Jay Walker explains why two billion people around the world are trying to learn English. He shares photos and spine-tingling audio of Chinese students rehearsing English -- "the world's second language" -- by the thousands.

“The world has a new mania — a mania for learning English,” said Jay Walker on the TED stage in 2009. English is accepted as a shared language of science, a language of global business and the language of the Internet, with at least 1.5 billion students learning it worldwide. So the TED Distribution team wondered: What if students could l...

Sharpen your pencils! It’s time to hit the books again, with these TED Talks that take you through a busy day of math, history, gym, lunch, English, science and art. No finals required.

Open up a whole new world of possibilities and experiences with these talks that show the benefit (and fun!) of learning a new language.

Jok Church created the science-education comic strip "You Can with Beakman and Jax" and the zany TV series "Beakman's World."

Susan Savage-Rumbaugh has made startling breakthroughs in her lifelong work with chimpanzees and bonobos, showing the animals to be adept in picking up language and other "intelligent" behaviors.

Makhtoum Abdalla is passionate about equal access to quality education for all children and young people.

English is fast becoming the world's universal language, and instant translation technology is improving every year. So why bother learning a foreign language? Linguist and Columbia professor John McWhorter shares four alluring benefits of learning an unfamiliar tongue.

Amber Galloway-Gallego is a world-renowned ASL interpreter specializing in music.

A thoughtful selection of engaging TED Talks, translated into 40+ languages thanks to our wonderful TED Translators community!

Jinsop Lee is an industrial designer who believes that great design appeals to all five senses.

National Geographic Learning’s goal is to bring the world to the classroom, and the classroom to life for English language learners at all levels. With National Geographic Learning programs with TED Talks, students learn their world by experiencing it through the stories, ideas, photography and video of National Geographic and TED. TED Speaker ...

Patricia Ryan is a longtime English teacher who asks a provocative question: Is the world's focus on English preventing the spread of great ideas in other languages? In other words: What if Einstein had to pass the TOEFL? It's a passionate defense of translating and sharing ideas.

Look at the letters around you: on street signs, stores, restaurant menus, the covers of books. Whether you realize it or not, the letters are speaking to you, telling you something beyond the literal text -- that whatever they represent is modern or finely crafted or fantastical or zany. Learn to decode this secret language with lettering desig...

Spelling reformers have been advocating for changes to make English spelling more intuitive and less irregular. One example of its messiness: take the “g-h” sound from “enough,” the “o” sound from “women” and the “t-i” sound from “action,” and you could argue that “g-h-o-t-i” spells “fish.” So, how did English get like this? Arika Okrent explore...

All it takes is a simple S to make most English words plural. But it hasn't always worked that way (and there are, of course, exceptions). John McWhorter looks back to the good old days when English was newly split from German -- and books, names and eggs were beek, namen and eggru! [Directed by Lippy, narrated by John McWhorter].

Kristen Nguyen believes in the power of education to transform individuals and promote equity, inclusion and healing in communities.

Ann Morgan considered herself well read -- until she discovered the "massive blindspot" on her bookshelf. Amid a multitude of English and American authors, there were very few books from beyond the English-speaking world. So she set an ambitious goal: to read one book from every country in the world over the course of a year. Now she's urging ot...

We need to talk to kids about the risks they face online, says information security expert Sebastián Bortnik. In this talk, Bortnik discusses the issue of "grooming" -- the sexual predation of children by adults on the internet -- and outlines the conversations we need to start having about technology to keep our kids safe. (In Spanish with Engl...

"Do you know what I mean?" Legendary poet, lyricist and screenwriter Javed Akhtar asks why we seem to be losing our power to use words -- and inspires us to better understand and communicate with one another using this near-magical tool that carries our culture across generations. (In Hindi with English subtitles)

With warmth and respect, Gonzalo Vilariño tells the captivating story of Argentina's blind soccer team -- and how a sincere belief in themselves and their capabilities transformed the players from humble beginnings into two-time World Champions. "You have to get out there and play every game in this beautiful tournament that we call life," Vilar...

Carina Morillo knew almost nothing about autism when her son Ivan was diagnosed -- only that he didn't speak or respond to words, and that she had to find other ways to connect with him. She shares how she learned to help her son thrive by being curious along with him. (In Spanish with English subtitles)

One could argue that slang words like ‘hangry,’ ‘defriend’ and ‘adorkable’ fill crucial meaning gaps in the English language, even if they don't appear in the dictionary. After all, who actually decides which words make it into those pages? Language historian Anne Curzan gives a charming look at the humans behind dictionaries, and the choices th...

In a captivating, poetic ode to the beauty and strength of mixed languages, writer Julián Delgado Lopera paints a picture of immigrant and queer communities united not by their refinement of language but by the creative inventions that spring from their mouths. They invite everyone to reconsider what "proper" English sounds like – and imagine a ...

Historian Elizabeth Stordeur Pryor leads a thoughtful and history-backed examination of one of the most divisive words in the English language: the N-word. Drawing from personal experience, she explains how reflecting on our points of encounter with the word can help promote productive discussions and, ultimately, create a framework that reshape...

In this fun, short talk from TEDYouth, lexicographer Erin McKean encourages — nay, cheerleads — her audience to create new words when the existing ones won’t quite do. She lists out 6 ways to make new words in English, from compounding to “verbing,” in order to make language better at expressing what we mean, and to create more ways for us to un...

Despite being ranked fifth of all countries in the world for language diversity, the United States tends to focus heavily on English in schools, with the native languages of students often going unrecognized. Educator Megan Alubicki Flick advocates for dual language programs— which focus on developing and sustaining two languages— and explains h...

You can kick Jorge Ramos out of your press conference (as Donald Trump infamously did in 2015), but you can never silence him. A reporter for more than 30 years, Ramos believes that a journalist's responsibility is to question and challenge those in power. In this compelling talk -- which earned him a standing ovation midway through -- Ramos exp...

How much energy and brain power do we devote to learning how to spell? Language evolves over time, and with it the way we spell -- is it worth it to spend so much time memorizing rules that are filled with endless exceptions? Literary scholar Karina Galperin suggests that it may be time for an update in the way we think about and record language...

About this event: You are cordially invited to the 3rd Anniversary Edition of TEDxTheHague salon! Yes, thanks to your support we've made it through a 3-year journey of connection, inspiration and discovery. That's 31 sessions, over 100 TED videos watched and — often passionately — discussed, and 1 awesome TEDxLive event. And be assured, we're not done yet! ...