When people think of the English language, they usually associate it with American, British, Australian or Canadian English, however English is spoken in many other countries as a native language, and in many others as a second or foreign language.
More than 300 million people around the world speak English as a first language. English is used as an official language in more than 50 states. About 1500 million people speak English as a second language. All in all almost two billion people can speak English. That’s a third of the world’s population.
The statistics show that the most spoken language worldwide is English with almost two billion people being able to speak it, of whom only 375 million are native speakers. This means that you’re much more likely to speak English with someone whose English is their second or foreign language than with a native speaker.
Due to this, if you’re an English learner you might have trouble understanding people depending on where you are and who you’re talking to. In case you’re an English Teacher it’s a nice idea to share this information with your students and even prepare them for the real world. Bearing that in mind, if you’re learning the language in order to work at an international company or travel abroad, you might want to be aware and perhaps start practicing listening to different kinds of English accents, especially the ones you’ll be dealing with.
That being said, let’s see some examples of different accents, shall we?
Negeria – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=azlY7SKKPJo
Ireland – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hu3Gkig4n-8
New Zealand – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TZXlrkaYXkA
Singapore – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bybhP0nlZ8I
Guyana – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=40GrV93vPik
South Africa – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rL1iVylvnCM
Jamaica – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7kKAyZ4MseE
Australia – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xuRrp83jCuQ
India – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OoF4i77kPak
The Philippines – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3BBtS1ir4tA
Japanese accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LPcKa7LHoak
Korean accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WYvj-H9zVRk
Asian accents – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QEmMkSpn-2o
Brazilian accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iwd8v_u_fj0
Italian accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=miSYq4aj7ik
Colombian accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jlDmPoP4Tzk
Latin accent – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fB8N_w-njuQ
And to laugh a little, let’s watch two really nice videos that make fun of language usage.
Who has never watched the Italian man in malta? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1TnzCiUSI0
Or the Offensive translator – https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vc8tfioOKvU
I hope you enjoyed this post. The idea was not analyzing it in depth, but to g
ive you an overall idea of how broad English is. I believe that it helps us English learners and teachers to understand language a little better.
Here’s a map of where English is spoken as a first and official language http://www.cornelsen.de/sites/nhl/around_the_world/
If your country has a peculiar accent when speaking English, please share your video or say what
you think below.
See you!