Slovak is the official language of the Slovak Republic and belongs to the West Slavic subgroup of the Indo-European language family, and uses the Roman script. The majority of the population of the Slovak Republic (78.6%) speaks Slovak as their mother tongue. The second most widely spoken mother tongue is Hungarian (9.4%).

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The most widely spoken foreign languages are English, German, Russian, Hungarian, Polish, Roma and French. The young urban population is generally considered to be the most linguistically proficient. Foreign languages are sometimes taught in kindergartens, while foreign language learning – usually English – is compulsory in primary schools (from 3rd till 9th grade) and secondary schools. There are some primary and secondary schools that conduct the majority of classes in foreign languages such as Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Private language schools offer many possibilities for children, young people and adults to learn foreign languages.