Why it’s necessary to learn English

I’m sure that it is very necessary and important to learn English now, because English is the language of the planet. 760 million people all over the world use it. But at first I would like to say some words about the history of this language.

The rise of English is a story of a wonderful success. When Julies Caesar landed in Britain in the 5th century, English was already spoken by the people, who inhabited Great Britain, but they were not many and their English was not the language we know today. Nearly a thousand years later at the end of the 16th century when William Shakespeare created his works, English was the native language of about 6 million Englishmen. At that time English wasn’t used anywhere else except Great Britain, but now English is the main language of business, sports, science, trade, progressive technology, commerce, it is the world’s computer language, three quarters of the world’s mail is in English. It’s the universal language of international aviation, shipping and the major language of diplomacy.

Hundreds of books, magazines and newspapers are printed in English and read all over the world. Half of the world’s scientific literature is written in English.

Over 30 million people speak English as a mother tongue. The native speakers of English live in Great Britain, Australia, New Zealand and the USA. English is one of the official languages in the Irish Republic, Canada and the South African Republic. As a second language it is used in the former British and US colonies. Besides, millions of people study and use English as foreign language.

Every year thousands of people from Belarus go to different countries as tourists or to work and they can’t go without knowing the language of the country they are going to, but they can speak English, because it is an international language. A modern engineer or even a worker cannot work with an imported instruments or a machine if he is not able to read the instruction how to use it. A scientist, a historian, a diplomat are, as a rule, polyglots, because they need foreign languages for their work. If you want to be a stewardess or a pilot you must learn English, the language of international communication.

In our country English is very popular: it’s studied at schools (sometimes even at nursery schools), colleges and universities. Learning English is not an easy thing as it takes a lot of time and patience. Sometimes it’s boring to study grammar or to learn new words, but it’s well known that reading books in the original, listening to the BBC news, communicating with the English speaking people will help a lot.

As for me, I try to read books, poems of English writers in the original, I learn poems by heart and 10 words daily, I try to translate English songs. I also want to use English in my future job, because I want to become an interpreter.

So I can say that English is absolutely necessary to know for every educated person, for every good specialist today.