Think you know English? Not so fast

Around the globe, 360 million people learned English as their mother tongue and another 990 million picked it up as their second language. But many are finding it hard to keep up with the new lingo. English, they say, is the modern lingua franca, and has been for some time. The rudiments of its grammar are easy to grasp, the basics of Anglo-American vocabulary simple to learn, the portability of the language across cultures widespread. Little wonder, then, that today English is the most widely spoken language in the world. From Antigua to Zimbabwe, some 1.35 billion people speak the language - about one out every five men, women and children on the planet. For the vast majority, English is their second language; only 360 million have it as their mother tongue.