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| ▲ | ANewFormation 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | CIA gives 18.8%, so about 1.5 billion. [1] But this number is dubious as it's largely from self response. Here [2] is a list by country. So 25% of Thais, 50% of Ukrainians, 50% of Poles, and so on "speak English." In the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and introduce themselves that is probably true. But "my name is Bob" maketh not a common tongue. If we narrowed it down to the percent of people that could hold a basic conversation, the number would plummet precipitously, likely leaving Mandarin at the top. [1] - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=List_of_languages... [2] - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-s... | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago | parent [-] | | > the number would plummet precipitously, likely leaving Mandarin at the top 70% of Chinese speak Mandarin as a first language [1]. > the sense of being able to say hello, thank you, and introduce themselves that is probably true This is English learners. If you count English learners, a third of Chinese speak English and a majority of the internet-connected world. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_China |
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| ▲ | Retric 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Being fluent is a different question, you can dream in English without it being your native language. first language = A first language (L1), native language, native tongue, or mother tongue is the first language a person has been exposed to from birth https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_language | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Yes, we understand what a first language is. You should understand why that’s irrelevant to this discussion. | | |
| ▲ | lcnPylGDnU4H9OF 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | You know, they weren't the one to bring it up and their point seems to have consistently been that the majority of the global population does not speak English. | | |
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