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Top 10 Non-English Languages of Los Angeles

Name the ten languages, other than English, which are most commonly spoken at home in the Los Angeles metro area.
Quiz by joez
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Last updated: March 17, 2021
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First submittedApril 24, 2017
Times taken50,384
Average score70.0%
Rating4.40
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%
Language
36.4
Spanish
3.43
Chinese
2.25
Tagalog
2.13
Korean
2.04
Vietnamese
%
Language
1.42
Armenian
0.86
Persian
0.55
Japanese
0.51
Arabic
0.45
Russian
+70
Level 62
Apr 26, 2017
After Spanish it's basically just a crap-shoot. Name all the languages you can think of, prioritizing Asian languages.
+36
Level 72
Apr 27, 2017
Not if you are familiar with the neighborhoods. Little Tokyo .Koreatown. Etc.
+19
Level 67
Jun 28, 2017
Although Koreatown is somewhat of a misnomer: it got its name from the predominance of Korean-owned businesses on Olympic and Eighth Street, rather than from a concentration of Korean immigrants and Korean-Americans. The area as a whole is majority Latinx; we lived in the mostly black and white part of Koreatown (9th and Hobart) in the 70s and the white/Latino/South Asian part (9th and Catalina) in the 80s.
+2
Level 57
Mar 27, 2021
Why isn't polish in the list? wikipedia says it is around 1.5% of the population.

Why the Exclusion?

+2
Level ∞
Mar 27, 2021
The source is the U.S. census and is linked. Wikipedia is probably wrong.
+2
Level 26
Nov 28, 2022
@baltimorean just say latino you sound really, really dumb saying that stupid made up latinx stuff
+4
Level 60
May 2, 2023
and you sound pressed over someone else using inclusive language. If you don't want to say the x, then don't. It is as easy as that. Oh, and by the way, all language/words are made up, that's how it works.
+1
Level 63
Dec 27, 2023
yea but as a whole the hispanic community has said no to latinx cuz it literally does not fit in the spanish language, we're fine with calling everyone latino
+22
Level 68
Jun 28, 2017
Spanish is obvious to everyone. Chinese is a logical guess considering their world population. Filipinos make sense by sheer observation of living in LA. Koreans and Armenia have the largest municipal concentration here outside their respective countries. Given the number of Vietnamese and Persian food restaurants, they make sense. Japanese have a historical presence albeit small. Russians and Arabs are good guesses based on world population.
+2
Level 65
Mar 26, 2021
Tagalog prevails most of a language in California and Hawaii. I remember that for quizzes like these.
+3
Level 67
Mar 27, 2021
Not if you have spent time in California.
+3
Level 22
Mar 27, 2021
There was a lot of east asian immigration to California during the Gold Rush and on, Asians tended to come in from the west and Europeans came in from the east in terms of

pre-latino American immigration

+2
Level 73
Sep 25, 2021
You don't even need to have been to Los Angeles to get beyond Spanish. Living anywhere in non-rural California should get you Chinese, Vietnamese, and Tagalog easily. If you learned about internment then Japanese should cross your mind (although it did surprise me given how many Japanese are third-generation or more!). Korean, Persian, and Armenian are really the only ones that require knowledge of Los Angeles in particular.

For non-Californians though I see how it could be more difficult, but if you've ever been here it's definitely not a crap-shoot :p

+44
Level 90
Apr 26, 2017
Curse you, Kardashians!
+3
Level 69
May 1, 2017
LIKE!
+14
Level 76
Jun 28, 2017
But do they speak Armenian at home?
+3
Level 75
Apr 22, 2019
I've got a friend named Armen in L.A. Didn't help.
+4
Level 72
Apr 26, 2017
Also try my similar quiz on New York City. http://www.jetpunk.com/user-quizzes/170770/top-10-non-english-languages-spoken-in-new-york-city
+4
Level 85
Apr 26, 2017
Valleyspeak
+14
Level 72
Apr 26, 2017
Gag me with a spoon.
+13
Level 77
Apr 26, 2017
Like, fer sure.
+5
Level 79
Mar 11, 2019
What's Valleyspeak??
+10
Level 76
Apr 26, 2017
That's a pretty dumbed down source. "Chinese", "Persian", "Cambodian", "African"... really, "African??".
+2
Level 72
Apr 26, 2017
Farsi is accepted as a type-in. I read that Persian has become the preferred name. As for Chinese, the US Census department seems to lump Mandarin, Cantonese, and others under that umbrella term.
+3
Level 79
Apr 27, 2017
To be fair, there's a little 1 next to African and the explanation '1Amharic, Ibo, Twi, Yoruba, Bantu, Swahili, Somali' below the table.
+21
Level 75
Jun 28, 2017
In which case "European" ought to be first on this list and "Asian" second, with little footnotes attached as well. Man - this quiz could've been easy!
+1
Level 57
May 10, 2019
someone from LA wrote this quiz
+6
Level 73
Apr 27, 2017
Surprised Greek is not on the list...
+6
Level 72
Apr 27, 2017
Pulled Armenian out of thin air FTW.
+3
Level 48
Apr 5, 2020
Nah there’s a big amount of Armenians in Los Angeles
+5
Level 72
May 15, 2017
I'm a bit disappointed that Klingon didn't make the list.
+1
Level 70
Jun 17, 2017
Crazy that 8 out of the 10 of the languages are from Asia
+6
Level 53
Jun 20, 2017
Why? Ever since the Gold Rush there has been an almost steady inflow of Asian people to the West Coast.
+5
Level 71
Jun 28, 2017
And especially since the Korean and Vietnamese wars.
+8
Level 82
Jun 28, 2017
Never been to LA before?
+1
Level 70
Jul 8, 2017
was born there but never went back, going this fall though
+5
Level 74
Jun 28, 2017
It's really not that crazy given that the other shore of our ocean is Asia.
+1
Level 70
Jul 8, 2017
It's just that there's two European languages, you'd think there'd be more
+4
Level 76
Oct 18, 2018
All of the European countries are MUCH farther away from LA than the Asian countries. Generally speaking, the East Coast gets more European immigrants and the West Coast gets more Asian immigrants, simply because they're what's closest.
+1
Level 60
Mar 26, 2021
Neptune777 - there's three, if you count English, which is first.
+1
Level 57
Mar 26, 2021
there's four, Armenian comes from proto-indo european origins.
+1
Level 65
Dec 30, 2022
Persian is also Indo-European, but I don't think the language family matters.
+1
Level 59
Apr 5, 2020
Arabic is actually used more in Northern Africa than Asia, with majorities in Mauritania, Morocco, Algeria, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, and Sudan; and minorities in Mali, Niger, Chad, South Sudan, Eritrea, Djibouti, Ethiopia, and Somalia.
+1
Level 71
Mar 26, 2021
Also, even though there are a ton of Latin Americans in LA, they all speak the same language... whereas the Asians don't. Which is why Spanish beats out all of the other top ten languages combined.
+2
Level 36
Jun 28, 2017
Surprised that portuguese is not part of the list with all the Brazilian guys there.

Anyway nice quizz

+3
Level 67
Jun 28, 2017
At my son's elementary school in sort of central LA he had classmates who spoke Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Chinese, Korean, and Burmese. I am probably leaving out a few others. (His Russian-speaking classmate sounded like Natasha Badenov in kindergarten and like Moon Unit Zappa by 5th grade.)
+1
Level 67
Jun 28, 2017
Damn! Missed Armenian.
+1
Level 68
Jun 29, 2017
Wow, Armenian. Only one I didn't get.
+2
Level 65
Jul 3, 2017
Listening to System of a Down as a teenager is the only reason I know Los Angeles has an Armenian community.
+1
Level 57
Apr 14, 2022
Isn't System of a Down based in Glendale or something

Is Glendale in the area or something

+1
Level 76
Oct 18, 2018
I'm not surprised I missed Armenian, but I'm really kicking myself for missing Korean. I KNEW I was missing another big Asian language.
+3
Level 89
Dec 16, 2018
100% of the people expected the Spanish Inquisition.
+2
Level 79
Dec 29, 2019
I should have got Armenian because of System of a Down
+2
Level 61
Jan 19, 2020
Yup, the only reason I got 100%
+3
Level 79
Apr 5, 2020
I was surprised there wasn't French, German, Portuguese or Italian.
+3
Level 82
Apr 5, 2020
Maybe if this was a top-10-non-english-languages-of-19th-century-New-York quiz
+1
Level 44
Jan 25, 2021
As a foreigner who knows very little about LA, I assumed Portuguese would be on here due to Brazilian and African immigration
+8
Level ∞
Mar 17, 2021
The next five are

French: 0.39

Cambodian: 0.30

German: 0.27

Hindi: 0.27

Hebrew: 0.22

Shout-out to the 20 people in the Los Angeles whose primary language is Apache.

+4
Level 51
Mar 26, 2021
More Cambodian & Hebrew speakers in LA than Hindi speakers?
+3
Level 71
Mar 26, 2021
Hebrew has less...

Anyways, this seems to be a major pattern among languages in major US cities. Most likely because South Asians are so linguistically diverse--even if you have a large South Asian population overall, none of the single linguistic groups dominates. For example, there are a TON of Desis in the New York Area, even more than LA, and yet no Indian languages at all (although Bengali only recently got taken off the list).

+1
Level 71
Mar 26, 2021
*No Indian languages in the top 10 just to clarify
+1
Level 58
Mar 18, 2021
Sad that they rather select an American city to do this kind of quiz but not actually a country.
+4
Level 88
Mar 26, 2021
What's sad about it? There are plenty of other quizzes about the most-spoken languages in various countries. I don't understand your objection. Interesting quiz imo.
+1
Level 58
Apr 20, 2021
Name ONE city NOT in US that is featured in this kind of quiz (language quiz). Most of the COUNTRY do not get to be featured in the most-spoken-language, so why do cities in US get to be featured? Is it because US is better or the creator is American so they get to feature a bunch of quizzes about US???
+1
Level 82
May 21, 2021
Weird hangup, dude. Nobody's making you take the quiz, but I (as well as a bunch of other people, I'd guess, seeing as this quiz has over 38,000 takes at the time of writing with a 4.5 star rating) found it interesting.
+4
Level 55
Mar 26, 2021
Only reason I guessed Armenian was because of that one bald guy in GTA 5 that Michael beat down at the car dealership. Not even joking.
+1
Level 57
Apr 14, 2022
Simeon Yetarian?

I didn't think Los Santos would help but okay

+1
Level 52
Mar 26, 2021
I guessed Arab and Arabian but blanked on Arabic
+1
Level 76
Mar 26, 2021
Soon English will be a foreign language in LA.
+1
Level 65
Mar 26, 2021
No, it is inaccurate to assume that because bilinguals are growing larger, that eventually English will just disappear. Remember that many of these people in LA have English as a second language.
+5
Level 52
Mar 28, 2021
Believe me, no matter how hard parents try, their kids will speak English well, and their native language poorly, if at all.
+1
Level 59
Mar 26, 2021
Would it be possible to accept Arab for Arabic? I tried Arab but didn't think about Arabic.
+3
Level 70
Mar 26, 2021
"Arab" in English is used to refer to a member of the ethnic group that speaks Arabic. It isn't used to refer to the language.
+2
Level 65
Mar 26, 2021
Yes, I have never heard of the language referred to in that way.
+1
Level 57
Apr 14, 2022
Arab is a demonym

Arabic is a language

+1
Level 67
Mar 27, 2021
Out of curiosity, what percentage of Los Angeles residents speak English?
+2
Level 57
Mar 27, 2021
*polish weeping noises*

Edit: WAIT HANG ON A MINUTE

(i searched it up and it said that 1.5% of The LA population speak polish, this quiz doesn't reveal this fact)

+1
Level 39
Mar 17, 2022
probably its 1,5% of la population which is polish but not all of them can speak it
+1
Level 52
Mar 28, 2021
Arggghh, I forgot about Glendale!
+1
Level 57
Apr 14, 2022
Glendale's in the metro area?

I would've gotten Armenian if I knew that.

+2
Level 45
Mar 28, 2021
100% first try
+1
Level 51
Mar 29, 2021
Easy, got them all. Go Bruins!
+2
Level 57
Apr 14, 2022
I wish I got Armenian

I am Armenian

+1
Level 57
Jun 28, 2022
Glendale is the most Armenian speaking city outside of Armenia, so that helps
+1
Level 49
Mar 20, 2023
how is fr*nch not on the list
+1
Level 75
Apr 21, 2023
Armenian????? how-