English

**Merciful:**  =‍Why English is important? =

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 who speak 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, an English 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, most English 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 in films 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 English just to converse with travellers from other countries, who communicate by using the English global interlingua while travelling abroad. Finally, if you are studying English at school, 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 is used 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.

Source:  [|http://thestar.com.my]  Merciful Nov. 29, 2011

‍Merciful:
=‍ Why should I learn a language? =

Learning a foreign language takes time and dedication. The reasons below may help to convince you to take the plunge, if such persuasion is needed. Some reasons are practical, some aspirational, some intellectual and others sentimental, but whatever your reasons, having a clear idea of why you're learning a language can help to motivate you in your studies

‍ Emigration
When you move to a different country or region, learning the local language will help you to communicate and integrate with the local community. Even if many of the locals speak your language, for example if your L1 is English and you move to the Netherlands, it's still worth your while learning the local language. Doing so will demonstrate your interest in and commitment to the new country.

‍ Family and friends
If your partner, in-laws, relatives or friends speak a different language, learning that language will help you to communicate with them. It will also give you a better understanding of their culture and way of thinking.

‍ Work
If your work involves regular contact with speakers of foreign languages, being able to talk to them in their own languages will help you to communicate with them. It may also help you to make sales and to negotiate and secure contracts. Knowledge of foreign languages may also increase your chances of finding a new job, getting a promotion or a transfer overseas, or of going on foreign business trips.

Many English-speaking business people don't bother to learn other languages because they believe that most of the people they do business with in foreign countries can speak English, and if they don't speak English, interpreters can be used. The lack of foreign language knowledge puts the English speakers at a disadvantage. In meetings, for example, the people on the other side can discuss things amongst themselves in their own language without the English speakers understanding, and using interpreters slows everything down. In any socialising after the meetings, the locals will probably feel more comfortable using their own language rather than English.

‍ Study or research
You may find that information about subjects you're interested in is published mainly in a foreign language. Learning that language will give you access to the material and enable you to communicate with fellow students and researchers in the field.

‍ Travel
Many English speakers seem to believe that wherever you go on holiday you can get by speaking English, so there's no point in learning any other languages. If people don't understand you all you have to do is speak slowly and turn up the volume. You can more or less get away with this, as long as you stick to popular tourist resorts and hotels where you can usually find someone who speaks English. However, if you want to venture beyond such places, to get to know the locals, to read signs, menus, etc, knowing the local language is necessary.

Source: [|http://www.omniglot.com]

Merciful <span style="font-family: arial,sans-serif;">Nov. 29, 2011
 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17.5pt;">What are the most widely spoken languages **


 * <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 17.5pt;">in the whole world? **
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Conversation Piece Ltd ** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">carried out research in 2007 on the most widely spoken languages and were surprised by the results...And to wet your appetite, here are the languages that just missed being on list (from the most popular to the least): German,Japanese, Urdu, Punjabi, Korean, Telugu, Tamil, Marathi, Cantonese, Wu, Vietnamese, Javanese, Italian, Turkish, Tagalog, and Thai.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Often referred to as the most romantic language in the world, French is spoken in many countries, including Belgium, Canada, Rwanda, Cameroon, and Haiti. Oh, and France too. We're actually very lucky that French is so popular, because without it, we might have been stuck with Dutch Toast and Dutch Fries.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">10. ** **French:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Number of speakers: 129 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**9. Malay-Indonesian** Number of speakers: 159 million <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Malay-Indonesian is spoken - surprise - in Malaysia and Indonesia. Actually, we had to fudged the numbers on this language as there are many dialects of Malay, the most popular of which is Indonesian. But they're all pretty much based on the same root language, which makes it the ninth most-spoken in the world.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Think of Portuguese as the little language that could. In the 12th Century, Portugal won its independence from Spain and expanded all over the world. Because Portugal started empire building so early, the language established itself all over the world, especially in Brazil (national language), Macau, Angola, Venezuela, and Mozambique.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">8. ** **Portugues:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Number of speakers: 191 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">In Bangladesh, a country of 120+ million people, just about everybody speaks Bengali. And because Bangladesh is virtually surrounded by India the number of Bengali speakers in the world is much higher than most people would expect.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">7. Bengali: **<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Number of speakers: 211 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Arabic, one of the world's oldest languages, is spoken in the Middle East, with speakers found in countries such as Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Iraq, Syria, Jordan, Lebanon, and Egypt. Furthermore, because Arabic is the language of the “Quran”, millions of Moslems in other countries speak Arabic as well. So many people have a working knowledge of Arabic, in fact, that in 1974 it was made the sixth official language of the United Nations.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">6. ** **Arabic:**<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Number of speakers: 246 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">One of the six languages in the UN, Russian is spoken not only in the Mother Country, but also in Belarus, Kazakhstan, and the U.S.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">5. ** **Russian:**<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;"> Number of speakers: 277 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**4.** **Spanish:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Number of speakers: 392 million <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Aside from all of those kids who take it in high school, Spanish is spoken in just about every South American and Central American country, not to mention Spain, Cuba, and the U.S. There is a particular interest in Spanish in the U.S., as many English words are borrowed from the language, including: tornado, bonanza, patio, quesadilla, enchilada, and taco grande supreme.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">**3. Hindustani** Number of speakers: 497 million <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Hindustani is the primary language of India's crowded population, and it encompasses a huge number of dialects (of which the most commonly spoken is Hindi). While many predict that the population of India will soon surpass that of China, the prominence of English in India prevents Hindustani from surpassing the most popular language in the world. If you're interested in learning a little Hindi, there's a very easy way: rent an Indian movie. The film industry in India is the most prolific in the world, making thousands of action/romance/musicals every year.

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">While English doesn't have the most speakers, it is the official language of more countries than any other language. Its speakers hail from all around the world, including the U.S., Australia, England, Zimbabwe, the Caribbean, Hong Kong, South Africa, and Canada. We'd tell you more about English, but you probably feel pretty comfortable with the language already. Let's just move on to the most popular language in the world
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">2. ** **English:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Number of speakers: 508 million

<span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Surprisingly the most widely spoken language on the planet is based in the most populated country on the planet. Beating second-place English by a 2 to 1 ratio, but don't let that lull you into thinking that Mandarin is easy to learn. Speaking Mandarin can be really tough, because each word can be pronounced in four ways (or "tones"), and a beginner will invariably have trouble distinguishing one tone from another. But if over a billion people could do it, so could you.
 * <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">1. ** **Mandarin:** <span style="font-family: Verdana,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Number of speakers: 1 billion+

Source: http://www.conversation-piece.co.uk =<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Merciful = =<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Nov. 30, 2011 =

=<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 16pt;">Why is English a world-wide spoken language and not another one? =

=
The reason why English is so widely spoken is not because it is so easy, because it is not. I am leaning 5 languages right now: Korean, Japanese, Russian, Latin and Italian which I am no longer learning. I also speak Azeri, Turkish and English fluently. In my opinion, English is the third hardest, Russian being the hardest and Latin being second. Japanese is definitely the easiest of them all grammatically, but when it comes to the alphabet, Korean has only 24 letters. If number of letters really made the language easy, Hawaii language has 11.=====

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">I find Japanese easy, because unlike most languages it does not have the singular/plural form of nouns. Also, unlike many <span class="yshortcuts" style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">romance languages <span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">, it does not have the definite and the indefinite articles. Word order does not matter in Japanese, but to make communication easier, speakers follow a certain order, but no matter what the order is you will be understood. All these are also in Turkish and Azeri with exception of singular/plural form of nouns, but Turkish also has many suffixes the endings of the verbs depending on the person/s being spoken about.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">English is the most widely spoken, because of the British Empire. It had colonies on all of the six continents at once, one of them being the whole continent actually. American influence is also an important issue. Many of the modern Japanese words are actually English, such as konpyutaa, which obviously means computer.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Again, English is not an easy language to learn. My mother lived in US for 3 years and my father has lived for about 5 years in US, and they are still having a lot of problems with the grammar. It seems to many people easy, because it's their native language, but then Chinese is the easiest language in the world to 1/6 of the world population!!!

**<span style="color: windowtext; font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 12pt;">Other Answer: **
<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The British Empire is said to be an empire where sun never set. They had colonies all over the world. It was natural for these colonies to follow English. This is how the language spread.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">The reasons for the position of English are the imperialism and economical and political importance of English-speaking countries.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Phase 2 of the spread began with the American capitalism.

<span style="font-family: Arial,sans-serif; font-size: 10pt;">Linguistically, English is extremely unsuitable for international communication, and the actual wide use of English tends to polarize the world into Internet users and Internet illiterates.

Since "everyone" knows and uses English, people are almost forced to learn English and use it, and learn it better.

Source: http://answers.yahoo.com

Merciful

Nov. 30, 2011