1: Why you should learn English

Hello everyone and welcome to the first episode of Intermediate English, with me, Benjamin. There are already lots of resources out there for people who are just beginning to learn English, but this podcast is aimed at people who already speak some English but would like to improve people at an intermediate level. Maybe you're studying English at school or at a language school. Maybe you need it for your work. Maybe you are retired and you've decided to spend some of the free time that you have learning another language. Maybe you've recently moved to an English-speaking country. Which episode? I'll be looking at a different topic based on the English language, the cultures of English speakers around the world, or perhaps just a topic which I find interesting and that I would like to share with you. So that's a little summary of what the podcast is about and I hope you enjoy the first episode. Today's episode is a topic which you have probably already thought about a little bit since you're listening to this podcast. Why you should learn English. In addressing this question, I hope to also answer a related question which is how you can learn it. So you probably already know that English is the language spoken in the UK, in the USA, Ireland, Australia, New Zealand, Canada. Fine. But all of these countries have other native languages. There are other languages in the UK. But before we talk about that, I should probably just tell you a little bit about the differences between the UK, Britain and England, since you've probably heard all of these place names used interchangeably, used in place of one another. The UK is a sovereign state. It's a country. It has within it various other countries. Within the UK you have Northern Ireland, Great Britain which is the largest part of the UK and you have a few smaller islands as well. Great Britain itself is made up of Scotland, England and Wales. Often when you're outside of the UK, people refer to the UK as England and the word England is used in place of the UK. It's quite common for example in France or the Netherlands to just say English when you actually mean British and to say England when you actually mean Britain or the UK. So it's a little bit complicated but that should give you some idea of what I'm talking about when I talk about England and the UK. It also happens to be where I'm from which is why most of my references will probably be to British culture and to the UK and perhaps to England. So back to language. Like I said, there are other languages in the UK. In the 2011 census which is a sort of big survey or questionnaire that is answered by pretty much the whole of the population. 8% of respondents, people who answered the survey, said that they could speak English but that it wasn't their main language. So what languages were they speaking? Well there are a number of other native languages in the UK. For example Welsh, Scots, Scottish, Gaelic, Cornish, Irish and a number of others. All of these languages have roots that go back thousands of years. Some of them influenced modern English. The language that is spoken today by most people in the UK and all of these languages were influenced by English as well. The reason why there are so many native languages in the UK is because Britain was invaded multiple times in its history, notably by the Romans, by the Anglo-Saxons, the Vikings and then the Normans. Each of them brought their own cultures and languages. And as a result, Britain became a melting pot of languages and cultures. When I say melting pot, I mean that they all merged together and there are elements of all of these different languages in modern English. If we think about some other English-speaking countries, you have the United States of America where there's no official language and the states choose their own official languages on an individual basis. I can't speak for other anglophone countries, other English-speaking countries, but the British are not naturally the best at learning foreign languages. We often tend to assume that other people, foreigners will speak English and when we go abroad, we sometimes have a tendency to just speak English and rely on the fact that most people in our opinion speak our language. But there are lots of other English-speaking countries. So, all of these countries which speak English as their main native language, the USA, the UK, Australia, New Zealand and a few others, these make up what we call the Anglo-Sphere. Beyond that, there are 55 further countries where English is an official language. And then there are another 16 countries where English is an official language, even though it is not a primary language, so not the first language. That means that there is another language or perhaps many other languages that are spoken more commonly and yet English is still the official language. English is spoken across the world on every continent. Why is that? Well, one of the answers to that question is about the British Empire. That's a pretty big topic which we're not going to go into in a lot of depth today. But the British Empire spread the English language as well as British customs and British culture across the world for almost 400 years. And even after the Empire became less important, and declined in the 20th century, Britain maintained connections with its former colonies. A colony is a part of the world that is ruled over by an empire. So, going back to the language, learning English allows you to communicate with a lot of people in these countries. Aside from the countries which speak English as a first language, English is a really common second language. There are two billion English speakers across the world. That's 26% of the world's population. More than a quarter. If you're travelling or engaging with people from other countries, often you will share English as a second language. This gives you the possibility to communicate, not only on a basic level, but also to share your opinions to your emotions, your experiences, your ideas, your stories. There's a pretty old-fashioned concept that Britain was not only the home of the English language, but also that it set the standard of how English should be spoken and written. But English is spoken today in so many countries, places that we call anglophone countries, that the English language has become descentred. It's very old fashioned to say that this accent, or that one, is the correct one and that the others are wrong. Not everyone would agree with my point of view. You could say it's perhaps a little bit controversial, but I don't believe that one form of English is necessarily more valid than another, more correct than another. Learning English also gives you the possibility to study in English, and many universities in Europe teach their postgraduate courses, or even undergraduate courses in English. Undergraduate means the first degree you do at university, and postgraduate is the word that's used for any degrees you take after that. The UK has a really famous higher education sector, that means universities and equivalent colleges. And the UK has some of the most famous universities in the world. You've certainly heard of Oxford and Cambridge, King's College London, Imperial College, Edinburgh, but there are many others that I haven't listed here. There are too many to name. They are excellent universities, and they're renowned across the world. The flip side of that, which means the other side of it, is that these universities can be expensive for international students, and they often cost a lot more than universities in other European countries. English is a really common language for higher education across the world. A lot of important textbooks and academic journals are written in English. Academic journals are the collections of essays that scholars write. And English is important in lots of different disciplines. There's a good chance, if you're listening to this, that you might not be interested in going to university, and you're more interested in other things. While English is a really important language, in lots of different areas of business, areas of commerce, it can be essential for speaking to clients, people that you work with, and customers, the people who buy your products and services. Across the world, English can help you get a good job, especially in fields like hospitality and catering. That means hotels, restaurants, bars, that sort of thing. There are lots of different places where you can study business English, maybe in your city, or one nearby, where you live. So these are all real world examples of why English can be a really useful language, but it can also help you in lots of other ways. For example, it can give you access to English literature, which is rich and varied, and lots of it is available around the world, either in translation or in the original English. If you look at a list of the ten highest selling fiction authors, nine of them are authors who originally wrote in English. So who do you think is on that list? Well, top of the list is William Shakespeare. He wrote 39 plays, which are still performed all across the world very frequently, and he lived and wrote at the end of the 16th century and the start of the 17th. That means the late 1500s and the early 1600s. But Shakespeare is not very accessible in the original English. In the UK, almost every child reads Shakespeare at some point, and it's really difficult for native speakers to understand. We need quite a lot of help, and really it's best if we see it on stage. Just reading it can be a difficult experience for a lot of people. If English isn't your first language, it's probably going to be quite a challenge to reach Shakespeare in the original English. So going back to that list of the highest selling authors, number two is Agatha Christie, who wrote mystery novels. She created two characters that are very well-known in the UK, Elf Q. Poivre, a Belgian detective, and Miss Marple, also a detective, but English. She also wrote the mouse trap, which is a play, and it is the longest running play in the world. It's been running in London's West End since 1952. By the way, for plays, we often talk about plays running and having a run. That just means that the play is on in the theatre. So it's been on in the West End since 1952. On that list, towards the top, you'll also see other angler-phone writers like Daniel Steele and Dan Brown. Those writers are still alive today, unlike Agatha Christie and William Shakespeare. If you want to read in English, I would recommend that you start with living authors, or perhaps non-fiction on a topic that interests you, maybe biography, or popular history books. Living short and at a level of English that is rewarding for you to read. The important thing when you're learning a language is to be exposed to it a lot, and not to try and translate every single word you come across. There's a place for that, but the most important thing is to hear the language as much as you can. Having a good knowledge of English also opens up so much media outside of literature. For example, Hollywood. The USA releases around 700 feature films each year, while the UK releases about 300. When I say feature film, that means a film with a long running time, about 80 to 120 minutes. I would recommend that if you're going to watch a film, you watch with subtitles in your first language, rather than watching a dubbed version of the film. Dubbed is when you have an audio version in your first language. If you're watching it with subtitles, that means you can hear the original language and watch something that you also enjoy at the same time. There are also many fantastic series in English. One of the most popular over the last decade is Game of Thrones. It's a very popular fantasy series, I'm sure you know about it. It's American, but it features many British actors, and no matter where they're from, they mostly speak with British accents when they're speaking English. I should say it's probably not for everyone, it's not very PG, which means parental guidance, it's the second lowest age rating that we have for films in the UK. So if I say it's not very PG, that means it's probably not for kids, and I would exercise some caution about whether you want to show that to your family. I would also recommend watching a series called Stranger Things. It's a sort of sci-fi series, I think it's fantastic, and it's set in Indiana, which is an American state, so it has US accents. It's not really for children, so again, there are quite a lot of violent scenes, so have a look at it first if you're going to watch it with your family. One of the aspects of culture for which the UK is very well known around the world is its music. The UK had a very vibrant music scene in the second half of the 20th century, and it continues to have a really big music industry today. Many artists around the world sing in English, and English has become a sort of global language for many different types of music for decades. So I think this is a really great way to learn English, because if there's an artist or a band that you like, listening to them is both educational and really enjoyable, and learning English this way means the time is going to fly by, it's going to go past very quickly. You can do things like writing out the lyrics, seeing if you can hear them correctly, looking up the lyrics online, and reading about the artists online as well. And mentioning the internet, English has sort of become the language of the internet. If you go on YouTube and read the comments, you'll often find that they're in English. As with so many aspects of global culture, English has become the global language. I was born in Britain, so I'm more familiar with British culture than with the cultures of other Anglophone countries, so that will be the focus of future episodes. But I think English is valuable because it gives you access to so many different cultures, so many countries and people. There are lots of great languages to learn, but I really recommend developing your English, because it's a language that you're certain to use at some point in your life. If you're listening to this podcast, you've probably already made some decisions about wanting to improve your English, but I hope that this has given you some extra reasons to work on it and to motivate you to improve your English even further. So thank you for listening and see you next time. [BLANK_AUDIO]