First lesson – Welcome aboard!

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1. So you want to improve your English, do you ? Well, you’ve come to the right place.
2. But why bother learning English at all ?
3. Here are a few reasons: it’s the language of business, commerce and technology.
4. Politicians and diplomats from all over the world speak to each other in English.
5. It is the first or second language of more than one billion people,
6. and another billion or so are learning it at this very moment.
7. English is also the main language of the global IT insdustry and the media.
8. And it is also a major medium for publishing, adverstising and science.
9. Last but not least, it has one of the world’s richest and most varied bodies of literature.
10. Is this bad news for other major languages like Spanish, French, Arabic and Chinese?
11. Not really. First, English is pretty illogical – there is no ham in a hamburger and no pine (or apple) in a pineapple.
12. And pronunciation can be a nightmare – as you surely know!
13. Sentences like « The soldier decided to desert his dessert in the desert »
14. can drive even the hardiest learners to distraction !
15. But when all’s said and done, English may be the victim of its own success.
16. So many people in so many places now speak their own  variety of the language
17. that native speakers can find themselves at a disadvantage.
18. English, like Latin before it, no longer belongs to its country of origin.
19. Welcome aboard for this trip through the highways and byways of English.

Exercice – Translate

1. Why bother buying a lottery ticket ? We’ll never win (A quoi bon acheter un billet de loterie ? Nous ne gagnerons jamais)
2. The very thought of leaving London makes me sad (L’idée même de quitter Londres m’attriste)
3. The publishing industry is booming at the moment (Le secteur de l’édition est en plein essor en ce moment)
4. Jack Kerouac travelled the highways and byways of America in the 1950s. (Jack Kerouac a sillonné toutes les routes de l’Amérique dans les années 50)
5. Last but not least, the soldiers decided to desert their dessert in the desert. (Enfin et surtout, les soldats ont décidé d’abandonner leur dessert dans le désert)