The two pie charts illustrate the linguistic abilities of British students at a single university regarding languages other than English in 2000 and 2010. Overall, the proportion of students speaking no foreign language halved over the decade, while there was a general increase in the diversity of languages spoken by the student body.
In 2000, 20% of students spoke no other language, a figure that dropped to 10% by 2010. Conversely, the popularity of Spanish grew, rising from 30% to 35% of the total student population. The percentage of students capable of speaking 'another language' also saw an upward trend, increasing from 15% to 20% over the ten-year period. Similarly, the proportion of students who could speak two other languages rose from 10% to 15%.
In contrast, the figures for French and German showed different patterns. The proportion of students speaking only French declined from 15% in 2000 to 10% in 2010. Meanwhile, the percentage of students who spoke only German remained stable at 10% throughout the decade. In summary, while the number of monolingual students decreased, there was a clear shift towards multilingualism and a preference for Spanish among the student cohort.