How many people speak english nowadays

One out of five people can speak or at least understand English! English is the language of science, aviation , computers, diplomacy, and tourism. Knowing English increases your chances of getting a good job in a multinational company within your home country or of finding work abroad. English is the official language of 53 countries and is used as a lingua franca a mutually known language by people from all around the world. In the last century, the number of scientific papers written in English has started to outweigh the number of papers written in the native language of the researcher.

In the Netherlands, for example, the ratio is a surprising 40 to 1. For this reason, having a knowledge of English is incredibly important to those working in the scientific field. Because of the prominence of Hollywood in global media, an enormous amount of films, TV shows and popular songs are written in English.

If you speak English, you won't need to rely on translations and subtitles anymore to enjoy your favourite books , songs , films and TV shows. English is a particularly important language online with more than half the content on the internet written in English. English is considered to be one of the most important business languages due to being the de facto language of the United States and the official language of the UK, Canada, India and South Africa.

Since English is spoken in so many different countries there are thousands of schools and universities around the world that offer programmes in English. If you speak good academic English , there're lots of opportunities for you to find an appropriate school and course to suit your needs. Register for free Already a member?

More information. Supplementary notes. Other statistics on the topic. Business Services Market size of the global language services industry Business Services Number of students learning the English language by country Business Services Number of interpreters and translators in the U.

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Single Account. In other countries, it is only a minority who speak English, even if it is the 'official language' of that country.

Find out how much you know about the English-speaking world by answering the questions in this quiz. It reflects the pronunciation of the English spoken in the South East of England London and the surrounding counties. In Great Britain, there is a wide variety of regional accents. Nowadays, this wider range of accents is quite commonly heard across TV and radio channels and there isn't as much pressure for presenters to use standard pronunciation.

Which ones?