English is the most commonly spoken language in the world. One out of five people can speak or at least understand English! English is the language of science, aviation, computers, diplomacy, and tourism. Knowing English increases your chances of getting a good job in a multinational company within your home country or of finding work abroad. English is the official language of 53 countries and is used as a lingua franca (a mutually known language) by people from all around the world. This means that whether you’re working in Beijing, or travelling in Brazil, studying English can help you have a conversation with people from all over the world. In the last century, the number of scientific papers written in English has started to outweigh the number of papers written in the native language of the researcher. In the Netherlands, for example, the ratio is a surprising 40 to 1. For this reason, having a knowledge of English is incredibly important to those working in the scientific field. Because of the prominence of Hollywood in global media, an enormous amount of films, TV shows and popular songs are written in English. If you speak English, you won't need to rely on translations and subtitles anymore to enjoy your favourite books, songs, films and TV shows. English is a particularly important language online with more than half the content on the internet written in English. As well as this, some of the world’s largest tech companies are based in English speaking countries.
