English is spoken by one out
of every six people in the world. It is the primary language of the United States,
Australia, the U.K., and the anglophone territories of Canada, making it second only to
Mandarin Chinese in number of speakers.
English belongs to the Germanic branch of the Indo-European family of languages.
The great number of words found in the English vocabulary is in large part due to
extensive borrowings from other languages, including Latin, French, Low German, and the
Scandinavian languages.
A dialect can be defined as a "variation of a language used by a group of speakers
set apart from others geographically or socially." Using this definition, it is easy
to identify English as a language with many dialects. Not only are there variations due to
geographic differences (American English, British English, Australian English), but there
are more subtle shadings that identify someone as being from a specific region (the
southern drawl, the midwestern twang). Not to mention the differences between urban and
suburban speech, educated diction and slang.… The rainbow of variations is part of
what makes English an endlessly interesting pursuit!
The grammatical concept of formal and informal address is foreign to native English
speakers. Deference to someone may be shown by addressing them as "sir" or
"ma'am", or using a title like "Dr." with their last name, but that is
the extent of English formal address. The same verb forms are used in either a formal or
informal setting.
English punctuation can be a little confusing for someone coming to it from another
language. "One dollar and seventy-five cents" is written as "$1.75";
"one thousand" is written as "1,000." Another feature of English that
may seem strange is that it does not assign grammatical gender: masculine, feminine,
common or neuter. There is, however, an inflected change between singular and plural
forms, although the difference is not always noticeable. Some nouns have identical
singular and plural forms, as is the case with "deer" and "fish." In
those instances, one must use the context to determine the number.
English has one of the most difficult spelling systems in the world. The written forms
of the language are not phonetic for two main reasons. First, the spelling of the English
language has not changed despite a marked evolution in pronunciation. Second, the spelling
of foreign loanwords is often left intact. As an example of the disparity between spelling
and pronunciation in English, look at the following list of words which end in
"-ough" but are pronounced very differently: "bough" (bou),
"cough" (kof), "through" (thru), "though" (tho) and
"enough" (enuf).
Many people study foreign languages in school but then stop using them and slowly
forget what they have learned. Now you can practice English enjoyably and independently
with Transparent Language's English software programs. It has never been easier to learn English and to begin to speak English than with the language resources and language software available from Transparent Language.
We wish you all the best with
your study of English!
