What are the Top Ten World Languages? (Did Yours Make it in?)

Have you ever wondered what the most widely spoken languages in the world actually are?  As the Project Manager for a translation company, someone asked me that question recently and I didn’t have an answer!  I knew Mandarin would top the list, but had no idea what would follow.  Some were very intuitive and others surprised me.  In case you’ve ever wondered, here they are, listed by number of native speakers.  Enjoy!
 1.     Mandarin – 873 million speakers
2.     English – 508 million speakers
3.     Hindi – 497 million speakers
4.     Spanish – 438 million speakers
5.     Portuguese – 236 million speakers
6.     Arabic – 206 million speakers
7.     Bengali – 171 million speakers
8.     Russian – 145 million speakers
9.     Japanese – 122 million speakers
10. French – 113 million speakers Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_number_of_native_speakers