Influence and Popularity
of
English
Though
being an amateur in English, I would like to introduce
newspaper articles about English, and my opinions.
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Japanese Edition:
Influence and Popularity
of English
English Influence: It
is lucky for us that English was chosen as the first foreign
language in Japan because English has become the common
language on the Internet and in the real world. The Nihon
Keizai Shinbun newspaper (Aug. 16, 1997) showed table 1 ( I
copied the numbers from the article on this table 1) and
said, "According to the U.K. English
Table
1 Languages and Those Speakers
| Language
|
Native
Speakers(million) |
| 1996 |
2050 |
| Chinese |
1) |
1113 |
1) |
1384 |
| English |
2) |
372 |
3) |
508 |
| Hindi |
3) |
316 |
2) |
556 |
| Spanish |
4) |
304 |
4) |
486 |
| Arabic |
5) |
201 |
5) |
482 |
| Portuguese |
6) |
165 |
6) |
248 |
| Russian |
7) |
155 |
8) |
132 |
| Bengali |
8) |
125 |
7) |
229 |
| Japanese |
9) |
123 |
9) |
108 |
| German |
10) |
102 |
10) |
91 |
| French |
11) |
70 |
12) |
76 |
| Malay |
13) |
47 |
11) |
80 |
Company, the number of
English speakers in 2050 will fall from No. 2 in 1996 to No.
3. But the English influence will keep No. 1 until 2050
because English speakers' economic power is big."
Popularity:
According to the annual school hours held by "Daigaku
Shorin International Languages Academy" for Japanese
companies, the popularity ranking of foreign languages
| |
|
|
Fig. 1
Popularity Ranking of Foreign Languages in Companies |
| |
|
|
(Nihon
Keizai Shinbun newspaper: Aug. 16,1997) |
is shown in Figure 1 ( I copied the graph on the article.) As
far as many conversation schools that teach only English are
concerned, we should think that No. 1 is actually English.
The article explains the reason why European languages'
ranking is continuously falling, that is, Japanese people
began to be able to live and work in Europe with one language
by the popularization of English.
The Second
Official Language: Recently newspapers have reported
many opinions about adopting English as the second official
language in Japan. Some people say that Japanese people would
easily communicate with foreigners in the world if we adopted
English. Others say the diversity of culture is necessary
like biological diversity is. We have to protect our culture
from foreign languages.
In terms of the
influence and popularity, English is a very important
language. But I think the argument about the second official
language in Japan is unrealistic. Most of the old Japanese
people including me were able to hear English only through
movies and recorded songs. But now young people can learn
English from native speakers in junior high and high schools.
Furthermore, if they want to learn it more, they can go to
private conversation schools and get many kinds of learning
materials: such as TV and radio programs, cassette tapes,
CDs, CD-ROMs, and the Internet. So people who need and want
to learn English have to learn English at their own pace. I
cannot agree to adopt English as the second official language
to pursue convenience.
Early-childhood
Education: I think the problem is how to create time
for the young people who want to study English. The Nihon
Keizai Shinbun newspaper (July 1, 2000) reported that a
meeting for the Ministry of Education submitted a report to
the Minister of Education, which recommended that they teach
English from the third grade of elementary school. I agree to
increase time to learn English conversation by decreasing too
much time to cram knowledge. As for the idea that there is a
critical period (about 10 years old) to learn languages, I
think education should start earlier than the third grade of
elementary school; from kindergarten or the first grade of
elementary school. And I think this early childhood education
should be separated from entrance exams.
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Uploaded
January 10, 2001
corrected September 2, 2002(by an English
teacher)
revised June 11, 2006