Friday, December 10, 2004
Half of the world population will speak English by 2015. But the world is to become more multi-lingual.
Excerpt from tes.co.uk:
English learning is set to rocket with half the world' population speaking the language by 2015, new research revealed today.
Two billion people will start learning English within the next 10 years and three billion will speak it, a study for the British Council estimated.
But by 2050 the boom will be over and the English language teaching industry will have become a victim of its own success, David Graddol' report The Future of English said.
[...]
The fact that more people can speak English is also not necessarily good news for native speakers who cannot speak other languages as well.
It is only one of the languages people are learning and the world, far from being dominated by English, is to become more multi-lingual.
Chinese, Arabic and Spanish are all popular and likely to be key languages in the future, Mr Graddol said.
German is also apparently being used more as a foreign language, particularly in parts of Asia.
[...]
[Read the whole article here]
