Cat is 10 years old and loves dogs, bats and snakes. She has a dog and is working hard to persuade her parents to allow her to have a snake. She likes climbing, playing the piano and drawing.
Cat is 10 years old and loves dogs, bats and snakes. She has a dog and is working hard to persuade her parents to allow her to have a snake. She likes climbing, playing the piano and drawing.
Hello! My name is Lauren, I’m 22 and I’m at university training to be a vet. Like most vet students I like science and animals, what makes me a bit different is that I am partially deaf in both ears. I wanted to write about what it’s like to go to university and move away from home when you can’t hear properly.My parents found out I was deaf when I was 5 years old, just after I started school. My sister is also hearing impaired and Mum had inadvertently taught us both to speak properly, which meant that doctors didn’t realize there was anything wrong. When I got older mum told me that she was really worried at the time that being deaf would affect what I was able to do in life, but so far it hasn’t.
‘Sprechen Sie Englisch’
‘Parlez-vous Anglais’
‘habla usted Inglés’
‘Вы говорите по-английски’
‘您说英语吗’
What is it like for the estimated two thirds of the world’s population who speak at least two languages? The people who we refer to as ‘bilingual’, if they speak two languages, and sometimes as ‘multilingual’, if they speak more than two languages.
The researcher and writer David Crystal estimates that of the approximately 570 million people in the world who speak English, over 41% are bilingual in English and some other language.
Today’s contributor knows all about speaking more than one language.