Slovak is the official language of the Slovak Republic. It belongs to the West Slavic subgroup of the Indo-European language family and uses the Roman alphabet. According to the 2021 Population and Housing Census, Slovak was reported as the mother tongue by 81.8% of the population. Hungarian is the second most widely reported mother tongue, spoken by approximately 8.5% of the population. Other mother tongues represented in Slovakia include Romani, Rusyn, Czech, Ukrainian, Russian, English, German and Polish.

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English is the most widely learned foreign language in Slovakia, followed by languages such as German, Spanish, French and Russian. Foreign language education forms part of the Slovak education system, with the range and organisation of language instruction varying according to the type of school and educational programme.

There are primary and secondary schools in Slovakia where the majority of classes are taught in languages other than Slovak, including Hungarian, Ukrainian, Russian, Bulgarian, English, German, French, Italian and Spanish. Schools providing education in minority languages, particularly Hungarian, form an important part of the Slovak education system. Bilingual schools also offer education in Slovak and another language.

Private language schools offer a wide range of opportunities for children, young people and adults to learn foreign languages.