I have always had a very complicated relationship with English. First, at school I simply hated it, probably because I didn’t understand and speak it very well. As an adult, I went to New Zealand and lived there for a couple of years. I must say, it was not my choice, but because of my ex-husband’s work. I have never been a New Zealand enthusiast. Since then, it has never changed, but my approach to English has changed. From hate it went to ambivalence. On one hand, after leaving NZ I can’t help but using English almost everywhere, reading books, watching the news or movies. To be precise, I mean British English, I must admit I am not thrilled by American English or American culture in general.

However, on the other hand there is this kind of repellence, even a certain kind of disgust when I start to think about the power of English. Lawrence Venuti, an American (sic!) translator and translation theorist, opened my eyes and expressed what I had felt for a long time, but could not put into words. He says about the hegemony of English: “The economic and political ascendancy of the United States has reduced foreign languages and cultures to minorities in relation to its languages and culture. English is the most translated language worldwide, but one of the least translated into.” (Venuti, The scandals of translation) As the book title suggests, it is a scandal. Why? Because the English speaking world, especially the US and the UK, but also Australia and New Zealand give a damn about other cultures. Turn on the news? You will find little news about not English speaking countries. Book shops? Very few translated books of not English speaking authors. Teaching foreign languages? Dead loss. People speaking foreign languages? Hard to find any. In one word, total ignorance about other cultures and their languages.

It is true, they have a good excuse: they speak the lingua franca. But that does not exempt from treating other cultures with respect. Most of the rest of the world speaks in some way English. Even if most of the people are not bilingual, they are able to communicate. The English speaking world has the exact opposite approach. It is always the others who have adopt to them. They expect us all to adopt to their language (even in non English speaking places), and it does not stop here, because in a broader way, it also means to adopt to their way of thinking, to their value system, to their culture. Just think about the university system. Europe basically has adopted the American/English system. It does not stop with the language. When we turn on the radio: we listen to English music. When they turn on the radio: they listen to English music too, and basically exclusively. The whole time I stayed in NZ, I have never heart a song on the radio other than in English.

But the most important thing of all is when you don’t speak any other language at all, when you have never thought in another language, when you have never been interested in other cultures, your world will remain very limited. It will be always limited by your and your people’s view.  You are not able to widen your horizon, because there is simply no approach, no way to it. Because language is the main contact with other people, with other cultures. We cannot understand others by seeing their touristic attractions. This ignorance does not make the world a better one. People who have an understanding of other views, alternative views, other ways of doing things, other approaches, who understand that there is not only the one way they know, who realize that in our world there are many different ways of handling situations will less likely be aggressive in front of the unknown, the not familiar.

Most of the people see English as a tool of communication between different cultures. Actually, it is kind of the opposite. Because we close our doors in front of the other who is not English speaking, the unknown, the unfamiliar.  Think about the fact that most English speaking non-native speakers speak with an American accent, and often they think that is standard English, because it is the only way they were taught. Everybody becomes an American, the dominant culture and language. Many writing softwares don’t accept the British spelling, but only the American one.

Then, think about this situation. Two business men, a Spanish and a Chinese meet negotiating difficult issues. Probably, they will use English, and probably neither of them are a native speaker. Quite likely, both of them are not able to express themselves in a way they would in their mother tongue. Many aspects they might not be able to express at all: lost in translation. It is a well known fact that due to the non-native competence of many English speakers and the incapability of English native speakers to acknowledge the problem and adopt to it, in international negotiations money of an incredible amount is lost. As a native speaker, it is hard to put yourself into the position of a language learner, especially when you have never learnt a foreign language yourself. English native speakers are often not very good in adopting to the other person they speak to. They just pretend that the other person masters English in the same way they do or they are simply not aware that is actually not the case. When a native speaker realizes that the other doesn’t understand what he/she is saying, the reaction is always the same: either repeating it again in exactly the same way – probably hoping that the second time would be more intelligible, or repeating it simply louder as if the problem were hearing problems, or explaining it in a much more difficult way than the original utterance. But the last one is the worst: a normal, correct sentence will be translated into a kind of baby-speech – humiliation guaranteed.

And now imagine another situation: one is an English native speaker and the other is not. Is the situation a fair one? In my opinion, it is utterly unfair, the English native speaker will be in a much advantaged position right from the beginning, a kind of pool position.

How to solve this problem? Maybe we need a lingua franca. But for sure, it is not good in terms of fairness when the countries where the lingua franca is spoken are also the economically, politically and culturally most powerful ones. They will win on both sides: The hardware (money, economy) and the software (language, culture). This can never be a fair relationship, it is one of power (abuse). Language plays a crucial role in it, we must be aware of that. Ignoring it, we play into the hands of who holds the power, against our own interests. In this light, language is much more than a communication tool, it is a tool of enforcing and legitimating power.

And then, did you ever realize the foolishness of the English spelling system? When I come across a new word, very often I can guess the meaning of it, but basically never the pronunciation. Usually, you have no clue how to pronounce a word you don’t know the pronunciation of. In terms of pronunciation, English is one of the less predictable languages. This means, even after years of practice, I am still not able to read a book aloud. Kind of ridiculous. Rules? Basically absent. Probably due to this absence quite a lot of native speakers make mistakes in writing. Why should this be the lingua franca, when it is almost impossible to master the language in un impeccable way?

Can a language with so many different accents be a good lingua franca? Many native speakers can’t understand each other. Take someone from the middle west of the US, a Welsh or Irish person. The language they speak has not much to do with the language most language learners will learn, at least when it comes to pronunciation.

My mother tongue German is said to have a difficult grammar. It might be true. However, this cannot be said about the pronunciation. Once you know the 5-6 pronunciation rules and you have learnt how to pronounce let’s say the ch- sound you are fine. All this will take you a couple of weeks.