Two questions about an article

[Justin_Huang]

Hi,

I have two questions about the artile in www.english-for-winners.com.

(1)

I had never any chance to meet a native speaker of English in person so I had no idea as to what extent I would be able to actually understand and speak real authentic English.

Shouldn’t we say: I never had any chance to …

(2)

So, after the Berlin Wall had come down I finally had plenty of opportunity to meet and interact with people whose native language was English.

I know the sentence is talking about the past. But I think a person’s native language will never change. Can I rewrite the sentence by changing was to is without changing the tense of the main clause?

Thank you.

Justin

[Dozy]

1. Right, “I had never any chance” is not a very natural word order. Usually you would say “I never had any chance”.

2. This sentence is more natural with “was”.

[Justin_Huang]

Thanks, Dozy.

I have one more question:

(3)

To me, English is not just a second language. It’s so much more. The English language has given me the means to …

Is the article “The” before “English language” redundant?

[Dozy]

No, it is required.