Interesting Facts about the English Language (and why you might want to learn it!

[Englishlci1]

Learning another language has a vast range of benefits - it can open more career doors, take you abroad and help you connect with people across the globe and across cultural lines, too. If you choose to study English, there are even more benefits! If you pick English as a second language, you've decided to chose one of the most widely spoken and written language in the world! Here are some more interesting facts about the language and more reasons why you might want to master it.

- One out of every six people in the world speaks English. 750 million of these do not originate from an English-speaking country!
- British colonialism initiated the spread of the English language across the world.
- In over 100 countries, including China, Russia, Germany and Egypt, English is the main foreign language taught in schools.
- The English language bears similarities to both French and German as its first forms were originally brought to Britain by German settlers and then subsequently influenced by the Normans who spoke a language closely related to French.
- Latin and Greek words were added to the English language after the birth and spread of Christianity.
- Some words from 'American-English' are actually older forms of English words that are no longer used by other English speakers, e.g, trash for rubbish or fall as a synonym for autumn.
- English is the main language used on the Internet. It is also the language that 75% of the world's mail and cables are composed with.
- Five of the world's largest broadcasting companies (CBS, NBC, ABC, BBC and CBC) transmit in English.
- Half of the world's technical and scientific periodicals are published in English.
- The Oxford English Dictionary features over 500,000 words. In addition, there are believed to be up to 500,000 technical and scientific terms that do not feature in it.
- 80% of all the information stored on computers throughout the world is stored in the English medium.
- American English (and subsequently British English) has also been influenced by Spanish. This can be seen through words such as canyon, ranch, stampede and vigilante.

If you are looking for an established and well-respected englishlci.com in the United States, LCI - Language Consultants International - has a range of classes designed to help you master the English language according to your needs.

If you liked this article, tell all your friends about it. They’ll thank you for it. If you have a blog or website, you can link to it or even post it to your own site (don’t forget to mention englishlci.com as the original source). Have a great day!

Don't forget to visit our ESL blog.

Rachel Clarkson
www.englishlci.com

[Cerberus™]

Why are you posting an advertisement in the grammar and idiom section?

[Torsten]

I guess Rachel chose to pitch her site in this forum section because she couldn't find a specific advertisement section. I'll move her post to another part of the forum and later we might start a classified ads section singling out all the ads that have been posted so far.

What do you think? By the way Rachel, what exactly do you mean by 'accent reduction program'? I'm well aware of that this term exist although I think it's rather confusing and misleading. How can you 'reduce an accent'? You can only change, modify, adjust, emulate, develop or improve it. To me, the term 'reduce your accent' sounds very negative. Your accent is part of you. Why should you 'reduce yourself'?

Thanks,
Torsten
PS: Let's see if Rachel answers my question. If not, it will tell a lot about what kind of company englishlci really is...

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