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First study the text below , please.

Interestingly, English has fewer native speakers than Chinese, but there are about one billion learners of English all around the world. They learn English as an international language.

If I decide to make a question with the answer: as an international language. what would be the question word or style to get the favorite answer ? Is it possible to make a question like:

Q:What do English learners learn English as?

Answer: They learn English as an international language.

Thanks.

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  • That's is the question I would create. Note to question you didn't ask: "Create", or even "write" is preferred to "make" in this case. This is a very common mistake I see among people learning ESL. The choice of verb can be confusing. Usually "Create" is used when the result is something new. A more specific verb is used in place of "create" when it applies. I wrote a song. I painted a painting. I created a logo. However: I made a mistake. I made a mess. I made a decision.
    – Wayne Goode
    Nov 18 '17 at 0:53
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    I'm puzzled by what the example sentence actually means - the inference is that native speakers learn English as a national language?. I would use '... as a second language', or '... as an way to communicate internationally' if that is what the author is getting at. Also, in this instance, I think 'make' is fine. As Wayne says, the result is something new.
    – mcalex
    Dec 20 '17 at 10:02
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First, although it may be out of the questions,I think it is an important part to find out the original question of the answer.

From where I stand,the sentence "They learn English as an international language" is really difficult to understand.

I know English is an international language,but can we learn it "as" an international language?

In such a case,"as" means similarly "to be".

For example,I acquired a lot of skills as a way to show myself. In this case, acquiring skills has something to do with a way to show myself and,of course, "as" can be replaced with "to be".

Thus,your sentence can be seen as "They learn English to be an international language" and that's why it seems odd to me. International languages have nothing to do with learning them！

The word "as" in this sentence can be seen as "to be",so, actually,we can just use "to be" instead of "as" to make questions understood.

But,if we change the sentence into other meaningful sentence like"They learn English as a manner of communication",the question can be more exact sentences like "why do they learn English?","what is an intention of learning English for them?" or "what do they learn English to be?"

I'm not a English speaker,but I hope this answer can help you.xd

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Your question is well formed, but I'm still not sure I'd know what you were getting at without the background you provided. I'd probably make it more of a targetted question: "Do more people use English as an international language than for other purposes?"

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