Nobody knows how many different languages there are in the world. The most widely used language is English. It's used by business people, airline pilots all over the world. It's also the first language of sports and science. So it's very important for us to learn English.

English is most widely spoken in the world, while Chinese has the largest number of speakers. There are not only over one billion people living in China, but also many Chinese people living outside of China. You can find large or small groups of Chinese people living in almost every country in the world.

There are some other important languages in the world, too. Chinese is of course very important, especially in Asia. Arbic is widely spoken in many parts of Asia and Africa. Russian is spoken both in Europe and Asia. French is widely understand, not only in Europe, but also in parts of Canada, Africa and Asia, Spanish has a growing number of speakers all over the world, especially in Central and South Africa.

What language do people speak in the United Nations? There are so many different languages in the world, but they decide to use only six of them. There are Arabic, Chinese, English, French, Russian, and Spanish. Everything spoken or written in one language is translated into the other five.

English words don't stay the same. People need new words for new ideas and new inventions. Different words come into use, or old words are used in a new way.

English can be changed by borrowing words from other languages. The word "tomato" was borrowed from Mexico and "tea"came from China and so on. Now new space and science words are being borrowed from other countries, too. New words are formed by adding two words together. "Countryside" and "earthquake" are made up of two parts. Sometimes new words are shorter forms of old words. The word "photo" was made from "photograph" by cutting off the end of the longer word. "Plane" was made by cutting off the front part of "airplane". The names of people and products can become new words, too. Our "sandwich" was named after a man called Sandwich and "sello tape"(透明胶带) was a name given by the company that first made the product.

More than 3,000 languages are spoken on the earth today. Many of these languages are spoken 1 small groups of people. On the 2 hand, over 200 languages are spoken by one million or more people. Chinese is the language spoken by the 3 number of people in the world. But English is most 4 spoken in the world.

English is spoken by more than 400 million people 5 their first language. It is 6 by most people in the U.S.A., Great Britain, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. And it is 7 used very widely in many other countries of the world.

Look at the back of your watch. You may see the English words "Made 8 China, or Japan, even Germany." English is the first language in 9 of these countries. Why are English words 10 on it? That is because in the modern world English is widely used for business between different countries.