Learning a foreign language isn't an easy tiling. Nowadays it's especially important to know foreign languages

Learning a foreign language isn't an easy tiling. Nowadays it's especially important to know foreign languages. Some people learn languages because they need them for their work, others travel abroad, for the third studying foreign languages is a hobby. Everyone, who knows foreign languages can speak to people from other countries, read foreign authors in the original, which makes your outlook wider. I study English. It's a Long and slow process that takes a lot of time and efforts. Over 300 million people speak it is as a mother tongue. The native speakers of English live in Great Britain, the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand. English is one of the official languages of the United Nations Organization and other political organizations. English language is a wonderful language. It's the language of the great literature. It's the language of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and others. Half of the world's scientific literature is in English. It's the language of computers technology. The great German poet Goette once said, "He, who knows no foreign language, doesn't know his own one". That's why in order to understand oneself and environment one has to learn foreign languages. I think, that to know English today is absolutely necessary for every educated man, for every good specialist.

Language is human speech, either spoken or written. Language is the most common system of communication. It allows people to talk to each other and to write their thoughts and ideas. The word «language» may be loosely used to mean any system of communication, such as traffic light or Indian smoke signals. But the origin of the world shows its basic use. It comes from the Latin word «lingua», meaning «tongue». And a language still is often called a tongue.

Wherever there is human society, there is language. Most forms of human activity depend on the cooperation of two or more persons. A common language enables human being to work together in an infinite variety of ways. Language has made possible the development of advances, technological civilization. Without language for communication, there would be little or no science, religion, commerce, art, literature, government and philosophy.

Scholars have determined that there are about 3000 languages spoken in the world today. This number does not include dialects (local forms of a language). Many languages are spoken only by small groups of a few hundred or a few thousands persons. There are more than a hundred languages with a million or more speakers. Of these languages, 19 have over 50 millions speakers each: Arabic, Bengali, Chinese, English, French, German, Hindi, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Portuguese, Russian and some others. People in many countries use some of these major languages, including English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, and Arabic.

Most people learn their own language without fully realizing what is taking place. Young children feel a need to communicate their particular needs and they begin listening to older persons and imitating them. They learn to connect individual objects, ideals and actions with words. In school, the language-learning process becomes conscious and deliberate.

There are many important reasons for learning a foreign language. Among them are the following:

• Learning a foreign language increases your range of communication. For example, if you speak only English, you can communicate with over 400 million other persons. If you also learn Spanish, you could speak to any of the 297 million Spanish-speaking people in Latin America , Spain , and other parts of the world.

• By learning another language, you get knowledge of the customs and ways of life of their nations. While learning French, you find out how French people live, behave, and think.

• A foreign language can help and add to your knowledge of your own language. For example, by studying Latin, you can improve your understanding of the thousands of English words that have their roots in Latin.

• Learning a foreign language helps you to add to your general stock of information. It can be a key that unlock new fields of knowledge. If you learn German you will be able to read books written in German on almost any subject you may wish to study.

• Knowledge of a foreign language can help you to gain a spirit of broad human tolerance. You will find that other people may think, speak, and act in ways different from yours. But these ways are not necessarily less desirable than yours.

Learning any language involves four different skills:

1. speaking;

2. understanding;

3. reading;

4. writing.

If you understand a foreigner, and can make yourself understood in speech and writing, you have mastered it.

No language is easy or difficult in itself. The ease or difficulty of any language depends on the age of the person learning it. Before the age of 10, all language is equally easy when learned by the natural speaking method (listening and imitating). After 10, our language habits are set in our own tongue. From then on, another language is easy in so far as it resembles our own language. It is difficult in so far as it differs from our own. Therefore, it is desirable to learn foreign languages as early as possible.

For hundreds of years, language students have used grammar books, exercise books, and dictionaries. Modern study aids, especially for spoken language – include: 1. Voice recordings with or without accompanying booklets; 2. Tape recorders, which permit students to listen, repeat, erase their own repetition, then try again: 3. Videotape, which let students watch their mouth movements; and 4. Computers which correct student’s translation of words and phrases on a video display screen. These language study aids provide not only instruction and practice, but also self-instruction, because they can be used without a teacher.

People have long been interested in having one language that could be spoken throughout the world. Such a language would help to promote understanding and better feeling among nations. A universal language also would increase cultural and economic ties among various countries.

Through the years, at least 600 universal languages have been proposed. Esperanto is the most successful universal tongue. About 10 millions people learned Esperanto since its creation in 1887.

Some persons suggest that an existing language, such as English, French, or Russian, be adopted as a universal language. The adoption of any language, artificial or natural, would greatly simplify communication among nations. The real problem, however, lies in the choice of such a language, because there are so many possibilities.

The ancient Greeks and Romans studied the nature and the origin of language. But their studies locked a scientific basis. During the Middle Ages, many people thought all languages came from Biblical Hebrew. The scientific study of language did not start until the late 1700’s. At first, scholars such as Friedrich Schlegel, Jacob Grimme, and Franz Bopp, all of Germany , studied languages by the comparative method. Their findings led to a classification of languages into families. Ferdinand de Saussure, a Swiss scholar, in the 1900’s studied languages by the general method. He established laws that apply to all languages.

Today the science of language is called linguistic or philosophy.

The English language is used by more than 450 million people in almost every part of the world.

During he 1500’s, fewer than 2 million people spoke English. Through the centuries, English spread throughout the world. Today more than 300 million people speak English as their native language. Most of them live in Australia, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, and the United States. Another 50 million, chiefly in Bangladesh, India, and Pakistan, speak English in addition to their own English. English is the

international language of science and technology. English is also used throughout the world in business and diplomacy.

Today it is quite evident that everyone should know at least one foreign language.

Knowing one or more foreign languages makes it possible to get acquainted with different ways of thinking, to understand a new civilization. Learning a foreign language stimulates mental abilities and gives you a chance to appreciate a new literature, a different culture and to broaden your horizons.

Besides, Knowing foreign languages has a practical value. It makes it easier to choose a profession and provides job promotion. It helps to improve the quality оf your work, because it reduces the time lost on obtaining the necessary information. At present many professions, such as a pilot, a doctor, an engineer, a cosmonaut and many others, require a working knowledge of at least one foreign language.

People all over the world speak almost 3,000 languages. Some languages are spoken by millions of people, others by only hundreds of them. The most wide-spread language in the world is Chinese. 350 million people speak English as their first language. About the same number use it as a second language. Russian is also one of the most prevalent, expressive and rich languages in the world. 240 million people speak Russian nowadays.

Among the great number of languages that exist on our planet today there are some which stand out. Scientists distinguish 13 great languages. These are the languages that are spoken by no less than 50 per cent of people on the Earth. They are Chinese, English, Russian, Spanish, Hindi and Urdu, Indonesian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Japanese, German, French, Italian.

A person who knows these languages can speak to and understand almost 2 thousand million people and doesn’t suffer from the language barrier. To state the significance of this or that language one must take into consideration not only its prevalence but the quantity of printed production. For instance, the largest number of books is published in Russian including technical literature. The greatest number of press production is published in English. As far as books are concerned, the largest number of them is translated from English, Russian, French and German accordingly.

Today there are a lot of people in Europe and Asia who know several languages. A person who knows several languages is called a polyglot. They are not few. The name of Henrich Schlimann, a famous German archaeologist who discovered Troy is known all over the world. It took him two years to learn the first two foreign languages. Later on it took him several weeks to master another foreign language. Among polyglots there are champions. Thus, Cardinal Mezzophanti who lived in the middle of the last century knew 100 languages. Professor Heestermann from Germany knew 132 languages. The more languages man knows, the easier is the way he masters a new one. As polyglots say it is difficult to begin. Rut when you start learning a third language «everything is going on swimmingly». It In within everyone’s power to know, read and speak и foreign language. But one should regard learning n foreign language as a very important and prions task. The knowledge of other languages is very useful, especially if you have to work abroad or If you must read foreign literature in the original. If you know the language of a foreign country, you can talk to it’s people and understand what they are speaking about without anybody’s help. The knowledge of foreign languages also helps young people of different countries to develop friendship.
As for me, I am learning English, because in the recent years it has become not only an international language, it is now a number one language in the world. Besides, English is becoming a lingua franca. It is used a great deaI by businessmen from different countries, which don’t have a common language, in order to do business. It is already a ligua franca at International conferences. Besides, every person who travels in Europe, Asia or Africa, even in South America gets around by using English. So English is becoming more and more the language for practical use. 

English has become the world’s most important language in politics, science, trade and cultural relations, aviation, international sport and pop music. It is nowadays second only to Chinese. It is the official language in 44 countries: the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland, the United States of America, Australia, Now Zealand and others. It is used as one of the official languages in Canada, the Irish Republic. It is also spoken as a second language by many people in India, Pakistan and numerous countries in Africa, to say nothing of people all over the world who know English as a foreign language. From the British Isles English spread all over the world. 75 per cent of the world’s mail is in English, 60 per cent of the world’s radio stations broadcast in English and more than a half of the world’s periodicals are printed in English.

It is known, different languages can come into fashion or go out of it. It is generally considered that the most fashionable language in the world nowadays is English. Spanish also becomes very popular. It is learnt nowadays more often than earlier. Oriental languages are also widespread today. Learning a foreign language has a practical value but the choice of a foreign language sometimes depends on a fashion, if under fashion we mean the demands of life and society. Thus, the knowledge of a foreign language today is a life necessity.