Italian is widely taught in many schools around

Italian is widely taught in many schools around the world, but rarely as the first foreign language; in fact, Italian is considered the fourth- or fifth - most taught foreign language in the world.[37]
According to the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, every year more than 200,000 foreign students study Italian in 90 Institutes of Italian Culture in the world, 179 Italian schools abroad and 111 Italian sections in foreign schools.[38][clarification needed]
In the United States, Italian is the fourth most taught foreign language after Spanish, French and German, in that order (the fifth, considering also the American Sign Language).[39] In the anglophone Canada Italian is second after French but in the United Kingdom it is the fourth after French, Spanish and German.[40] In central-east Europe Italian is first in Albania and Montenegro, second in Austria and Slovenia after English, and third in Hungary, Romania and Russia after English and German.[38] But throughout the world, Italian is the fifth most taught foreign language, after English, Spanish, French, and German.[41]
In the European Union statistics, Italian is spoken as a mother tongue by 13% of the population or 65 million people,[3] mainly in Italy. In the EU, it is spoken as a second language by 3% of the population or by 14 million people. In addition, among EU states, the Italian language is most likely to be learned as a second language in Malta by 61% of the population, as well as in Slovenia by 15% of the population, in Croatia by 14% of the population, Austria by 11% of the population, Romania by 8% of the population, and by France and Greece by 6% of the population.[3] Italian is also one of the national languages of Switzerland, which is not a part of the European Union.[42] The Italian language is well known and studied in Albania, another non-EU member, due to its historical and geographical proximity with Italy.


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