English Language Guide

Official language in
Canada, Ireland, India, Singapore, United States, South Africa
Script
Latin

Where it's spoken

Under the laws cited here, English is an official language on four continents. Canada's Constitution Act says that English and French are the official languages of Canada. Ireland's Constitution recognises English as a second official language, after Irish as the national and first official language. India's Official Languages Act lets the English language continue to be used, in addition to Hindi, for all the official purposes of the Union. Singapore's Constitution makes Malay, Mandarin, Tamil and English the four official languages in Singapore. South Africa's Constitution lists English among the official languages of the Republic. In the United States, an executive order states that English is the official language of the United States. English is also one of the six official languages of the United Nations.

This app's English cards are not written for one country. The phrase files state that Britain, Ireland and the United States were taken as the main setting and Canada, Australia and New Zealand as secondary ones, and that every card names its country or region in its usage note. The card for Lemonade is an example: in Britain, Ireland, Australia and New Zealand it is a clear, carbonated soft drink, and in the United States and Canada a still, cloudy drink of lemon juice, water and sugar.

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Script & pronunciation

The Latin script is written in linear sequence from left to right. Spaces are used to separate words and provide the primary line breaking opportunities, and Latin letters come in uppercase and lowercase pairs. Speakers of different languages treat the addition of a diacritical mark to a base letter differently: in English the same words can often be spelled with and without the diacritical mark without implying any difference.

Most of the differences between the English of the UK and the English of North America are vocabulary differences and differences in pronunciation and spelling, and there are fewer differences in writing than in speaking. Most of this app's English cards show the English text alone. Some sentence cards also carry a pronunciation written in the International Phonetic Alphabet, as in the card What's the Wi-Fi password?, whose romanization reads wɑːts ðə ˈwaɪfaɪ ˈpæswɜːrd; the word cards carry none.

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Grammar essentials

The basic word order of English is subject-verb-object, as in the card I need to charge my phone. The adjective comes before the noun, as in a good VPN in the card Can you recommend a good VPN? English uses prepositions, which stand before the noun phrase they go with, as in on the map in the card Can you show me on the map? A yes/no question is marked by interrogative word order, as in the card Is there free Wi-Fi here?, where the verb stands in front of the subject.

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Politeness & etiquette

English has no politeness distinction in its second-person pronoun. You is used for a single person and for several, and thou has largely disappeared from Standard English, surviving mainly in liturgical contexts. Politeness is carried in other ways. A reference grammar describes two of them: showing the listener or reader that you value and respect them, and changing or softening what you say so as not to be too direct or forceful.

In formal contexts, when we do not know people and we want to show respect, titles such as Mr and Ms with the family name, sir, madam, doctor and professor are used. Excuse me opens a request to a stranger, and it is also what this app gives as the opening word when you need a stranger's attention. The past forms of the modal verbs can, may, shall and will - could, might, should and would - make a request more polite and less direct, while the imperative is very direct when used in requests. This app's card for Could you speak more slowly, please? notes that it is more polite than Can you ...? and that adding please softens the request.

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