The most obvious strengths that English has is the fact that it is widely spoken and understood, and that it has a respected tradition. I mean; who hasn't heard of Shakespeare? It's biggest weaknesses , in my humble opinion, lie in the fact that its orthography does not always correspond to pronunciation, and that it is fairly difficult to find words that rhyme. This last aspect of the language makes its poetry (again, at least in my opinion, and perhaps more proper of modern poetry) sound like prose. Also, being a Germanic language, it lacks the phonetic beauty of Romance languages. I reiterate that this answer is based on my humble opinion, and since I am certainly not the expert, I could very well be wrong. I can't wait to see what the Quora community has to say about it. ;-)