*Foreign language - languages spoken abroad, a language you can choose
to study at school.
The British Council says "English is the main language of books,
newspapers, airports and air-traffic control, international business and
academic conferences, science, technology, diplomacy, sport,
international competitions, pop music and advertising.
Over two-thirds of the world's scientists read in English. Three
quarters of the world's mail is written in English. Eighty per cent of
the world's electronically stored information is in English. Of the
estimated forty million users of the Internet, some eighty per cent
communicate in English, but this is expected to decrease to forty per
cent as speakers of other languages get online."
"English is an easy language. There are no accents, the tenses of
verbs are simplified and the adjectives are invariable", says Gustavo O.
after three years studying it at school. Anaelle S. agrees with him but
she finds the many different ways words are pronounced and the spelling
difficult to cope with. Nicolas de F. finds it interesting and cool
because through it he can understand many films and songs. "You need
English to travel around the world - it's a language almost everybody
understands - so it's easier to communicate with people from different
cultures", says Daniela K. . According to Aldebaran D., "you must speak
English if you want a good job especially if you want to work with
computers".
