Why choose English as a foreign language?

Almost everybody have this question on their minds. There are a few that are interested in the answer but the other ones just don't care about it. It's true that learning a nonnative language is essential but there are so many and we can be uncertain when to choose. Let's see how English is the certain choice.


English is a Lingua Franca and also the most widely spread language in the world, then many countries that we may visit communicate in this language. Furthermore, the language of science, international organizations, tourism, technology, government, diplomacy, entertainment, sports, news, international trades (...) is, of course, English. Besides this, with this language, you can know new people, new places, new cultures, new experiences; briefly, a new world.


This language (spoken or written) is really important in our lives, don't be ignorant about this. English is the world!

Prefixes, Suffixes & Roots

A rap song to learn about prefixes, suffixes, and roots.

The song is done by http://www.educationalrap.com/ and used by permission.

You can download from their site.

This movie is copyrighted © by Diane Frymire, 2009.

Learning English Prononciation

Do you speak English?

Quotes about Languages

If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head.

If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.
(Nelson Mandela)

You live a new life for every new language you speak.

If you know only one language, you live only once.
(Czech proverb)

The limits of my language are the limits of my universe.

(Ludwig Wittgenstein)

Most people in the world are multilingual, and everybody could be; no one is rigorously excluded from another's language community except through lack of time and effort. Different languages protect and nourish the growth of different cultures, where different pathways of human knowledge can be discovered. They certainly make life richer for those who know more than one of them.

(Nicholas Ostler, Empires of the Word)

Why learn English?

English is the mother tongue of some 400 million people, and the second language of an equally large number of speakers. There are also an estimated 750 million people who learn English as a foreign language.

• Many books, newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, technology, sports, pop music and advertising have the English as the dominant language.
• In general, the universal language on the Internet is the English.
• The majority of the electronically stored information around the world is in English.
• English is one of the easiest languages to learn and to use for its simple alphabet, easy words, short words and easy plurals.
• You can travel to any English speaking country without the need of have a translator. Usually, if you don’t know the language your trip would be hard and maybe you wouldn’t enjoy it.
• Nowadays in the competitive job market it is necessary to speak English. So if you learn English you will have a better chance of getting a job that pays more.
• Learn English will help you to communicate with relatives, in-laws or friends who speak a different language. English is also helpful if you are going to move to a different country because it is a “global language”.
• A lot of educational information is in English; therefore to have access to this material or maybe communicate with other students it is necessary to have knowledge of English.
• It is necessary to learn English if you are planning to study at a foreign university or school. Usually many educational institutions will provide you preparatory courses to improve your English language skills but you have to have at least a medium level of knowledge.
• Many students from over 70 different countries, from Brazil to Japan, Morocco to Uzbekistan and all points in between, prefer to study English in UK members.

English Language Statistics

• More than 400 million people have the English as their mother tongue; the largest concentrations are in United States, United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, South Africa and New Zealand.
• English is an official language in many countries like Cameroon, Fiji, the Federated States of Micronesia, Ghana, Gambia, India, Kiribati, Lesotho, Liberia, Kenya, Namibia, Nigeria, Malta, the Marshall Islands, Pakistan, Papua New Guinea, the Philippines, Puerto Rico, Rwanda, the Solomon Islands, Samoa, Sierra Leone, Singapore, Sri Lanka, Swaziland, Tanzania, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
• Over 600 million people speak English as a second language and an additional 100 million people use English as a foreign language.
• India is the nation where English is spoken or understood for more people than any other country in the world.
• In many former colonies or dependent territories of the UK and USA, such as Hong Kong and Mauritius, the English is an important language.
• English language is more spoken and written than any other language in the world.
• English has an extensive and rich vocabulary, the Oxford English Dictionary lists about 500,000 words and an additional half-million technical and scientific terms remain uncatalogued.
• English is the official language of 70 countries and where it is not official has an important position because is needed in many fields and jobs.
• English is considered the main language of international organizations like the United Nations and the European Free Trade Association.
• Approximately, 80% of business communications around the world take place in the English language.

Talk

Coldplay - Talk

EMI UK (P)

The copyright in this audiovisual recording is owned by EMI Records Ltd.

What does it mean to "know" a language?

Language and Communication

Language may refer either to the specifically human capacity for acquiring and using complex systems of communication, or to a specific instance of such a system of complex communication. The scientific study of language in any of its senses is called linguistics.

Languages

The approximately 3000-6000 languages that are spoken by humans today are the most salient examples, but natural languages can also be based on visual rather than auditive stimuli, for example in sign languages and written language. Codes and other kinds of artificially constructed communication systems such as those used for computer programming can also be called languages. A language in this sense is a system of signs for encoding and decoding information.

Human language

When used as a general concept "language" refers to the cognitive faculty that enables humans to learn and use systems of complex communication. The human language faculty is thought to be fundamentally different and of much higher complexity from those of other species. Human language is highly complex in that based in a set of rules relating symbols to their meanings it can form an infinite number of possible utterances from a finite number of elements.

Tool for communication

Yet another definition defines language as a system of communication that enables humans to cooperate. This definition stresses the social functions of language and the fact that humans use it to express themselves, and to manipulate things in the world.

Sounds, words and symbols

All languages rely on the process of semiosis to relate a sign with a particular meaning. Spoken languages contain a phonological system that governs how sounds are used to form sequences known as words or morphemes, and a syntactic system that governs how words and morphemes are used to form phrases and utterances. Written languages and sign languages use visual symbols to represent the sounds of the spoken languages, but they still require syntactic rules that govern the production of meaning from sequences of words.

The evolution of languages

Languages evolve and diversify over time and the history of their evolution can be reconstructed by comparing modern languages and determining which traits their ancestral languages must have had for the later stages to have occurred. A group of languages that descend from a common ancestor are known as a language family - the languages that are most spoken in the world today belong to the Indo-European family which includes languages such as English, Spanish, Russian and Hindi, the Sino-Tibetan languages which include Mandarin Chinese, Cantonese and many others, Semitic languages which include Arabic and the Bantu languages which include Swahili and hundreds of other languages spoken throughout Africa.

 

Languages and culture

Languages, understood as the particular set of speech norms of a particular community, are also a part of the larger culture of the community that speak them. Humans use language as a way of signalling identity with one cultural group and difference from others.

European Day of Languages

Celebrating linguistic diversity, plurinlualism, lifelong language learning

The European Day of Languages is 26 September, as proclaimed by the Council of Europe on 6 December 2001, at the end of the European Year of Languages (2001).Its aim is to encourage language learning across Europe.

The general objectives of the European Day of Languages are to:

- alert the public to the importance of language learning and diversify the range of languages learned in order to increase plurilingualism and intercultural understanding;

- promote the rich linguistic and cultural diversity of Europe;

- encourage lifelong language learning in and out of school.

In keeping with these aims, people, young and old, are encouraged to take up a language, or take special pride in their existing language skills. Also, those responsible for providing access to language learning are encouraged to make it easier for people to learn a range of languages, and to support policy initiatives to promote languages. There is also emphasis on learning a language other than English.

Throughout Europe, 800 million Europeans represented in the Council of Europe's 47 member states are encouraged to learn more languages, at any age, in and out of school. Being convinced that linguistic diversity is a tool for achieving greater intercultural understanding and a key element in the rich cultural heritage of our continent, the Council of Europe promotes plurilingualism in the whole of Europe.


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