English for you and me Unit 2 We all own English. Reading and vocabulary Work in pairs. Talk about the photos on the right and on the next page. Say: where they are what languages you can see Read the passage and answer the questions. How many people in the world use English? How did English become an international language? When do you think Chinese will become an international language? Who owns English? Who owns English? English is spoken by about 400 million people, mostly in the US, the UK, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. In Ghana, India and Singapore, English is used as a working language, for example, between bosses and secretaries, and between doctors and patients, although there are other languages for everyday use. In China and many other countries, English is the most important foreign language that children learn at school, because when they grow up, it will be quite possible for them to meet people from other countries. They will need a common language to communicate with each other. English is now used by nearly a quarter of the world's population, and anywhere you go in the world, there is a good chance that you will meet someone who speaks English. The reason why English is spoken everywhere is that in the nineteenth century, English became the language of world trade. And in the twentieth century, the US spread English to the world through newspapers, television and films. It is now the common language for international travel, science, industry, and recently, information technology and the Internet. It is also important to know that English has borrowed many words from other languages, for example, “restaurant” from French, “zero” from Arabic, “piano” from Italian, and “tofu” from Chinese. Will the importance of English last? As China continues to grow, many people think that Chinese will become as common as English by the middle of the twenty-first century. More and more schools in Europe are teaching Chinese as a foreign language, together with some European languages. However, most people still think that English will be used most around the world, at least for the next twenty or thirty years. So who owns English? The answer is everyone who speaks it - the British, the Indians and the Chinese all help make it a rich language. Even though we speak different types of English, we are all part of an international club. We all own English.