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:) I like English as an international language, i'm used to see movies and listening to songs in English. I like to discover what they're saying (I get angry if can't but that's ok ). Learning English's important to me cause I use it in my job and I want to travel abroad someday. The most important is being proud of your native language, because it means your identity.

I think that english is the best language to learn on a international level because is a easy one to learn,lets face it it is everywhere. For example:the USA has spread its culture around the world with music,movies and of course with politics.Its no surprise that youth today is breading the american way of life.
Bye,gi

i think it depends on the situation. an example: for business english is already the international language used around the world. and it works out very well.
Although, we have to consider that english is the language spoken in the most rich countries in the world and this is a great reason to have it as an international language.
But economic changes can happen, maybe in the future it'll be necessary to learn languages sponken at asia or south america.
so, in my opinion, actually english is the easier way to comunicate with all the world but i'm sure it can changes across the times.

Because English is the language of the "powerful's world" then all want to absorb your culture, and the language is the first step. Also the USA is a "power technological" being necessary to know English for used.

hi people,
i'm marcio ,from brazil, and in first place i really enjoy the english language.if portuguese was the language most spoken in the world,i'd think that it would be the best language to the world,if i would be a chinese citizen, i could think that the chinese language is the best language and so
there must be a standart of language,and if english is most spoken, why not be the standart language?

Hey, people,

It's not something about "the best". It's just about "the defacto".

Hi everybody :) ,
Have ypu heard that in the USA they were choosing between English and German to became their official language?
Finally, English had won and I think it was the best result. My mum is a teacher of German, and when I saw the German Grammar and heard the hard pronunciacion I totally gave up the idea of learning German.
I love English I have been learning that beautiful language more than 13 years (since 5) and I have never regretted the choice of it.
And, what about Spanish? It is supposed to have more learners than English by the year 2010. Do you think Spanish could threaten the leadership of English among the world languages?
Last I want to add is that English surely become the world´s number one because of its flexibility. There are millions of ways to express everything you want. Moreover it uses shortened forms which are much easier for remembering. This is the disadvantage of German, that the vocabular contains lots of words that are extremely long.

English is one of the easiest languages (for not saying it's the easiest... yes, believe it: the easiest!) language to learn. Its system is easy to elarn, and one of the only difficulties would be its pronunciation. Nonetheless, one aspect that makes it a bad thing - although it's not in English itself - is the fact that a culture is being transmitted with it, as well. So we must be very careful for that.

What if Chinese were the chosen language? (and it's not so far from today, as I can see )

I think english has been used like an international language for along time . And it's Ok I like it very much even my conditions 's poor. But noproblem, importance you want to study English.
English 's stiill accepted in the world and maybe in the future, who knows, international languages next 50 years.
Thanks.

Guys, i dont think we have any other choice. If i had any chance to choose any language to be an international language, i would choose my own language.

Whether you like it or not, no matter how good your reasons are, you have to live with it. English (bless all english speaking people) has been luckily chosen as one of international languages.

Simple answers, simple words, from a simple man.. lol

authorityquery wrote:I think english has been used like an international language for along time . And it's Ok I like it very much even my conditions 's poor. But noproblem, importance you want to study English.
English 's stiill accepted in the world and maybe in the future, who knows, international languages next 50 years.
Thanks.

English became international only after 1945, after the WW2, when American soldiers appeared in Europe and Far East. There's no wonder: it's simpler to teach a foreign language to local folk than to soldiers.

The popularity of the English language will fade away like any other international language of the Past: Greek, Latin, Arab, French, Spanish, German, Russian... The list is endless. To cut it short, it's catching but it'll pass.

So far it is popular and more advantageous for non-native speakers than for native speakers: it gives non-natives an opportunity to see the world with the eyes of another culture; and it deprives natives of the necessity to understand other cultures....

language is a tool of communication

the more the population , the more popular is their language

english is an ancient language in the world for the long history

of the country .furthermore , the britian has colonized many

countries in middle 19century it's language is inevitable

transport to those countries which been colonized by it

There are too many reasons forEnglish to be a global language.

From the history, UK is the first colonial contry , they brought English into others countries around it during the aggression. It was a chance for English to spead abroad.
From the technology, so many high techinal issues ,reports are written in english. If we want to study it , we must master English. For UK and USA are two leader in the scienece and tchnology. And i wondered why they are the leader in the science and tchnology , i believed hisorical aggression is the vital factor.
From the economy, UK and USA accelerate the economy went up. Now the UK and USA will increase their points for the economy increase. So they started to invest in other countries,where they can find more low-cost laboure and material. This is the second chance to spread English , lead english to be a global language. why UK and USA can accelerate the economy development, I believe it is hisorical aggression is vital factor too.

So , in one word , It is historical reason made English into common use.

English ain't that 'easy' although people keep saying that, they're wrong. When I first started off with learning english, i told myself " damn, t'is rather easy ". When you got basics, it becomes more complicated, because english vocabulary is imo endless.

i agree with all the things that have been said until now, but please don't change the internacional language now, i'm making a big effort to handle with english 8)

hehehe,

Don't worry

Noone's gonna displace English being international, as long as it is INTERNATIONAL English. International English is quite different from any national English. That's why oftentimes native speakers are of no help here.

Smiles,
GiddyHad

i think the "choice" of the international language in every moment of history depends on the economical power of that moment, not on which one is the easiest one so, as history changes, the international languahe will change.and i hope i don't have to live it cuz i'm not capable of learning another language! lol

Maeve wrote:

TP wrote: I think English is important to everyone, but Chinese is important equally. In the future, Chinese will be instead of English as the best International Communication. It will be better and better that our economic index and business are developed. It will be exceed the west countries. So more and more people will learn Chinese and come to China to do business.

I agree with you!

hi,everyone,
I think that English is the best choice for an international
language, because there are many nations use it,so it is a very
convenient tool. we have to accept it.however you like it or not,but we have to realize . basically ,it is only an international
communication tool.

French Guy wrote::( , I would prefer that the french language became the most popular language around the world, because I'm a french guy and it's easier for me to speak french.
But I understand that english speaking is today the most wide-spread for several reasons.
During the last four centuries the UK was the first colonial country, therefore the english language is now known by practically all the big nations. It's why it's a wise solution to approve the english language as the most popular.

(his teacher says)
However it should be remembered that at the time that the british empire was expanding so too was the french. It was perhaps only by the luck of history(France not wanting to push for colonies in india, france pulling out of america, they made perhaps not the best choice by concentrating on Africa, and of course Napoleon losing at Waterloo) that we go to McDanalds and order a Big Mac. It could so nearly have been La Grande Mac.
Donc Voila Quoi

yes,that is Right.it is a fact that most people when they go out to other countries they speak English,and they don't know your native laguage,so ohters want to talk with them,so they speak English.
And we can't choose,so we have to lear english inorde to talke with others

I think english is the best beacuse most of the country teach english or use english 8)

Of course.
Every person would prefer his own language.
My prefer is German.

But it isn't. So I have to learn english.
My problem is to talk in English with people. Because I live in Austria and talk all day long German.
However!

We can communicate and the best way now is English.

cheers
Doc

French Guy wrote::( , I would prefer that the french language became the most popular language around the world, because I'm a french guy and it's easier for me to speak french.
But I understand that english speaking is today the most wide-spread for several reasons.
During the last four centuries the UK was the first colonial country, therefore the english language is now known by practically all the big nations. It's why it's a wise solution to approve the english language as the most popular.

(his teacher says)
However it should be remembered that at the time that the british empire was expanding so too was the french. It was perhaps only by the luck of history(France not wanting to push for colonies in india, france pulling out of america, they made perhaps not the best choice by concentrating on Africa, and of course Napoleon losing at Waterloo) that we go to McDanalds and order a Big Mac. It could so nearly have been La Grande Mac.
Donc Voila Quoi

TP wrote:Do you think that English is the best choice for an international language? Why? Why not?

I am not sure, but nowadays in many countries children start learning English early, when they go to school and then they finish their training later on. For example in my country (Vietnam), English is one of the main subject at school; however, some school have French beside English.
I think English is very common and very useful. If you think about it, there are so many words,for example to do with computer, particular the people working in big companies, they have to travel a lot and do business with other contries..., E can help you to communicate together easily. Eglish is the most widely used around the world. It has been used in all the fields of public activily. If you master it, you can go to any continent in the world, I think, I mean it easier to understand the other countries.
We are the world,

Hey..guys...

Well... here i think that English be as International Language because of it is used widely and most people able to communicate and read using English. Thus, that's maybe the one of the reasons why it happen.

But, other language also got power right? It just the matter that seems everyone agree with the English use.

To me, English also is easier to learn than the other language such as Spanish and Frances.

The simplest language in the world is russian! I know this because I I'd learnt it when I was only 1,5. Now I'm not so yong but other languages is so difficult to me!

maybe English is not the best choice for international communication, but it does happen.
English is using worldwide now because it is the language of business and, there are so many English clubs or forums like this that help the spread of the language.

if there are more and more people around the world use another language, such as Chinese, French, Germany or, some else, in their daily lives, that will take place of English.

whether using English when communicating with others is not the point, the custom of using it is.

Nowadays people using english as a native language is still increasing but quite slowly to compare with some other language such as chinese, japanese, french. so in the future, I think english wont be the most popular language

This is what i want to know. Now, i have got the answer from the disscussion.

My native language is Chinese.But I have to learn English in order to find a good job and communication with foreigners .Lots of companies require the graduates pass a English Exam named CET when he graduate from university.If you master this language and can speak it fluent,you can have more opportunities.So in my Country,many parents send their children to have a English Class when they are only 3-year-old even more younger....

i think the choice of being an international language depends on the power of the country who owns it. Let's imagine that i have my own language which is very hard to speak and understand both in the way to use and communicate, but i have a great power that made my language become yours, and how's on? you do surely have to learn and use it although you find it not easy at all. Thus ditto the English language! it is chosen to be our language 'coz it is powerful and got familiar to all for a very long time in the past that you will find it outstrategous and ridiculous when using something else as the common bridge to everyone...
By the way, English is really great to speak!

English should become the international communication languages. because the following reasons:
+ many powerful countries, which have great effects on the world's economy, are using english as their mother languague such as America, canada, british...So, people who can speak english is an great advantage.
+ English comprises of about 60% of impormation on the internet.( I am not sure about the percentage)
+ Human must choose a common language to be a intenational one. It makes our lives easier. people from diffrent countries speak the same language. We don't need to study many languages. We can save our time for other activities.

In my opinion ,instead of discussing whether english language is best or not , we should focus on the people's personalities , as we r people , whatever languages which we speak , if we have not honesty , the languages is not important

klistenes wrote:In my opinion ,instead of discussing whether english language is best or not , we should focus on the people's personalities , as we r people , whatever languages which we speak , if we have not honesty , the languages is not important

I agree, there s no need to discuss whether english is the best or not.we use it but we can talk in other languages too. the comon language is only a shorter and easier way to communicate.I myself like to study many languages not only to communicate but to enjoy and study the variety of others.English is one of them

I like to learn a lot of foreige languages, too. ^^
But, in my opinion, english is still the best choice for an international language. Why?
Firstly, it has been very popular, as others have said above.
Secondly, I suppose that English is a simple one to learn, in comparison with other language. It doesn't mean learning english is easy, but at least it is more easy than the others. (maybe this reason is a little objective)

In fact, it was not until I learned chinese did I realize english is the best language, and how I love it.

I dont think English is the best choice for international communications. So is any language in the world. It's no matter to this common language with better pronunciation or vocabulary than other one. The matter is how you find it convenient for a real commnunication. We dont forget that commnunication is only the part of a culture. And the mastering of this part does not mean you have a thorough knowledge of the culture, not to mention the communication itself has lots of different categories.
I dont think English would dominate overwhelmingly over other languages owing to its very almost worldwide commoness. Its universal role would change some day before another language (Chinese, French, Spanish ,who know ?) rising.
However,it would take a long time to see that change.
Nowadays we come across something like Singlish in Singarpore, and probaly in future there would be "Philish", "Chinish", ettc....
If so, English itself would be far more abundant than ever as in comparison to its now vocabulary of more than 1 million words.
To my humble thought, English is not quite easy compared with some of other languages. If Italy and Spains are relatively simple to learn, why one dont use them as the main international communication ?
It's evidenly that the commoness of the language is totally dependent upon reasons, even the shaping history of the language as well as other objective grouds.
The topic of English language is an immense one not limited within few pages. If we call Enlgish as the best commnunication, we equally recognize what lies behind the communication. All the roads must lead to Rome. Ok. Yet the most least tough road is almost always better than other ? The most important thing is what we obtain after finishing the "way of communication".

English as the official language in international business because of some special reasons,about 300 years ago,Britain occupied many nations and constructed settlements around the world,and now,you may find out the Indian also speak English,and it's similarly in many other countries,English is the most widely used language in the world.But now,many foreigners come to china for studying Chinese,why?
because China is more and more important in international business and English is not "the only one"as it used to be,in Britain,person with ability of Chinese is in shortage(you may read some newspapers).
what meet the development of the world is needed.

Right! Keeper
Chinese is a large country with a crowded population. And I always think it's unecessary for Chinese to learn another language. I am greatly admire Chinese who have much contributions to the human history in terms of philosophy, ancient cultures, art, religion and much more.
English, as we've just discussed, simply plays a communicative role throughout the globe, namely English itself impossibly being a highly wonderful construction. I dare not advance my subjective thoughts about the uniqueness of each worldwide language whose shaping process has been expanding in different ways.
Pictographic languages such as China, Japan, Korea, Cambodia..play their distinct roles in human history, and definitely unlikely compared with other onomatopoeia languages which equally have special characteristics.
In general, a powerful country regarding national defence, economy,population, good welfare may consider language as a bridge for associations and cooperations among countries. Perhaps it is the way to acquire the most common language for bridging distances among the nations.

hi guys,
i'm an italian student...i'm doing a thesis about this situation:english as a global language.i'm doing a questionnary on line to analise this problem.
could you answer to it?this is the link:
http://www.englishclub.com/esl-forums/v ... hp?t=44600
thank you very much.
bye bye

Maybe both English and Chinese.

In my opinion, English is not the best language in this world. To me, a language is good if it has some criteria:

First, it is not hard to learn.
Based on my experiences as an English teacher, most of my students say that English is not easy. They say it is because English has too much complicated grammar such as tenses, irregular verbs, uncountable nouns, articles, prepositions, and much more. Non-native English speakers must memorize them hard to get familiar with the rules.

Second, it uses polite expressions.
Sorry my English speaking friends, to me, English is not a polite language. For instance, in some countries, it's not polite to call someone older with "you". We'll call his title, like "Can uncle help Bambang please?" instead of saying "Can you help me please?".

In addition to that, in some countries, people usually call their names when they are talking to the older one. We do it in our country. Look at this expression!
"Uncle, Bambang wants to visit uncle's house tomorrow". The speaker, Bambang, uses “Bambang” instead of “I”.

Another one is, we never call someone older with his name without calling his title first. Here is the example: " Will aunt Mary bring it to Bambang?". We don’t say “Can you bring it to me?". It sound impolite to us.

Another one that's very important to us is we never call our parents with their names. I have watched some English movies. In the movies, some children call their parents with their names like "Jack , I am very busy now". It's very impolite for us to call our father with his name. It is even considered rebellious!!!


Next, I would like to give comment on Emdb's post. He said :

emdb wrote:I am a native English speaker from the U.S. I'm glad it's my mother tounge because I realize that it would be a very difficult language to learn as a second language.

You are right my friend. It's not easy to learn your language. You are lucky that you were born as a native English speaker so that you don't have to study hard to catch this language. However, on the other side, you might forget something. Guess what!
Since English is an international language, lots of English speakers do not learn other languages. There is a great number of them who only speak one language. Compared with us, the majority of us can speak at least two languages namely our local languages and our national language, and of course, plus English. Some can speak four local languages and four foreign languages. So I think, in one side you are happy, but in your subconscious side you might be unhappy.
Correct me if I am wrong my friend !

emdb wrote: I'm curious to know which other languages would be as useful in bussiness as English.

My friend, it depends.
If you are dealing with a Chinese man in business, of course you need Chinese skills. Nowadays, many people all over the world are learning Chinese because they are doing business with some Chinese people. As you know my friend, Chinese products are penetrating a lot of markets all over the world by offering low priced-products. So my friend, in this case you need to learn Chinese as a business language.

:D I like the English language very much. It was so designed for others to learn and understand. I'm not good in this though but I've noticed it's more simple compared to other language. Because of its wide selection of words one can express himself in many different ways.

Do you think that English is the best choice for an international language? Why? Why not?

For nowdays yes. because English is an international language, it's spoken everywhere.
and I think it's not that difficult or hard to learn.
for example: Arabic language is more complex and difficult more than English language or any other language.

I think English is calles "international language" because like this french teacher wote: "...it was a luck of history..."... and this countries (UK and USA) began to expand their limits in all the senses. Then they arrived to our people by industry, products and some words (if you pay atention you could see that many of our words thathave been used from many time ago) are in english and we were born and learning it!!! this is all, luck or conspiration since tahe beginning of the history we need to be able to accept this and to remember that we never stayed in any specific country we always have stayed in the "world", it is not waiting for us!!!

Yup...i think because of english now is widely become a language that nowadays people using for business,and others..so,it become so popular that push everypeople to learn english in purpose to compete in their society..
Moreover,i think the country who dominate the economy...it'll make people tend to learning their language...For instance, recently China with the most fast economy growth rate,indirectly force every country to learning their language to compete and build relation between the countries...

Do you think that English is the best choice for an international language? Why? Why not?
In my point of view I guess yes , globalization need one language to make commutation between over world people. So the English is best choice coz of British Empire spared all over country. In very earlier time they could communicate people from different language. In my point of view it will be satisfies to chose eng for communicate
Thank u

baobao wrote:Yup...i think because of english now is widely become a language that nowadays people using for business,and others..so,it become so popular that push everypeople to learn english in purpose to compete in their society..
Moreover,i think the country who dominate the economy...it'll make people tend to learning their language...For instance, recently China with the most fast economy growth rate,indirectly force every country to learning their language to compete and build relation between the countries...

Hi!!!! I agree with you when you said that China become to be one of the most powerful country ( just industry). Came on, I want to see What do you think? Wich are the careers of future for people who are recently starting a university studies?... I mean, you Know, when one country like China became to growth we need to growth too!!!! what we can do?

hi too faby..I think because China with the highest population in the world about 1 billion more so their advantage is they have the lowest labor cost but recently i heard news although their cost is so low but their service and quality of goods yet low too...I think the most basic that every country do is to provide educate..so we can supply a quality labor not just a cheap labor...correct me i'm wrong

baobao wrote:hi too faby..I think because China with the highest population in the world about 1 billion more so their advantage is they have the lowest labor cost but recently i heard news although their cost is so low but their service and quality of goods yet low too...I think the most basic that every country do is to provide educate..so we can supply a quality labor not just a cheap labor...correct me i'm wrong

Hello! Baobao, I agree with you, but not for all. I think that quality of China's production is not low. I live in Kazakhstan and when the Sovet Union was broke after 2-3 years, percent of china's production in our market was 60-70! I remember those time. It was terrible, you can't imagine yourself a quality of production! But now situation is change. Quality have been increasing headily. Most of us wear china's clothes, work with china's computer and talk on china's mobile. It is not bad! It is cheap. I know that china's production is a very popular in Europe and another sides of the world.
What we can do? Only one, to learn Chinese as second or third language...

Hi babadoo and iamvitaly!!! I am agree with iamvitaly about her opinion of quuality of chinese products, here in Costa Rica e have a lot of options but Chinese products are really cheaper than English and un some cases this products are better than English products, I know, Chinese is most like a business language but in any case I think this is the language that will make the difference in professional's world.
And how do you feel that this language can affect in your country culture?