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TT3 Lesson 36

ARTICLE
100 MILLION HEROES!

1 A lot of students learning English probably think that our language has been especially designed 1 to
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fool them.
For example, who decided that cow 3 wasn't going to rhyme with low 4? Surely it was someone whose
idea of fun was laughing at foreigners as they made pronunciation mistakes. And why was through made to
5 rhyme with to, too, blue and shoe, which are spelled so differently from each other? Again, it seems that
someone, somewhere, had a weird sense of humor.
Also, have you noticed that the inventors of English words wanted to cause chaos 5 in restaurants? For
example, they obviously hoped that foreign tourists would order a bear 6 instead of a beer 7, and a snake 8
instead of a snack 9.
10 These days, with more people learning English than ever before, any foreigner struggling 10 with our
strange and frustrating language can at least take comfort 11 from the fact that he or she is not alone. In fact, in
addition to the 300 million native speakers who have learned English as their first language, the number of
people using English as a foreign language is 100 million and rising 12.
Perhaps you could say that the huge number of people learning English is not surprising. You could
15 point out 13 that English is the language of international business 14 and trade 15, that there are more books,
movies and television programs in English than in any other language, or that English is also the main language
of that popular American invention, the Internet.
But stop and think for a minute. Isn't it amazing that so many people have managed 16 to learn English
when they grew up speaking a different language? I don't think it's something we should just
20 take for granted 17.

1
designed (adj) intended; planned.
2
fool, to ( v ) -
3
cow ( n ) -
4
low (adj) -
5
chaos ( n ) -
6
bear (animal)
7
beer ( n ) -
8
snake ( n ) -
9
snack ( n ) -
10
struggle, to ( v ) -
11
take comfort, to ( v ) - to feel calmer after being worried or nervous.
12
rise, to ( v ) -
13
point out, to ( v ) -
14
business ( n ) -
15
trade ( n ) -
16
manage, to ( v ) -
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take for granted, to ( v ) - If you take something for granted, you do not even think about it because you believe it will
always be available or exactly the same. I took it for granted that I would find the perfect job.
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After all, learning a foreign language is difficult and requires 18 hard work, which is probably why so
many native speakers of English never try to do it.
25 Yes, let's be honest, people from English-speaking countries are usually terrible at foreign languages.
We lazily 19 expect everyone else to understand English, then why aren't we more grateful 20 to the millions of
foreigners who speak English so well?
I reckon 21 it's because we still think that foreigners should be able to learn English as easily as we did
when we were kids. We probably assume that it can't be too hard for foreigners to learn a bit of grammar and a
30 few hundred words.
Well, most foreigners who have learned English don't know fifty thousand words, or every little detail
of grammar, but I think their achievement 22 is still impressive 23.
The spread 24 of English means that more people in different parts of the world are able to understand
and communicate with each other, which could be a very good thing. But no language can spread without
35 people working hard and learning to speak it, and that's why we should thank the millions of foreigners who are
learning English. These people are changing the world, even though 25 cow still doesn't rhyme with low.

18
require, to ( v ) -
19
lazily ( adv ) - in a lazy way.

lazy (adj) =
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grateful (adj) -
21
reckon, to ( v ) -
22
achievement ( n ) -
23
impressive (adj) -
24
spread, to ( v ) -
25
even though even if.