Task 3. To check your answers read and translate the following text.

Date: 2015-10-07; view: 573.

English Inc.

English is to international communication what VHS is to video, Microsoft to software and Pentium to the microchip. It is, for better or worse, the ‘industry standard'. And those who don't speak at least a little risk losing business to the increasing number who do. A quarter of the planet currently speaks English. That's one and a half billion people, two-thirds of whom speak it as a foreign language.

In a recent survey, 69% of Europeans said they thought everyone should speak English. More than half of them already do. For most, it's not a question of choice but of necessity, as English has rapidly become the first language of business, science and popular culture. Three-quarters of the world's mail is in English. So are four out of five emails and most of what you find on the internet.

However, not everyone welcomes this linguistic monopoly. The French Ministry of Finance, for instance, recently surprised the international business community by banning English terms like email and internet. In fact, seven teams of language experts have been employed to come up with French alternatives.

The French has a point. Twenty languages disappear every year because nobody speaks them anymore. At that rate, by the end of the 21^st century almost a third of the world's six and a half thousand languages will be dead. Even in Germany, where Denglish is fashionable, and phrases like jointventure, powerpartner and fitness-training are common, the leader of Free Democrats has expressed concern about the flood of anglicisms descending on us from the media, advertising, product description and technology. Some go so far as to call it a form of violence.

Maybe it is, and big business certainly accelerates the process.

But what about people who learn foreign languages just for fun? An American Gregg Cox, has taken this simple pleasure to extremes. He holds the world record for speaking the most foreign languages – sixty-four at the last count! But for those of us who are less gifted linguistically, the power of the American dollar means there may soon be only one foreign language we need to learn, and that language will be English.

The number of native speakers of the world's top ten languages.

1. Chinese 726 m

2. English 427 m

3. Spanish 266 m

4. Hindi 182 m

5. Arabic 181 m

6. Portuguese 165 m

7. Bengali 162 m

8. Russian 158 m

9. Japanese 124 m

10. German 121 m

Task 4. Discuss the following questions:

1. Do you think the article overstates the importance of English?
2. What other languages might eventually take over from English as the international language of business?
3. Do you agree that big business accelerates the advance of the English language?