There are now about 376 million people who speak English as their first language

   There are now about 376 million people who speak English as their first language and about the same number who have learnt it in addition to their mother tongue. There are said to be one million people learning English now and about 80% of the information on the Internet is in English.

   Is this a good thing or a bad thing? Should we celebrate the fact that more and more of us can communicate, using a common language, across countries and cultures? Or should we worry about dangers of “non-culturalism”, a world in which we all speak the same language, eat the same food and listen to the same music?

   Does it matter if an increasing number of people speak the same language? Not necessarily, I have never agreed that if only we all understood each other better, there would be fewer wars. Ask the people of India, where many of them speak at least some English, and Pakistan, the same situation with India…

   If we all speak English, will we then all start eating McDonald’s burgers? Surely not. If English becomes more dominant(控制), will it kill other languages? I doubt it. When I travel in Africa or Asia, I am always surprised by how many people can speak not only their own language but often one or more other related languages, as well as English and perhaps more French or German as well.

   When we discussed this on Talking Point a couple of years ago, we received a wonderfully poetic e-mail from a listener in Ireland. “The English language is a beautiful language. Maybe it’s like a rose,” he said. “But who would ever want their garden just full of roses?”

   Well, I love roses and I think they make a beautiful addition to any garden. But the way I see it, just by planting a few roses, you don’t necessarily need to pull out everything else. If more and more people want to plant English roses, that’ll be fine by me.

41. By saying “Ask the people of India… and Pakistan…”(in Paragraph 3), the author is trying to show that______.

A. speaking the same language doesn’t necessarily bring peace

B. wars can destroy the relationship between two countries

C. English doesn’t kill other languages

D. English is widely used in the world

42. What does “rose” in the last paragraph stand for?

A. The world   B. A kind of flower   C. A language   D. The earth

43. This passage is mainly about _____.

A. why English has become a global language

B. how many people in the world speak English

C. how people in the world learn English as a foreign language

D. whether we need to worry about English being a world language

试题答案

ACD