Chinese is the second most spoken foreign language in the US only after Spanish, Columbia Broadcasting System (CBS) Los Angeles reported on Friday, citing a survey by 24/7 Wall St., a widely-quoted Delaware company.

The research reviewed data from the US Census Bureau's (UCB's) 2015 American Consumer Survey on languages spoken most often at home, while considering data of UCB on the ancestry of state residents.

A student from the US attends a Chinese Speech Context in Dalian, NE China on November 17, 2007. /VCG Photo

According to the results, close to 40 million US residents speak Spanish at home, followed by 2.1 million Chinese speakers. Tagalog, Vietnamese, French, Arabic, and Korean are each spoken by over 1 million people nationwide.

At state level, German is the most commonly spoken language among the 50 states after English and Spanish, with 11 states. A total of seven states speak Vietnamese most frequently.

After English and Spanish, Chinese is the third most spoken language in Arkansas, Maryland, New Jersey, New York and Pennsylvania.

A group of  US principals  purchasing Chinese textbooks in Beijing on June 25, 2008. /VCG Photo 

In California, Tagalog, a language common in the Philippines, is the most spoken foreign language except for Spanish, with 832,024 residents, a whopping 2.1 percent of the population, using it in the state, the report of CBS Los Angeles said.

Other popular foreign languages in California include Chinese, Vietnamese, German and French.

(Source: Xinhua)