Today I'm going to retell a Ted talk from a first person.

Let's take a look at what English is today in the world. If we look at all of the English conversations on planet we'll discover that for every native speaker, like me, there are four non-native speakers. If we listen to English conversations in the whole world, we'll see that 96% non-native speakers involved in it. There are only 4% of conversations of native speaker to native speker. It isn't my language anymore. It belongs to you. Language is not an art to be mastered. It is a tool to use to get a result.

I'll give you another (there were several examples in the previous retellings) real-life example of what English is today.

I was at a barbecue a little a while ago. This barbecue was for engineers from all over the world. A french engineer was cooking hot dogs. There are regular hot dogs and cheese hot dogs, you know, this some cheese in the middle.

And it was the following way.

French engineer turns to his Korean colleague.

He says, "Would you like a hot dog?

Korean engineer answers, "Yes, please".

French engineer asks him if he wants a cheese. (not some cheese but a cheese - to express the way how non-native speakers communicate)

Korean engineer looks around at the table and says, "I see no cheese".

French engineer says, "It contains cheese".

Korean engineer doesn't understand.

French engineer tries again, "It is making from... with cheese".

The guy still doesn't understand.

French engineer tries again, "The hot dog is coming from... cheese is coming from the hot dog".

Korean guy cannot understand.

There is a Japanese engineer who has been listening to the whole conversation turns to the Korean engineer and says, "Ah! Cheese... integrator!"

And the Korean engineer understands. Everybody understands.

So, this is what English is today.