The language competence of adults in Great Britain was examined in a national study involving interviews between April 28 and May 9, 1999, with a representative sample of 3,967 adults over the age of 16 years. Of those surveyed, 58% spoke only their mother tongue, 29% spoke one additional language, and 10% spoke two additional languages. Fifteen percent of those surveyed were bilingual. Although 41% of those interviewed stated that they would like to learn an additional language, only 5% were currently learning a language. Younger people spoke more languages than older adults; 70% of respondents aged 16-19 years spoke more than one language. Fewer unemployed than employed people spoke additional languages. Social class was found to have a big impact on language learning: 65% of professional and managerial workers spoke more than one language, versus 49% of white collar workers, 34% of skilled manual workers, and 28% of the least-skilled individuals. Strong regional differences in the numbers of people speaking additional languages were identified. Only 10% of those whose first language was English spoke at least 2 other languages (versus 49% of people whose first language is a language other than English). Men and women tended to speak the same numbers of languages. (Contains 18 tables.) (MN)