20% of households speak a language other than English at home
The Census Bureau issued a report earlier this year reporting language use in the United States.
Twenty percent of the population of the U.S. aged five or older speak a language other than English at home. Of the 55.4 million people who spoke a language other than English at home, 62 percent spoke Spanish (34.5 million speakers), 19 percent spoke an Other Indo-European language (10.3 million speakers), 15 percent spoke an Asian and Pacific Island language (8.3 million speakers), and 4 percent spoke an Other language (2.3 million speakers).
In three states (California, New Mexico, and Texas) at least 30% of households speak a language other than English at home.
The majority of speakers across all four of these major language groups reported speaking English “very well.” The percentage of these groups reporting an English- speaking ability of “very well” ranged from around 50 percent of Asian and Pacific Island language speakers to 70 percent of speakers in the Other language group.
People speaking at a level below the “very well” category are thought to need English assistance in some situations.2 Around 24.5 million people reported their English- speaking ability as something below “very well” (that is, “well,” “not well,” or “not at all”). Higher percentages of people needing English assistance were present for speakers of Spanish (47 percent) and Asian and Pacific Island languages (49 percent) than among Other Indo-European languages (33 percent) or Other languages (30 percent).