7 form: Topic "English -- a Language of the World" by Mary Timoshenko

ENGLISH -- A  LANGUAGE OF  THE  WORLD

            I would like to start by saying that nowadays more than 740 people all over the world speak English and use it. Of all the 2700 world languages, English is one of the richest: it has a vocabulary of about 500 000 words. German, for example, has 185 000 and French -- fewer than 100 000. There are a lot of borrowings from English in other languages, for instance, ‘bank’, ‘supermarket’, ‘department’, ‘business’, ‘office’, ‘class’, ‘career’.

            At the end of the 20^th century English is more widely spoken and written than any other language has ever been. It has become the language of the planet, the first truly global language. More than half of the world’s scientific periodicals and eighty per cent of the information in the world’s computers are also in English. It is the language of sports, the official language of the Olympics. English is the main language of business.           Correspondingly, people who speak English have better job opportunities. 

            I study English because my future job can be connected with the use of the English language. If I go to another country, I shall speak English fluently because I study it well at school. I have been learning the language for seven years and I enjoy it because I like speaking English, I like English songs, my friends and I listen to them quite often. I would like to use computer programs in English, travel to foreign countries, Britain, the USA; I would also like to read English and American books in the original. Besides, I’d like to watch English films, cartoons, and educational programmes. Last summer I was in an international summer camp and it was great to be able to talk to others and understand them well. I am going there next summer, too.

            In the future I would like to have a pen friend and write letters to him/her. I am also going to attend English courses to master the language. I believe it will be useful for me to communicate with my friends in an English-speaking club and communicate with British teenagers online.

            I want to master the language, keep it up and brush it up regularly. In order to do this we usually have grammar and vocabulary drills, read texts and poems, write topics, do tests and dictations, act out dialogues, translate texts into Russian, express our opinion and discuss various ideas, learn poems and topics by heart. We learn new words in context and in isolation, listen to native speakers of English at our listening classes, and discuss what we hear; listen to English dialogues and stories at home. I need to practice my English more to make it more correct and fluent.

            All in all, I am happy with the way I am taught English at school because we get a lot of useful and important information at our English classes. We have six English lessons a week and a lot of practice. We work hard in class and do a lot of homework at home. Besides, I read books in English and watch English films. I am proud when I realize that I can get the idea of what I am watching or listening to. 

            However, learning English isn’t easy. I have some difficulties while learning it. For example, phrasal verbs are hard to remember because the particle or preposition changes the meaning of the verb completely (get on, get off, get in have absolutely different meanings). To learn idioms is a complicated task, taking into consideration that we need to use up-to date ones, not old-fashioned. 

            Our world is constantly changing, and the English language is and has been changing, too. We need to keep up to date learning English and I’m sure we’ll be able to overcome all the difficulties in the process of learning.