Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Real Reality]

Global spread of English threatens US, UK: study
The dominance of English as the world's top language -- until recently an advantage to both Britain and the United States -- is now beginning to undermine the competitiveness of both nations, according to a major research report.... "The competitive advantage of speaking English is ebbing away," said the author of the report, linguistic consultant David Graddol. "Once everyone speaks English, advantage can only be maintained by having something else -- other skills, such as speaking several languages.
By Chris Johnson, Yahoo!News ((February 21, 2006)
http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060221/us_nm/economy_english_dc

[igotthisguitar]

Drat!

You beat me to it

That's right folks. IN case you haven't "caught on" we're all doing our part here in helping ASIA ultimately kick the West's economic ass ...

Ah, globalism & the great dialectic

But many that are first shall be last; and the last shall be first.
St Matthew, 19. 30

[Hater Depot]

Well, I'm glad everyone in my family is studying a second language.

[igotthisguitar]

[Hater Depot]

Heh, yeah, I tried to convince my brother to make that his third language. He chose to get an accounting degree instead.

[mithridates]

Yep, that's exactly the way it goes. The number of people who have learned E as a foreign language is waaay higher than those who know it as a first language. 9% of the population now, and projected to go down to 5% later on. People who have learned one language have less trouble with another, and most of the English-speaking population doesn't likely care about the language as anything more than a tool.

On the internet the language populations that are growing slower than English are only Japanese, German, Korean and Italian. The ones growing faster include Chinese (2.5 times), Portuguese (almost 3 times), Russian (5 times) and others that didn't make the top ten (almost 4 times). Korean could have another spurt if North Korea ever gets their act together but they're not going to.

I predict that English will lose its status as a lingua franca in two decades. I also hope so because there's no reason why a country couldn't mangle the language and call it real English (English has no governing authority for the language). It happened a little bit with the US (Did you eat? compared to Have you eaten?) but it could be a lot worse with another country. I like my native tongue when it's used well.

[Hater Depot]

I did notice in another article that they calculated the number of "English users" in China by counting everyone who passed an exam on it at the end of junior high.

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ahahahahahahahahahahah

[Kuros]

Hegelian Master-Slave dialectic. He who was once the master ceases to work, so the slave, who does all the work, realizes himself through his labor and thus becomes the true master.

This is relevant to taking efforts to learn another language.

[igotthisguitar]

[EFLtrainer]

[xeno439]

With quantum computing and AI development there will soon be no need for a lingua franca. The Star Trek universal translator will make our jobs obsolete. Of course this will take place long after we have established ourselves in real jobs, or we are dead.