Display reseting on its own.

[andruec]

I suspect that when you add together first and second languages, English overtakes Spanish worldwide.  But it's interesting that there are over 5 times as many native Spanish speakers than French, but French was what we had to learn at school.

I think English can lay claim to being the most widely understood language. That doesn't mean it's the most spoken though. Merely that it's unusual to find yourself in a situation where no-one at all can understand you. If you were an alien visiting Earth and could only learn one language and didn't know where you'd land then English would be the best language to learn.

[culzean]

I suspect that when you add together first and second languages, English overtakes Spanish worldwide.  But it's interesting that there are over 5 times as many native Spanish speakers than French, but French was what we had to learn at school.

I think English can lay claim to being the most widely understood language. That doesn't mean it's the most spoken though. Merely that it's unusual to find yourself in a situation where no-one at all can understand you. If you were an alien visiting Earth and could only learn one language and didn't know where you'd land then English would be the best language to learn.

+1

By counting the number of people who use a language as their 'first language' it is Chinese, Spanish and English ( in that order),  but counting the number of people who use English overall English is top dog.  English is compulsory in Chinese ( since 2003) and Japanese ( since 2011 ) schools simply because it is the world language of business and sciences ( and maybe law ).

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/magazine-17105569

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_languages_by_total_number_of_speakers

[andruec]

I also assume that its use in media (TV, film, music) and plethora of websites makes it an attractive language to learn.

On a related note: watching Nordic dramas is interesting because there's quite a few words and even phrases you can understand. A couple of times it explained why an apparently nonsensical English phrase meant what it did. It appeared that the phrase had been copied phonetically. The same kind of thing that has resulted in distress calls being called 'mayday calls', although of course the original language there is French.

[guest8014]

Well avoiding that useless language bar now. I have noticed that the finger needs to be tapped in the middle of the accept notice but a screen pencil can cancel it any where along its bar. Is this correct?