I learned my English from Keith Spurgeon. He had some small children, and I was young, too, and so we spoke the language together, and it was fantastic.
When I was 12 years old, I got interested in learning English.
For over ten years I always had, but I don't speak English.
During the 1980s, when Japan's economy was roaring and people were writing books with titles like 'Japan is Number One,' most Japanese college students didn't make the effort to become fluent in English.
My children were educated in what were then Chinese schools, and they learned English as a subject. But they made up when they went to English-language universities. So they didn't lose out. They had a basic set of traditional Confucian values. Not my grandchildren.
My favorite English teacher in high school showed me 'Brazil' when I was 15, and it blew my mind. It's one of those movies that's revealed itself in different ways as I've gone back to it over the years.
Some may argue that countries like Japan and China improved economically without English, but they, too, are learning English fast.
You can't find me 20 children in Chicago, I don't care which section you go in - you can be on Michigan Avenue or here - and they won't be able to tell you that y is a vowel when it's the final syllable in a word, as in Nancy and icy. And no one bothers to teach the rules anymore - "i before e except after c."
More than 300 million people in the world speak English and the rest, it sometimes seems, try to.
