Niuno

After Mandarin, English is spoken by more people than any other language, and is the native language of more than 350 million people. More people speak English than those whospeak the Arabic and French languages combined.

Moreover, English is the international language of diplomacy, business, science, technology, banking, computing, medicine, aviation,UN & NATO armed forces, engineering, tourism, Hollywood films and arguably the best pop and rock music in the world.

English has plenty of words to choose from. In fact, anEnglish speaker is offered the biggest vocabulary of any language with a choice of 500,000 to 1,000,000 words (including technical and scientific terms).

But don’t panic, mostEnglish speakers do very well with a vocabulary of around 20,000 words.

English can be fun too. For instance, the music of such stars as Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Led Zeppelin,Michael Jackson and Madonna has encouraged fans to speak the language of their idols, whilst others have enrolled in English classes to improve their understanding of the dialogue infilms and TV shows.

Or perhaps they have embraced English to enjoy the writing of Stephen King, George Orwell or J.K. Rowling. They may even have an interest in speaking Englishjust to converse with travellers from other countries, who communicate by using the English global interlingua while travelling abroad.

Finally, if you are studying English atschool, college or university, remember that getting an ‘A’ grade in English is almost worthless, in terms of communication, if you cannot speak the language. Spoken English isused in the best careers, the best universities, and is increasingly being used at job interviews. So like it or not, English is a very important language to learn how to speak.