Did you know ?

1. 10% of the world's population speak English as their mother tongue (Chinese 21%, Spanish 6%, Russian 6%, Malay 4%, Hindi 4%, Japanese 3%, Arabic 3%, Portuguese 3%, French 2%, German 2%)
2. Business letter is a formal document typically sent externally to those outside a company but is also sent internally to those within a company. It is estimated that close to 100 million business letters are written each workday.
3. There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.
4. Thumbing your nose (raising your thumb to your nose and fanning your fingers) is a sign of mockery throughout most of the world.
   In Australia, it is rude to wink at women.In Brazil, pulling down the lower lid of the right eye means that the listener doubts what you are saying.In Korea, it is rude to keep your hands behind your back or in your pockets.

Do you have interesting facts to share with us ? Please, feel free to post them here.

Your Berlitz Team