The number of speakers of English in Shakespeare’s time is estimated to have been about five million. Today it is estimated that some 260 million people speak it as a native language, mainly in the United States, Canada, Great Britain, Ireland, South Africa, Australia and New Zealand.
莎士比亚时代讲英语的人数估计约为500万。今天，据估计约有2.6亿人将英语作为母语，主要分布在美国、加拿大、大不列颠、爱尔兰、南非、澳大利亚和新西兰。
In addition to the standard varieties of English found in these areas, there are a great many regional and social varieties of the language as well as various levels of usage that are employed both in its spoken and written forms.
除了在这些地区发现的标准英语变体外，该语言还有大量的地区和社会变体，以及在口语和书面形式中使用的不同水平的用法。
In fact, it is impossible to estimate the number of people in the world who have acquired an adequate working knowledge of English in addition to their own languages. The purpose for English learning and the situations in which such learning takes place are so varied that it is difficult to explain and still more difficult to judge what forms an adequate working knowledge for each situation.
事实上，不可能估计世界上除了自己的语言之外，还有多少人掌握了足够的英语工作知识。英语学习的目的和学习环境千差万别，很难解释，更难判断什么构成了每种情况下的充分工作知识。
The main reason for the widespread demand for English is its present-day importance as a world language. Besides serving the indefinite needs of its native speakers, English is a language in which some of important works in science, technology, and other fields are being produced, and not always by native speakers. It is widely used for such purposes as meteorological and airport communications, international conferences, and the spread of information over the radio and television networks of many nations. It is a language of wider communication for a number of developing countries, especially former British colonies. Many of these countries have multilingual populations and need a language for internal communication in such matters as government, commerce, industry, law and education as well as for international communication and for entrance to the scientific and technological developments in the West.
对英语的广泛需求的主要原因是它作为世界语言在当今的重要性。除了满足母语人士的无限需求外，英语也是一种语言，在科学、技术和其他领域的一些重要作品都是用这种语言创作的，而且并不总是由母语人士创作的。它被广泛用于气象和机场通信、国际会议以及通过许多国家的广播和电视网络传播信息等目的。它是许多发展中国家，特别是前英国殖民地更广泛交流的语言。其中许多国家拥有多语言人口，需要一种语言用于政府、商业、工业、法律和教育等事务的内部交流，以及国际交流和进入西方科技发展领域。
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