Words that make the world go round – ‘love’ tops the class

From Cameroon to Colombia, love was deemed the word closest to the hearts of English language learners around the world, with god and peace following in second and third places respectively.

The British Council, which teaches English to over 370,000 students in approximately 50 countries, also asked learners to vote on words they disliked – cancer and racism  were voted most unpopular in that order.

Michael Carrier, the organisation’s Head of English Innovation, said: “At the British Council we’ve been teaching English overseas for over 70 years, but it is always interesting to hear what the pupils themselves think about our language. Some of the reasons students gave for their choices included love as a favourite ‘because it’s the best feeling in the world’, and flip-flop because ‘it’s a wonderful word to write and pronounce’. One student said he chose broccoli as his most hated word ‘because it’s gross’ – unfortunately not enough agreed with him for broccoli to make the list!”

The British Council poll produced a list of 75 most loved and hated English words [see here for full results]. The lists originated from a global English language lesson taught in British Council teaching centres across the world to mark the 75th anniversary of the organisation.

Teaching centres in 15 countries which took part in the lesson put forward their favourite and least favourite word lists – 10,000 people then voted through the organisation’s websites around the world on these lists to produce the final 75 on both sides.

“It might come as a surprise to some people when they think about the demise of the world’s traditional powers and today’s emerging economies, that demand for English is actually stronger than ever.  We estimate that over the next decade a third of the world will be learning English. At the British Council, we’re seeing that English is considered crucial by those who want to succeed in the global economy. At the same time, teaching English language abroad is extremely valuable to the UK – both as a major export and, in many cases, by forging lasting links back to the UK,” said Mr Carrier.

Teaching centres in the following countries took part in the survey: Senegal, Cameroon, Portugal, Venezuela, Spain, Slovakia, Malaysia, Mexico, Colombia, UAE, Thailand, Italy, Greece, Eritrea, Bulgaria.

See the full results for 75 favourite and least favourite polls here (pdf file).

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For more information, please call Paul Melhuish on 020 7389 4871 or 0770 598 753.

Notes to editors

·         Celebrating 75 years in 2009, the British Council is the UK’s international organisation for educational opportunities and cultural relations.

·         We work in over 100 countries worldwide to build engagement and trust for the UK through the exchange of knowledge and ideas between people.

·         We work in the arts, education, English, science, sport and governance and last year we engaged face to face with 13.2 million people and reached 221 million.

·         We are a non-political organisation which operates at arm’s length from government.

·         Our total turnover in 2008/9 was £645 million, of which our grant-in-aid from the British government was £209 million.

·         For more information, please visit: www.britishcouncil.org