Julian Northbrook sends daily email tips for speaking better English – Click the button on the right, sign up, and you'll get a new email every day packed with ideas and tips for speaking better English.
https://youtu.be/WwoJhvsc1x8
Got this question from Señor Interdimensional:
Could you make a top of what languages you think are the best to learn, please? I’d like to know your opinion ♥
Honestly, my opinion is irrelevant.
The “most useful” languages to learn depend on you, your circumstances and tastes.
It’s completely subjective.
That Said:
https://youtu.be/qL8gn9sKoPo
Sure, English is probably the most useful language for non-native speakers to learn considering its status as a lingua franca.
But otherwise?
It’s purely subjective.
So my advice is to forget about what other people think and pick the best languages based on what (1) you personally will find useful and (2) more importantly, what you’ll enjoy and derive pleasure from.
Best
Julian
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What is the most spoken language in the world?
I mean, it’s English, right?
And indeed, many people believe this. In fact, most native English speakers believe it to the extent that they say things like, “I don’t know why everyone in the whole world doesn’t just speak English.”
And yeah… It’d make everything a lot easier.
Or would it?
You see, English isn’t actually the most commonly spoken language in the world.
Watch this video:
English has 340 million native speakers making it only the third most common language. Spanish comes in second with more than 400 million speakers as a native language.
Though arguably when talking about English we have to include non-native speakers of which there are another 500 million proficient speakers, and about another 172 million proficient non-native Spanish speakers (according to Instituto Cervantes)… so that gives us 572 million Spanish speakers…
… and 840 million English speakers.
But English still isn’t the most common language.
Ohhhhhh no.
Not by a long way.
You see, there are about a billion Mandarin speakers out there, and nearly 1.2 billion (about 16% of the world’s population) speak some form of Chinese as a first language.
That’d be Chinese.
Of course, simply being the most spoken language isn’t enough to make it a good choice as a lingua franca. It’s more difficult than that (not to mention that Chinese presents a serious learning barrier to most people with its tones).
That, however, is a topic for another day.
Ciao.
Julian
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Are “authentic” materials better than materials designed for English learners?
Well… yes and no.
This video explains everything:
First, realise that when designed properly materials ARE authentic English. That is, good materials are just as authentic as any other sample of English you might find — the only difference is that it has been designed for learning. Authentic texts and audio are great for learning vocabulary about very specific topics (type 2 language — see Master English FAST for details). And it’s certainly better than badly designed learning materials. Bad design and inauthentic data (i.e. the sample of language you put in your head) can damage your ability to recognise and use natural language in the long-term — I’ve done research that proves this.
I tested Japanese university students on chunks and found they were confused by what they’d learned in their middle-school textbooks… not good.
Simply put, learning the wrong thing can mess up your English.
So yes, in that sense…
Authentic materials are much better.
But… there is a big downside.
Learning everyday conversation—whether for day to day life, for business or whatever—from things like YouTube videos, podcasts and films is always going be extremely slow because they’re not optimised for language learning. Meaning you have to study and learn A LOT to get few phrases and expressions that you need.
There used to be a great series of TV adverts for ‘Fairy Washing-up Liquid’.
Their whole USP (unique selling proposition) was that you only needed a tiny bit of liquid… just a little goes a long, long way. They’d show someone using normal liquid and squeezing out half a bottle and not getting many bubbles Then they’d compare that with Fairy — just a couple of tiny drops would produce a mountain of bubbles and get all the dishes clean.
Perhaps they still have these adverts?
I don’t know.
But those bubbles are your English. And good learning materials are like Fairy Washing-up Liquid. Because they’re optimised, you can learn a LOT from just a tiny bit… whereas real language is like the standard liquid.
It’s not that it doesn’t work… it does. It will clean your dishes. But you need loads of the bloody stuff to get the job done well.
In conclusion, then, authentic materials are good. Especially for learning very topic specific stuff. But if you’re trying to improve your every day English conversation skills?
You’re much better off with materials designed to give you what you need in a condensed, optimised format.
Which is exactly what Extraordinary English Speakers is all about.
You get a new lesson to study every week… each one based on a read, but “optimised” story-based conversation. Meaning that in just one short story you can learn a whole ton of super-useful phrases, expressions and chunks of language — and because I analyse, dissect and explain the usage to you in minute detail you know EXACTLY how to use them yourself, in your own conversations.
Ultimately the choice is up to you, but if you want to master the fine art of English conversation quickly and effectively with no hassle or headaches, you’d do well to join us.
Best,
Julian
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How many languages are there?
An interesting question.
But like many (most) in linguistics, there isn’t a good answer.
The 11th edition of the Encyclopaedia Britannica published in 1911 guessed at about 1000 languages. The International Encyclopaedia of Linguistics published in 1992 lists 6604. That’s quite a difference. Most references say around 6000, but that’s not the most accurate we have…
Watch this video:
We’re always finding new languages.
A couple of years ago a group of linguists found a new language in India called ‘Koro’. Then earlier this month linguists working in the Malay Peninsula found another called Jedek.
There’s also another problem: How do you decide if two languages are different languages? Or if they’re dialects?
I mean, if you take, for example, English and Japanese, they’re pretty obviously separate languages. But what about Swedish, Norwegian and Danish? Technically speaking they’re all Continental Scandinavian. Speakers of these languages can speak in their native languages and understand each other. We consider them separate languages for historical (and mostly political) reasons. And yes, saying “Swedish, Norwegian and Danish are the same” is likely to piss a few people off. But then there are languages like Chinese that has dialects that are so different people don’t understand each other. But they’re NOT considered separate languages. They’re dialects. Then again, there are languages like the Goidelic Celtic languages that some people say are dialects, some people say are separate languages.
Simple put… language scientists can’t actually decide what a language is.
Ultimately, the number of languages comes down to who’s counting and their personal opinion.
Best,
Julian