Fun English facts from around the world

Hello again.

How are all of you today?

We all have something in common here at ABA English and that is that we all speak or want to learn English. Our reasons may differ, but we can all agree that for some reason we have found that it would be both useful and fun to learn this beautiful and sometimes strange language.

Here are a few fun facts for all of you today about the language we all love and know so well, English!

Do you know that there are about 1.5 billion English speakers in the world! There are about 400 million native speakers and 400 million people speak English as a second language, and a further 600-700 million speakers of English as a foreign language, now that’s amazing!

The longest word is the English language is “pneumonoultramicroscopicsilicovolcanoconiosis’ a whopping 45 letters!

Did you know that the original name for a “butterfly” was a “flutterby”?

If you’ve seen words like “emoji” or “twerking” or the all famous “selfie” , you may wonder where are these words come from. Well, according to Oxford dictionary editors there are conservatively about 1000-2000 new words added to the English dictionary every year, crazy, right?

There are more words in the English language that begin with an “S” than any other word!

The word “swim” will still be “swim” even if we turn it upside down.

The next time you get confused about the difference between American and British English just remember that there are many dialects even within the same region, there are 24 different dialects in The U.S alone, and about 56 in The British isles, wow!

Some of the oldest English words are, I, you, who, mother, father, ashes and worm!

Only two words currently used in the English language end in “gry” they are “angry and hungry”

The verb “go” is the shortest sentence in the English language!

The letters “ough” can be pronounced 8 different ways, rough, dough, thought, through, plough, borough, slough, coughed.

So next time you get bored with learning English, why not try to invent some new words yourself! Chances are they will end up in the dictionary sooner or later.

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