Dear LPG, 

When the conversation begins to run out between you and a young student what do you talk about?   I suspect that what they are doing at school might be quite high on the list.  I know that when I was young it seemed to be the only question that aunts, uncles, mums and dads wanted to know the answer to.    

When I was at school I was not the best student and of all the subjects, the one that I dreaded most was English Language.  It might have had something to do with my English teacher or my real fear of reading out loud, but I was not good at it at all.  I wonder how many other readers dreaded it as much as me and only got better as they became students of the school of life.

One of the reasons that I suspect learning it is so hard is because it is arguably one of the languages with the biggest vocabularies in the world, and I have also found internet evidence that it is the hardest to spell because there are so many exceptions to the basic set of spelling rules we are given.  But for all that, the internet shows that it is the most spoken language on the planet and the language most used in the business world too.

The UN has also given it its own National day and this is it.  Today is National English Language Day.  It was chosen because it was arguably the anniversary of both the birth and death of William Shakespeare although, if you speak Spanish, it is interesting to note that this is also Spanish Language Day, the second most spoken language in the world; a day chosen in honour of Miguel De Cervantes Saavedra who wrote the novel, Don Quixote.

 So, perhaps we should do our best to be most eloquent in whichever of the two we are best at today.    

WA, Woolwich.

WA shares her internet research into the English Language…

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… and adds a little information on the Spanish celebration…

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