The past
The present
In the 19th century, it took weeks or even months to
get from one continent to another.
Only wealthy people could afford travelling long
distances. Ordinary people saved money for
travelling for many years.
Now it takes 24 hours to travel from Europe to
Australia.
A lot of people travel nowadays on business and as
tourists. Even travelling by air is quite affordable.
The only means of distant communication was the
post. People enjoyed writing letters, but they had to
wait for a very long time to get reply. Very
important letters sometimes got lost.
When a group of people from different cities or
countries wanted to discuss a problem and work out
a common decision. They usually chose a place for
the meeting and travelled there. They had to leave
their homes and put off their business for a long
while.
Besides post, telephone, and telegraph, there are cheap
and very efficient means of communication based on
the Internet. It takes seconds to send an e-mail and get
a reply.
Satellite communication is used a lot now and
teleconferencing is a common way of doing business or
even discussing scientific and political problems. To
take part in a teleconference, people need only to
switch on the monitor at the right time.
In the 16th and 17th centuries about seven million
people spoke English.
Nowadays about 1,5 billion people speak English and
only 427 million of them are native speakers. People of
different cultures, business and science from all over
the world use English for communication. Seventy-five
percent of the world's e-mails and 78% of all websites
are in English
Globalisation
Travelling
long distances
The appearance
of the Internet;
Satellite
communication
Spread of
English as the
global
language