ENGLISH: A SOLUTION?

In the last post, I addressed the crises of the next five years. Well then. There are tools at our disposal to pursue more concrete stability, and among them, the most powerful is dialogue. Negotiations in these times tend to increase. To give you an idea, about three‑quarters of the Planet is currently moving toward more promising negotiations aimed at resolving these possible crises over the next five years. Yes, we are talking, but in which direction should we take these conversations so that we do not face severe impacts on the Global stage? That is what I deal with in this post.

By deeply analyzing the issues highlighted in the previous post, I firmly believe that we all must—and need to—learn a single language; and at this point, English stands out. We need to speak the same language in every sense, so that communication becomes more fluid, with greater flow and therefore greater consistency. When we look closely in every direction, we must recognize the obvious: English is the most spoken language on the Planet.

To put the numbers into perspective, about 18% of the world’s population speaks English, representing approximately 1.5 billion people, most of whom are not native speakers. Comparing this with the current global population of 8.1 billion, we see that only about 300 to 400 million people (less than 5% of the world’s population) are born speaking English. This is not encouraging for the path we are heading down.

In comparison with other languages, Mandarin is spoken by 1.1 billion people, Hindi by 600 million, and Spanish by 560 million. For these and other reasons, English is considered the global lingua franca, used in negotiations, science, technology, tourism, and diplomacy. It is a special key that opens doors of hope and also unlocks certain barriers.

Countries such as the Netherlands, Singapore, Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Belgium, and Germany show a very high level of English proficiency, while the Philippines and Portugal are classified as having high proficiency. As for Brazil, proficiency is considered medium, since exposure to English, early teaching in schools and within families, as well as everyday use, are factors that directly influence the performance of countries ranked at very high proficiency levels.

Thus, the logic is clear: to overcome the crises we are about to face without major problems, the level of English proficiency worldwide must be raised to at least 70% of all countries. This would present us with a point of no return—something not aligned with current reality, since only 45% of countries today have high or very high proficiency. Therefore, an additional 35% is needed to reach a state of progression and continuity in crisis‑management systems and barrier‑breaking.

We must face reality: English must be encouraged as a second language in several countries such as Brazil, China, Mexico, Turkey, Afghanistan, Cameroon, Laos, and Saudi Arabia, for example. What prevents this progress? Cultural barriers and Geopolitics. Yet even with these barriers, greater attention must be given to the problems mentioned in the last post on this Blog, so that we can firmly combat the crises that are coming in the next five years, with 2030 standing out as the year when the inability to put our house in order—the Planet—may become irreversible.

Without a doubt, bilingual education, cultural exposure, public policies, and international integration are strong factors that can help us resolve the challenges we will face if nothing is done starting now.