The United States has 41 million people aged five or older who speak Spanish at home, making Spanish the second most spoken language of the United States by far. Spanish is the most studied foreign language in the United States, with about six million students. With over 50 million native speakers, heritage language speakers and second language speakers, the United States now has the second largest Spanish-speaking population in the world after Mexico, although, unlike English, it is not an official language of the country. About half of all American Spanish speakers also assessed themselves as speaking English "very well" in the 2000 U.S. Census. This percentage increased to 57% in the 2013–2017 American Community Survey. The United States is among the Spanish-speaking countries that has its own Academy of the Spanish Language.
