Motion for debate: English is esential in our society
Why is English so important?
I think English is so important nowadays because of the power of the United States. Politicians and businessmen speak English. It is generally believed that everything that is American is better than our own things. American power not only means the export of their technology but also the export and influence of their language, culture and customs.
Another reason why English is spoken worldwide is, from my point of view, that it is a relatively easy language compared to others like German, French, Chinese or Japanese, which are the languages of countries that are also important from an economic point of view.
English is not only spoken in Britain and the United States, but also in Ireland and Canada, and in faraway countries like India, Australia and South Africa. It is the second language in the Scandinavian countries.
If you like travelling, English is essential. Wherever you go you can make yourself understood if you speak English. I have a personal experience: when I was 12 I travelled with my mother and my godmother to Italy. I got lost and I asked the way speaking English to a group of Japanese tourists.
Comments»
English is the language of international business, the Internet, the language in which international scientific and technological reports are written, the leading diplomatic language (even the French admit that now!), the common language whenever a group of foreign doctors get together, etc., etc..
English is also the second language of choice of all significant countries, e.g., China, Russia and most Middle Eastern nations.
Without a knowledge of English it is almost impossible to develop a prominent career outside one’s country if one is from a non English speaking nation.
For good or bad, English is now the “lengua franca” of the world. It is not a bad choice, but I hope Spanish can be the most spoken language in the future.
Yes, of course English is essential in our society. And it is not only for people working in multinational firms or for Scientifics, but also for understanding instructions in your own country! People who are involved in science frequently need to read books in English, and that’s because it could pass a long time until these books are translated into Spanish, and the translations are not always accurate at all.
We are all agree: English is essential. Businessman, scientists, musicians…nowadays it’s necessary for your CV for every kind of job. You can survive in a lot of countries, understand some books, some webpages and even songs.
To sum up…it’s necessary, and our society is trying to insert english since we’re little students, but it is a hard work.
I totally agree with my mates.
There are lots of facts you can find which help to persuade you that learning English is a good idea, over a billion people learning it right now, and 80% of the information stored in the world´s computers appears in English as well.
More and more people expect you to speak English.
IT´s become the main way you get around and the main way you get things done, especially the main way you do business with a foreign country.
If you learn Proper English you have the access to a bright and huge variety of Literature,films or even song lyrics.
Dear Nuria, Rebeca, Javier Parra and Alberto,
We are talking about the so called domino effect, i.e., because the USA is so powerful its language becomes so powerful as well. Where do we have to look for an explanation to this situation? In the Second World War, in the country’s oil, in its investments in research and new technologies and in its army. For example, Computer Science was born in the USA, so it speaks Amercian English since the very beginning. How could we possibly change this situation? The EU is trying. On top of that, they are big in number and with only one language, something which is also very important.
Nowadays if you don’t have a little knowledge of English and love travelling you’re absolutely offside. Everything has been translated into English and the new generations are expected to have a good knowledge of it.
But we also have to bare in mind that our own language is achieving nowadays more and more prestige together with Japanese.
Maybe it’s unfair to turn the language of the States into a multicultural language, but things are like that and as creating an international language as they tried with “Esperanto” has resulted in a completely failure, I think English is not so bad for international understanding.
It is not fair at all to have English as international language… Why has been English chosen? And, why not Spanish? Spanish is spoken more or less in the same extension as English… I agree with Villallana that it was because of the economical question.
I agree with Rebeca and Villallana. english on power? why not spanish? I’d love spanish could be the language most spoken in the wold because it’s a beutiful language, with a great evolution and history and very rich. In some sense is our fault, we allow a lot of english words to replace our own words: spa, best-seller, shopping… and we are losing that cause we want. we have words to describe these things. Another thing are technology and science, i understand we didn’t have this terms before.
Yeah, Nuria, it’s true. And what’s more sad is that people who are all the time saying words in English feel that they are cooler than people who try to express themselves in Spanish. Don’t they realise that they are helping to develop a process in which Spanish would stop its evolution? If they continue behaving like this, they will forget their own language.
Of course it is. But you must agree with me on the fact that it is a social agreement. EEUU, know.
I don`t agree with Rebeca too much, I agree about the point that learning english gives more power to the english-speaker nations, but I think that english gives the key to learn more and more abouve all kind of things, speaking english we can find out al sort of things because countries that speak this lenguage can offer a lot of posibilities, e.g.India, USA, United Kingdom, Australia,New Zeland…
it`s Ok that people could get through these things.
It is also true that other lenguages can offer other things but, with english I thing we have more variety, and posibilities in our jobs.
I don´t know why was eglish chosen as a ” worldwide” language instead of spanish or any other language, what I know is that if you can speak english you can communicate with hardly everybody all over the world.I have a experience of it when I was in my school trip around Italy and France,although I can´t speak Italian and hardly anything of french,I have no problem speaking in english,so that´s why I think that everyboy should learn english
First of all, I think English is the international language at the moment beacuse it just is. Forty years ago, French was a bit more international than English, but it has become the most important language because it is much easier and everybody can pronunciate it. I also think that Spanish doesn´t have to replace English in any way because the second one is a very beautiful language and the first one is much more difficult. In addition, I think in less than twenty years Japanese will replace English.
You only need to see the business of English books for students to understand the importance of English in our society. I think that the publication of English books worldwide is the most important industry of England.
The reason because English is so important are several. One important point to consider is I have studied several languages and from my point of view English is the easiest language.
Another important things is what it happened to me and more people in the university. I have had some subjects in which the syllabus we were given was written only in English. And many times the teachers told us they wouldn´t waste time translating into Spanish. At the end of the course every my mates ended up bored to tears of listening this sentence.
So I would recomend everybody to study English, because they will need it some day.
There are only three,four or even five essencial things in live but not english. I consider that learning other language is important not only for your work but for travelling or your own satisfation, the majority of people only speak their mother tongue, and they are reasonably happy.
Alright, the English language has now achieved wordwide significance. As Nurias says, is the language of international business, the Internet, the language in which international scientific and technological reports are witten,,, so that we have to agree it is important in that sense.
In addition, if you are fond of travelling abroad, you’ll likely run into more than one situation that will require you at least basic English.
In my opinion it ’s one of the effects of globalisation although it’s natural that we have a common language for communicating between us and we can’t forget that English is the language with most speakers in the word.
Nowadays English is essential in nearly all of the fields( Economy , Medicine, Laws). Everybody uses it as a way of comunication.
Julio, I don´t think anybody learns English to feel reaonably happy. We are not talking about happiness, that´s not the topic. You can have a perfect life, a wife and children and die after have had a perfect life without speaking English. I have many friends who don´t speak English, or for this reason they don´t feel less happy or something like that.
We like or not, nowadays English is essential for work, travel, an even to understand the instruction manual of a gadget that you buy in Spain but it don´t include a Spanish version of the manual!
As Sandra said some decades ago French was more important so it is posible that in 50 years we need to learn an other language, may be Chinese!