More people speak English as a second language than as a first one — and the difference is not small.
1About four hundred million people have English as their first language. Between one and two billion use it as a second or a third one. That means that most English conversations in the world today happen between two people who both learned it at school.
2This changes what good English is. For a long time the model was a narrow one: the way a small number of people spoke in southern England. Today a Brazilian engineer talking to a Korean colleague does not need that accent, and neither of them is trying to sound British. They need to be clear, and clarity is a different target from imitation.
3The language is also less uniform than people think. A lift in London is an elevator in New York. Australians shorten almost every word they can. Indian English, spoken by more people than British English, has its own vocabulary and its own rhythm. None of these is wrong: they are simply different rooms in a very large house.
4For a learner this is good news. Your accent is not a problem to remove: it is information about where you come from. The most useful goal is not to sound like somebody else, but to be understood the first time, by the largest possible number of people.
Clarity is a different target from imitation.
