I know Spanish is important but its not in the top three global languages for sure. So why german?

german is taught everywhere in south america(Chile,Argentina, Brazil), north america, europe, asia(Japan), Africa?,

Spanish is also important but is only spoken in north and south america and in western europe, and morocco. But not eastern europe, asia, africa, australia that much.

Answer 1

hmm...i dont know, it's class i learned spanish, english, french and madarin chinese were up there. So, not sure...

Answer 2

German is spoken in Germany, Austria, Switzerland, Luxembourg, France (Alsace- Lorraine), Belgium (Eupen & Malmedy), and Northern Italy. It might total 120,000,000 inh.
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From the point of view of a person who lives in the Western hemisphere, the importance order is:
1. English (335,000,000)
2. Spanish (320,000,000)
3. French (12,000,000)
4. Portuguese (180,000,000)
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For Europeans:
1. English (70,000,000)
2. German (120,000,000)
3. French (90,000,000)
4. Italian (80,000,000)
5. Spanish (40,000,000)
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For Asians:
1. Mandarin
2. English
3. Japanese
4. Malaysian (included Indonesian)
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For Africans:
1. English
2. French
3. Portuguese
4. Spanish
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Answer 3

Because it has nothing to do with HOW MANY people speak it. It's much like the fact that up until a hundred years ago, the "global" languages would have included Latin and Greek.... Because that's what was important for communicating across commercial, academic, and governmental sectors.

German was the primary philosophical and technical language of the 19th and early 20th century, and so its importance from an academic standpoint far outweighs its importance in terms of how many people speak it.

If not, you'd have to put (written) Chinese with all its spoken dialects, Hindi, etc. way above French.

Answer 4

English is one of the main languages globally, which is heavily derived from German

Answer 5

Because English and French are the MOST spoken and most dominant languages in the world, of course!

Answer 6

It's because of the technicality and usability of the languages for different things (i.e. IT, automotive, medicine) aswell as who is in power.

Answer 7

Because it is based upon who has the power in the global economy.

Answer 8

it should be english and then mandarin