EnglishClub ESL Forums

usuing english as their international language is not choosen by force,,but only has been usuing because for their practical need of use for convenient communication.or for their efficiency of competiveness,,,by preoccupied culture...which is aleady splead global-wide. thereby...in our generation has no choice to choose their international language... on top of that..actually apperantly it is impossible to choose it individually cause..language is not only for comunication but also for sharing and acquanting in it's own culture.. eventhough we wanna get language as a new one which seems to be fair but it shouldn't be happened or reversed by one night.

[quote="TP"]
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.

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.

it's already number one most speaking language based on their population. There's a stereotype that for every four people in a group, there will be one Chinese person.

Maeve, I think that Chinese might be more popular in future. But in my opinion, English is much more easier to learn than Chinese.

language is only a tool enven if it is so important for us. it is govern by the nature not the force.i suggest all of us donot mind which language is be used in the internation. it is most important that we can communicate each other.

armmy wrote:language is only a tool enven if it is so important for us. it is govern by the nature not the force.i suggest all of us donot mind which language is be used in the internation. it is most important that we can communicate each other.

Language is often used in communicate in the world. If we talk about something, we must speak the same language, right? So, I think we must have the same language whether you have any purpose to learn English or Chinese or other language. :)

kathy wrote:I think English is widely spoken nowadays that's for sure but it doesn't have to be the only tool for people to communicate. If you have a penpal from another country which might inspire you to talk to your friend in his or her language. That is more funny.
I'm a native Chinese and Chinese is the language becoming more and more important. Chinese has the largest spokers in fact!
If you like I can help you with that!
A sincere person,
Kathy

I think english is a only tool for people to communication. I think english is a international language, and english is your passport, you can see the modren technology the internet, they have english access, and thats why we are here for learning english.
I am from Pakistan in my country in every scools they laern our native language but english too. And english is one of the our compulsary subject. In my opinion if you dont know english in this computarised world that means you are nothing.When i cant speak or understand english i feel shy.
But remember dont forget your native language its you ID.

so answer me: Why is English the universal language?????

simplyblessedwithlove wrote:

maryemily wrote:but in fact, English is considered the mundial language. It is demanded, of coursefor bussiness reasons, but It has its historical appearence. people did not choose English as the most demanded language for financial relations because people thought it was beautiful or easy or something else. It had a stronger reason.......When France was the most powerful country, people needed to speak French more than any other language....now it is English..... It has its origin in the way EUA command the world between lines.....

Not totally true. If you compare it to French then English doesn't sound as nice as French. Why would the French choose to something less nice over something is nice? In fact, most French people don't like to speak English based on a tight relationship that they have with England in history. They speak English just for business and other international relations. If a country has people speak French, they would speak French instead of English to those people. My cousins who speak French and English speak English to us since they don't know Vietnamese and we don't know French. English is the only language that we have in common. They speak French to grownups who can speak French in my family. And they also change back to French if they know the person they're speaking with can speak French.
By the way, when was France the most powerful country? They've lost every single damn war. When were they powerful? Show me the timeline when they were because I can't find it in the history timeline.

so answer me: Why is English the universal language???? demanded even to pass in school year in countries like Brazil?

maryemily wrote:When France was the most powerful country, people needed to speak French more than any other language....

sorry, it was a stupidity. but, for example, I will try to explain what happens here in Brazil. Here, students learn English in school, must have know this language to find jobs, etc, here, there are English even in banks, shoppings, but not for tourists, for us. Students usually ask why do they have to know English, of course, teachers tend to answer that the reasons come from international bussiness. But it makes us realize that as EUA is a great economic power, the use of English as the bussiness language is a consequence from it, of course, a consequence from the great technological advance also. But, we, Brazilians are passive related to this language, a person said that language is related to identity, yeah, here Brazilians speak Portuguese with English, people name things with English words.....But, English as the mundial language is not a choice, it is a consequence from the economic development that ocurred in Eua x a low one in many other countries. For example, here, we also make bussiness with our neighbour countries that have Spanish as language. But Spanish is not tha mundial language because the world makes more bussiness with Eua thanwith Spanish language countries. So, it is a consequence. So, not a choice at all......... What do you think?

there are the possibility that in some years Spanish come to be the mundial language, because the international relation that exists aong countries that use that language......It proves that the fact tha alanuage is demanded as the mundial one is a consequence from comercial interests, not a choice at all....not a metalinguistic choice.

maryemily wrote:so answer me: Why is English the universal language?????

I think you're in denial because the question is already answered. For some reason, you don't seem to accept the fact it's already answered.

maryemily wrote:

maryemily wrote:When France was the most powerful country, people needed to speak French more than any other language....

sorry, it was a stupidity. but, for example, I will try to explain what happens here in Brazil. Here, students learn English in school, must have know this language to find jobs, etc, here, there are English even in banks, shoppings, but not for tourists, for us. Students usually ask why do they have to know English, of course, teachers tend to answer that the reasons come from international bussiness. But it makes us realize that as EUA is a great economic power, the use of English as the bussiness language is a consequence from it, of course, a consequence from the great technological advance also. But, we, Brazilians are passive related to this language, a person said that language is related to identity, yeah, here Brazilians speak Portuguese with English, people name things with English words.....But, English as the mundial language is not a choice, it is a consequence from the economic development that ocurred in Eua x a low one in many other countries. For example, here, we also make bussiness with our neighbour countries that have Spanish as language. But Spanish is not tha mundial language because the world makes more bussiness with Eua thanwith Spanish language countries. So, it is a consequence. So, not a choice at all......... What do you think?

You don't have a choice anymore based on economy-wide because thing is already set. Your country is way behind in economy. That's why you've losen your choice to choose. You speak Portuguese because you were colonized by Portugal. Now your country starts to associate with English because you need that for business. How do you know people in business field who know how to speak Spanish don't speak it with Spanish people? You can't be sure about that, right?
Before that, English, French and Spanish were used widely but now more people know how to speak English so base on international wide, bigger field, things are set and you hardly choose if you're behind others. But if in a smaller field, like I said, personal things, you can choose.

[/quote]You don't have a choice anymore based on economy-wide because thing is already set. Your country is way behind in economy. That's why you've losen your choice to choose. You speak Portuguese because you were colonized by Portugal. Now your country starts to associate with English because you need that for business. How do you know people in business field who know how to speak Spanish don't speak it with Spanish people? You can't be sure about that, right?
Before that, English, French and Spanish were used widely but now more people know how to speak English so base on international wide, bigger field, things are set and you hardly choose if you're behind others. But if in a smaller field, like I said, personal things, you can choose.[/quote]


yeah....that is right....now, I understand what you mean.... :D

I guess the best solution is to learn all the languges in the world .. it's amazing . isn't it ?
yes i like to know how diffrent countires talk and comunicate with each other
and i like too much to know more cultures .. and the language reflect the country's cultutre


what do you think?

There is a nice analogy with the international use of the English language. Nobody would claim that English is particularly well suited to be the world's lingua franca by virtue of its intrinsic beauty, simplicity, or utility. Yet it is certainly the language in which citizens of different countries most often converse and do business, and increasingly so. One chooses to use a lingua franca, as one chooses a currency, in the belief that it is the one others are most likely to use, and moreover one can earn more money

History gives the best explanation possible for EL popularity: an aggressor never feels like learning the language of a defeated country. Aggression can be financial, economic, military, cultural... Language popularity only indicates who is the aggressor. The same was with Latin, French, German, Russian and other languages. A local population, a people being under aggression, is either friend or foe: either a puppet in the hands of the aggressor or, as it is interpreted nowadays, a 'terrorist', 'separatist, 'anti-globalist' etc. Both friend and foe need the language of the aggressor for their (so different) purposes. Language popularity is practical. Are you ready to sell yourself (soul and body) and betray your own people and culture? Or are you going to use your knowledge for the benefit of your culture, your people? Its a moment of truth.

German is not so difficult.. well maybe writing is difficult. In chinese is surely writing the hardest part but... in reality I don't know anything about Chinese.

I think the English is a very important linguage, but it's not there more. In the globalization world, don't have a necessary universal linguage. Always haven a many forms to comunicate.
It's important that any people good learn first your linguage for after learn others linguages. That it's the point.

:) 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!