English-speaking countries

Learning a foreign language isn’t an easy thing. It’s a long and difficult process that takes a lot of time and efforts. Nowadays it’s especially important to know foreign languages, namely English. Over 300 million people speak it as a mother tongue. The native speakers of English live in Great Britain, the United States of America, Australia and New Zealand. English is now the dominant or official language in over 60 countries, and is represented in every continent and in the three major oceans – Atlantic, Indian, and Pacific.

English is the world language. The present-day world status of English is the result of two factors: the expansion of British colonial power, which peaked towards the end of the 19th century, and the emergence of the United States as the leading economic power of the 20th century.

English is a wonderful language. It’s the language of the great literature, the language of William Shakespeare, Charles Dickens and others. The great German poet Goethe once said, “He, who knows no foreign language, doesn’t know his own one”. That’s why in order to understand oneself and environment one has to learn foreign languages.

There are many different reasons why people study foreign languages, English in particular. Here are some of them: to travel abroad; to get good job; to have something to do in your spare time; to be better educated; to be familiar with social and cultural life of other countries; to be able to participate in conversations with foreigners. Besides, half of the world’s scientific literature is in English. It has replaced French in the world of diplomacy and German in the field of science. English is one of the official languages of the United Nations Organization and other political organizations.

It’s the language of computer technology, international air traffic control, maritime, politics, and emergency services. English is the chief language of international business and academic conferences, and the leading language of international tourism. It is the main language of popular music, advertising, satellite broadcasting, and video games. The language is not just a subject learnt in the classrooms. It’s something which is used in real life situations.

Learning foreign languages opens up opportunities and careers that didn’t even exist some years ago. Knowing English can help us to find a job in such fields as science and technology, foreign trade and banking, international transportation communication, teaching, librarian science and others. A more general aim is to broaden our intellectual and cultural horizons.

Money, Currency, Finance

Money is defined as commodity accepted as a medium of economic exchange. It is the medium in which prices and values are expressed; it circulates from person to person and from country to country, thus facilitating trade. Throughout history various commodities have been used as money, including seashells, beads, and cattle. Aztecs used cacao beans. Norwegians once used butter. The early US colonists used tobacco leaves and animal hides (settlers traded deer hides – the origin of our modern word for money: “bucks”). The people of Paraguay used snails. Roman soldiers were paid with salt. Human slaves have also been used as currency around the world. In the 16th century, the average exchange value of a slave was 8000 pounds of sugar.

The modern monetary system has its roots in the gold of medieval Europe. In the Middle Ages, gold and gold coins were the common currency. However, the wealthy found that carrying large quantities of gold around was difficult and made them the target of thieves. To avoid carrying gold coins, people began depositing them for safekeeping with goldsmiths, who often had heavily guarded vaults where they stored their valuable inventories of gold. The goldsmiths charged a fee for their services and issued receipts, or gold notes, in the amount of the deposits. Exchanging these receipts was much simpler and safer than carrying around gold coins. In addition, the depositors could retrieve their gold on demand.

Goldsmiths during this time became aware that few people actually wanted their gold coins back when the gold notes were so easy to use for exchange. They therefore began lending some of the gold on deposit to borrowers who paid a fee, called interest. These goldsmiths were the precursors to our modern fractional reserve banking system.

In the late 18th and early 19th century, banks began to issue notes redeemable in gold or silver, which became the principal money of industrial economies. Temporarily during World War I and permanently from the 1930s, most nations abandoned the gold standard. To most individuals today, money consists of coins, notes, and bank deposits.

Regardless of what asset is recognized by an economic community as money, in general it serves three functions:

• Money is a medium of exchange (for payments between consumers, businesses, and government);

• Money is a measure of value (or purchasing power, the prices paid for goods and services);

• Money is a store of value (for measuring the economic worth of current income deferred for spending in future years).

In recent years a new type of money appeared – electronic money. Electronic payment systems, already in place for use by credit-card processors, were adapted in the 1990s for use in electronic commerce (e-commerce) on the Internet. Such “digital cash” payments allow customers to pay for on-line orders using secure accounts established with specialized financial institutions; related technology is used for on-line payment of bills.