Thank you to the person that posted the comment about my mistake in identifying Australia (population: 20 million) as the second largest English-speaking country in the world; s/he said it should be the UK. When I checked the latest figures, it turns out that the two largest English-speaking countries in the world are India (350 million out of 1 billion) and the United States (300 million). The Philippine government still officially claims that the country (total population: 90 million, but less than half speak English) is the third largest English-speaking country in the world, despite all linguistic studies that show otherwise. China (almost 300 million so far out of 1.3 billion) is catching up quickly with India and the US. The UK (60 million), of course, outranks the Philippines. I've corrected my previous entry, in order not to mislead first-time visitors to this blog. (Population figures are 2006 estimates.)
Tuesday, January 30, 2007
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12 comments:
I beg to disagree about your statement that less than half of the 90 million population of the Philippines can speak English. Filipinos were trained to speak and write English even since they were born, and that education spans until college. The road signs are in English, the TV ads are in English, plus the government speaks to Filipinos in English. Try to call any Customer Service numbers of businesses in the US and you might be surprised you are talking to a Filipino, speaking in English in all its fluency. Should I say that from that 90 million population, only about 10 million can't speak English, or less. Take these from a Filipino. Paalam~~!
You may want to look up Wikipedia’s “List of countries by English-speaking population”
(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_English-speaking_population). The Philippines has 45,900,000 speakers of English, according to the 2000 Census. Since the Philippines has about 91 million people (CIA estimate), that’s roughly half.
While it is true that according to the Wikipedia's "List of countries by English-speaking population" we are not the third-largest speaking nation, what rank are we in terms of percentage of total population? In another article I read, it says that the Philippines has 63% of its population speaking in English. Definitely, we can't compete in terms of population, but we have a higher percentage than those of other countries, except the US and UK of course.
Everybody, except you, should know that Wikepedia is not a realiable site to look for information...the publisher of this site can put anything down and not know what they are talking about. Please get your facts straight.
For a discussion of the reliability of Wikipedia, please see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_reliability.
No matter how the Philippines is ranked with respect to other English speaking countries, the fact still remains - "WE SPEAK" the English language worthy of recognition. What I want to bring to your attention is the fact that no matter how much statistics emphasize our English capability - we are being discriminated as Non-Native Speakers of English. This linguistic chauvinism has made it difficult for Filipinos (and Indians) to land jobs in the EFL/ESL industry.
The quality of how someone speaks English should be the real factor in discussing the largest English Speaking country. While some are fluent, those plucked for jobs working with a native English speaker have incredibly weak skills. If this was the case, I am technically fluent in Spanish and French, but I wouldn't go parading around that fact. Now I have never spoken to a Filipino over a customer service line, I have talked to Indians, and it is the most frustrating experience ever. In my travels, I have also found filipinos to speak english quite well, but then again they were working as whores outside an American Military installation.
I can attest to the fact that less than half the population of the Philippines speak English. English is indeed the language of instruction, but since many Filipino teachers have poor English skills as recognized by the country's Education department, teachers frequently revert to their own language as well as dialect in teaching.
From a percentage point of view, the Philippines will fall well below #15, I'd imagine. However, from an an absolute numbers point, countries like India and China would be well ahead.
Of course, the Philippines is without doubt a non-native English speaking country, whose English is at best far from the standard British or American English, recognized the world over as proper English.
i am a call center agent here in the philippines and proud to be one i am only 18 years old when i started.
i dont really care about the ranking...as long as i know that my country is one the best in speaking the universal language.
proficiency wise we are one of the best.
accent???...most of our customers would request to pseak to a filipino agent that an indian because filipino accent is neutral..all of the customers can understand...
i really doubt it with those countries listed in wikipedia...
overall philippines is one of the countries to beat...
you can discriminate us..i dont really care...
as long as call center companies are investing here in my country..it just shows how really good filipinos are in communicating using this language.
I'm from the US and have spent some time in the Philippines (mainly Manila). Virtually everyone I've come across is Manila speaks english very well. Businessmen, clerks, average citizens, and little-kids-trying-to-sell-me-flowers all speak English very well. That said, it's not nearly as articulate as the sort of witty (or at least I like to call it witty) conversation I'd have with my coworkers in the US, but it's highly functional. Commonly you need to simplify and explicitly annunciate words to make sure the message is fully received, but it's still very impressive to a US citizen (An Englishman would probably be quite horrified, but then the English do have a reputation for obnoxiousness to defend). Yes, people who work at call centers are extremely clear (to the point that you would not know you're talking to most from the philippines unless you're pretty keen on the filipino accent/colloquialisms) Expedia, for instance, has its call center based in the Philippines. The only trouble is that many people (when talking to a group including more people than just the foreigner) will interject lots of Filipino in the middle of their English. But beats the hell out of me trying to learn a 3rd language and is way better than the game of charades I've been playing in places like Japan or Italy.
i found this interesting
http://thepromisesproject.wordpress.com/2007/12/01/philippines-advantage-language/
I have to agree that the people in the Phillippines speak english well. Compared to our neighbors to the south of us. I found that filipinos speak much better English then Mexican living here in the U.S. And think that says allot about the filipino people.
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