english as the global language

Today most of the people think of English as the global language. It is said that 1.8 billion people speak English. Even in French or Japan, where there are a lot of people who don’t want to use it, the number of English speaker has been increasing. So here is a debate whether English should be a global language or we should have global language. Although some people disagree with that tendency for some reasons, we should have the global language and in the long run it would give us benefits.

Opponents of English as the global language claim that English would destroy cultures. They think that if English is used mainly in non English-speaking countries, they will lose their culture with their own language because they are well-connected. But I think to be able to speak other language, our feelings that we belong to our country would get strong, because if you touch other culture by using English you would often start to think of your own culture at the same time. Until we know other culture, we never know what our culture is, or after we understand other culture we start to notice how our culture is made. Moreover, we have intention to have self identity. Then noticing our culture we tend to make much of their own culture. So rather than lose culture, English make each culture more important.

Opponent also say that to start to use English in the company would make employee confused and then it is not efficient for companies. This is now often discussed in Japan

because a famous company, Uniqlo, started to use English as a official language in the company. It is true that a lot of people cannot catch up with the sudden change and efficiency might decline. But the fact is that the market in just one country has been shrinking and many people know that we have to see overseas markets. Also to negotiate, compete and win there, we cannot make it without English. So some confusion might happen for several years, but in the long run it give great advantage to company which will fight in overseas-market.

　In conclusion, opponent look at just small part of result from using English as the global language. If you think of the future not near future, it would give us a lot of benefits.