UCAS latest data on student acceptances for languages – 2005 entry.

2005 figures compared to 2004 show proportionate annual increases in university student acceptances for all languages except Italian, Portuguese and African studies.
An analysis of trends over the past 10 years (from 1996 to 2005) reveal the following patterns emerging for student acceptances in languages:
•	Increases have been fairly constant in Spanish and Modern Middle Eastern studies from 1996 to 2005 (overall 20% and 69% respectively).
•	Large decreases were seen in French and German from 1997 to 2001 (28% and 24% respectively). Since then French has started to level out while German continued to decrease until 2004 followed by a first increase in acceptances for German in 2005.
•	Chinese and Japanese experienced decreases in the late 1990’s followed by increases from 2001 to 2005 to reach levels above that in 1996.
•	Decreases have been fairly constant in Italian from 1996 to 2005 (overall 24%).
•	Smaller numbers and some fluctuation in acceptances have occurred in Russian & Eastern European studies, Asian studies, Portuguese, Scandinavian and African studies.

University acceptances for languages 1996-2005, full time first-degree students only studying the language as a single, major, joint or minor subject combination
	1996	1997	1998	1999	2000	2001	% change 1996 to 2001	2002	2003	2004	2005	% change 2001 to 2005	
 French	5655	5743	5161	4763	4320	4077	-28%	4110	3846	3879	3964	-3%	
 Spanish	2115	2257	2280	2400	2314	2331	10%	2560	2333	2481	2547	9%	
 German	2288	2343	2091	2050	1807	1736	-24%	1653	1524	1384	1503	-13%	
 Italian	837	931	922	876	820	786	-6%	785	670	705	639	-19%	
 Russian & East European studies 	418	505	449	381	459	380	-9%	390	428	412	425	12%	
 Modern Middle Eastern studies	214	210	218	181	219	260	21%	278	321	349	362	39%	
 Chinese	165	175	219	172	160	165	0%	256	218	243	352	113%	
 Japanese	272	302	251	245	213	249	-8%	276	288	332	331	33%	
 Other Asian studies	161	197	165	159	171	171	6%	177	111	127	142	-17%	
 Portuguese	128	107	123	131	127	117	-9%	140	103	150	118	1%	
 Scandinavian studies	65	76	45	49	49	36	-45%	51	53	46	57	58%	
 African studies	54	72	76	59	55	57	6%	67	78	67	57	0%	
													
 Other European Languages	2200	2402	2146	1790	1850	1507	-32%	1544	1621	1544	1667	11%	
 Other non-European languages	2514	2330	2187	2061	1973	1900	-24%	1554	1521	1437	1248	-34%