[Ti] English & French word Counts [OT]

[Erik Gaderlund]

At 23:42 +0100 09/06/03, Tarik wrote:
>On Saturday, September 6, 2003, at 11:21  pm, <ursus at mac.com> wrote:
>
>>And Europeans that want to learn English show a strong
>>preference for learning the American variety.
>
>Did someone ask them recently?
>
>The english that is taught in a country as a second language is 
>simply a function of the english spoken by the first english 
>language teachers to start teaching there. The fact that there are 
>250 million Americans compared to smaller native english speaking 
>nations could be the cause of that, and the fact that American 
>movies and TV are the most popular of the english language 
>broadcasting.

This isn't quite right, or at least from the non-native English 
speakers in Europe (Germany and Sweden) that I came across.  It was 
that they would pronounce their words in the 'British' English, but, 
use 'American' vocabulary, it was sometime pretty disconcerting.  I 
read enough magazines from England that I'm used to the vocabulary, 
and it was interesting to hear the switch.

erik g