Reports of English's demise in US have been greatly exaggerated, experts say

News that US is now world's second largest Spanish-speaking country belies the fact that America breeds English: 'Spanish dominance, it's not going to happen'

The news was striking and, to some, alarming: the United States is now the world's second largest Spanish-speaking country after Mexico. It has 41 million native Spanish speakers and 11.6 million who are bilingual - more than Colombia or Spain - and is on course to be the biggest Spanish-speaking nation on Earth, with Spanish the mother tongue of almost a third of its citizens.

The study, published this week by Spain's Instituto Cervantes, made global headlines and dismayed those in the US who fear linguistic pollution. "I thought we spoke ENGLISH here," tweeted Scott Rogers, a Florida-based conservative blogger.