How to acquire English skills even if you don’t want to. 　Chapter 6. English in the world　6.1 English Learning Population, English Speaking Population

　Everyone must admit that English is the language that has effectively dominated the world. Let me now review the current status and position of English in the world and in Japan.

　On September 26, 2010, the Singapore Huaji newspaper reported that the number of English learners in China has exceeded 300 million.

　Of the approximately 2 billion English learners in the world, more than 300 million are Chinese. Young people working part-time are so enthusiastic that they are willing to give up a year's salary to learn English. Many parents are also willing to shell out large sums of money to have their children learn English. In Shanghai, wealthy people routinely hire Filipino maids to help their children learn English, as can be seen in the upscale neighborhoods where they live.

　Zheng, who lives in Guangzhou, earns a salary of 1,800 yuan (about 23,000 Japanese yen). She has been working hard for over a year to save money so she can enroll in an English language school, where the annual tuition is 15,000 to 30,000 yuan (about 190,000 to 380,000 yen). Ms. Zheng says her motivation is that if she doesn’t improve herself, she won't be able to keep her job. However, she also needs help from her parents to pay tuition fees, and she finds it difficult to survive in a big city.

　Liu, a sales manager at a major English language school in the same city of Guangzhou, said, "Most of the 20- to 30-year-olds who study English are regular office workers or freelancers, and they don't hesitate to spend more than a year's salary on tuition.” According to McKinsey & Company's 2009 estimates, China's foreign language learning market is worth $2.1 billion, with more than 300 million Chinese learning English.

　English is the native language of 4.68% of the world's population, considerably less than the number one language, Chinese (13.22%). However, English is for the world's largest official language population. In the EU, English is the most commonly studied foreign language in schools. The number of people using English as a second language (ESL = English as a second language) is increasing due to the influence of the United Kingdom and the United States, the establishment of English as a lingua franca, and the fact that English has become a commercial language and the primary language for communicating science and technology (e.g., specifications for high-demand programming languages and markup languages are written in English). Many people learn and use English as a foreign language (EFL = English as a foreign language). As a result, "New Englishes" that transcend the framework of English, such as British and American dialects, are emerging in many countries around the world.

  The world map (*) shows the English-speaking regions of the world. The dark blue areas are those where English is the official or de facto language. Light blue are regions where English is an official but not the primary language.

　In my experience, even in countries other than those in dark blue and light blue, there are few problems in normal communication with school-educated people as long as they can speak English.

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