1 Do you know why English has become the world language? Mark the following statements as true or false.

1. English was already an important world language four hundred years ago.	
2. In Shakespeare’s time only a few million people spoke English.	
3. It is only because of the United States that English has become a world language.	
4. English is the second only to Chinese in the number of people who speak it.	
5. One person in seven of the world’s entire population speaks English.	
6. Knowledge of English is a decisive prerequisite for the successful entry into many professions.	
7. Most people arrive at the fluency of English only as a result of hard work.	

 2 Read the fragment of the lecture on the role of English today. Find out whether your answers were true.

Text 3. Why English has become a world language

Let’s try to answer the question how English has become a world language and why learning foreign languages is so important.

Nowadays, when English is one of the major languages of the world, it requires an effort of imagination to realize that this is a relatively recent thing – that in Shakespeare’s time, for example, only a few million people spoke English, and the language was not thought to be very important by the other nations of Europe, and was unknown to the rest of the world. English has become a world language because of its establishment as a mother tongue outside England, in all the continents of the world. This exporting of English began in the seventeenth century, with the first settlements in North America. Above all, it is the great growth of population in the United States, assisted by massive immigration in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries that has given the English language its present standing in the world. Today English has become the world’s most important language in politics, science, trade and cultural relations. In a number of speakers (400 million) it is second only to Chinese.

The English language is studied and used as a foreign language all over the world. People who speak English fall into one of three groups: those who have learned it as a native language; those who have learned it as a second language in a society that is mainly bilingual; and those who are forced to use it for a practical purpose – administrative, professional or educational. One person in seven of the world’s entire population belongs to one of these three groups. Incredibly enough, 75% of the world’s mail and 60% of the world’s telephone calls are in English. It is the language of business, computer technology, public communication, science and diplomacy.

All these facts and figures prove the importance of knowing English for future research and professional career. Besides, learning languages doesn’t only broadens the mind, it enriches all of us culturally. We learn to appreciate ways of life which may be different from our own. In other words learning languages equips students with the communicative and intercultural competences which are today the essential and often decisive prerequisites for the successful entry into many professions.

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