In a lot of those places, English has either an official or unofficial role as a lingua franca, too. Like this and want more editorial content on language, culture, and immersive learning in your inbox? Sign up to our still fairly exclusive email list.Īpart from England and the former British colonies, many African, Caribbean, and Pacific countries use English as the language of government and formal education. Does English still equal England? Not even this flag thinks so – it’s the flag of the United Kingdom, including millions of people who don’t claim to speak English well. Here’s a further exploration of English and how it is now a global language. They might have an accent, may not know some casual words, and they might use some constructions that have gone out of fashion in other countries, but they still speak English shockingly well. In other countries like China or India, anyone who’s gone to school speaks English well - sometimes to an academic level. If it’s news to the person making the claim, you may want to bear in mind that in Singapore, Kenya, Nigeria, the Philippines, English is both the primary official language and a social lingua franca. This claim is not just myopic and shallow - at best, it’s ignorant, and at worst, racist. You might have heard people claim that people of a certain country - who speak English as their main language - don’t speak it “well”.

White guy speaking pidgin english