Ranking by the number of native speakers, English stands third on the list after Chinese and Spanish, but judging by the total number of users, including native speakers and those who have learned the tongue, English is the most widely spoken language in the world, followed by Chinese, Hindi, Spanish, French, Arabic, Bengali, Russian and Portuguese, in that sequence. Certainly, there are some ponderous arguments for this kind of linguistic balance on the Planet. These languages have achieved that high level of development and popularity either via natural multiplication of native speakers in the countries of their origin, or due to historical invasion of other lands by some of these peoples.
It so happened that the 20th century would determine the preconditions for turning the English language into the most significant cultural adhesive of our epoch. Its impact started with the overwhelming influence of the British Empire on the world’s development, then it was science and technology that used English more intensively than other languages; then followed the roaring birth of the Internet capabilities of humankind; after that, we have the factors of lifestyle, military power, economic capability and mass-culture of the United States that came about after two big wars of the bygone century. Consequently, all went according to the well-known model of the snowball effect, and finally, it simply became cool all over the world to master and speak English well.
English as the language of international communication gives us access to comfy travel and a variety of entertainment, and definitely turns us into astute communicators and smart consumers. The English language has overwhelmed the world, as a result of which modern humanity is no longer capable of operating without its services. Other languages are doing a good job too, on their own level, but the gap between English and the rest of them is hardly fillable. Suffice to say that the most popular electronic reference medium, called Wikipedia, offers almost seven million articles (its satellite reference sources not in this number), whereas the next most usable German version has not even half that quantity, saying nothing about other national efforts to catch up.
All this is being said not just to praise one of the world’s thousands of tongues, spoken around the globe, but with the purpose of explaining those innumerable attempts of groups and individuals, operating on the Internet, to teach English, among them, ‘teachers’ of any age, gender, profession, accent and nationality. The impression is that the entire world has gone crazy on the subject. We all have an issue with the English language – we just want to know it! Even I have doubled-down, over producing something of the sort in an attempt to make it easier for all of us to master the tongue that gives us a chance to enhance our standard of living. Believe it or not, English in today’s world has become a real money maker. Any employer would consider hiring, and later increasing the salary of the employee who displays some English efficiency. People are desperately browsing the Internet for all those sites and personal flashes to somehow improve their knowledge of English, but on the flip side of the process, it is also a fact that many of those who venture to call themselves English instructors come off so miserably unprofessional that they should not be open to the public for the elevated and difficult mission of teaching the language at all! But you can’t stop the avalanche – the notion of the freedom of speech happens to be viable even in this realm. The only thing that might be usefully practicable is the effort to tell future learners of English to beware and look for highly professional linguistic courses on the internet, courses that are 100% conducive to successfully mastering a foreign language. How to discern between good and bad? Very simple! Just ask around those who already know English well enough to drop us some tips. After all, we all know each other on social media, within which we usually communicate on any topic. So, what’s wrong with shopping around and asking for advice? This will save our time and beget a much higher chance of achieving the goal. And achieving a goal like learning English makes a lot of sense.
Op-Ed by Nugzar B. Ruhadze
