The Integration of English Throughout the World

The English language is today the most dominant language in business, education and influence. With this in mind, does it not make sense that people who comprehend English fully are wanted in business and service today? Even in little Norway, English is fully integrated into the education, daily life and business of the average person. Norwegian employers therefore have a need for employees that are able to speak and use English as a tool for communication. Granted the desire for greater English comprehension increases, it is only natural for there to be a change in what role English plays in our life. But is English really that useful?

English is all around you. Despite the fact that you might not live in a country where English is the primary language, you still see, hear and read your daily dose of English through various means. English is used in movies and other entertainment, social media and the Internet are in English, and you see English in the media and in school. Seeing as these few examples taken from a sea of uses for English make up a big part of some people’s life, it would be expected for there to be a decent overall understanding of English.

However, is this always the case? As it turns out, most people know how to speak English fairly well by the time they reach upper secondary school and they subsequently improve from there, but there are still few non-natives that have an absolute mastery of the language, or in technical terms, a comprehension level of C2. This means that while the average person can make themselves understood, it’s not always that they can describe, discuss or reflect upon a matter with more than a few simple phrases off the top of their head, which all go into your general comprehension, as...

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...should speak it well. However, not all of us are able to take it the extra mile. While a large majority can speak English decently, there are few that can take it up to native level. I think this is simply because of the fact that there is a lack of time, and not enough time is devoted to English to make everyone master the language.

To improve your English, you need to take an interest and be prepared to work with the language. However, it is probably good news to most people that a lot of the work that is necessary comes naturally, just by attempting to orient your life around English a lot more. You can make use of English services, use the Internet a lot more and speak English to your friends, both near and far. I think we should all take this extra step to get better at English, because after all; why would you ever settle for being good, when you can be great?