One million strong...and growing!

Are there really one million words in the English language? According to Global Language Monitor, the millionth English word was added this morning. Link to Article

I'm with the group's critics that say its impossible to count the number of words in our language, and personally wouldn't consider some of their 'words' in an official count. But there are some points to this and I find it an encouragement to those of us that teach the language. For starters, can we recognize that English is a difficult language to learn? I didn't realize just how difficult until I started teaching it...so let's give our students some credit for taking on a BIG challenge!

Now for those points:

1. According to this article, English has more words than any other language in the world. Chinese comes in 2nd place with approximately 450,000 words.

2. English is a growing language - rather than translating words from other languages, we tend to take on those new words, making ours a very rich and diverse, but also challenging language to learn.

Right now I'm thinking of the little boy that I'll be tutoring later today...the one who can't read. Afterwards, I'll be teaching a group of internationals how to speak English. Remembering the challenge they face gives me just a little more compassion as I begin my day. Lord, help me to teach in a way they can understand! Help them to see that it is You at work!