To wish there was not a decline in the number of children studying foreign languages

[ForalltheSaints]

According to a BBC survey, a 45% drop over c20 years in the number of language GCSEs taken, with a bigger drop in French, though more taking Spanish.

Apparently because they are perceived as more difficult.

I rejoice in not being the typical Brit or American abroad expecting everyone to speak English. Should we not be more encouraging, perhaps by allowing universities if they wish to insist on one language GCSE alongside English Language and Maths as a condition of entry?

My DC started French in year 3 and they enjoy it. I’ve always taught them snippets of French from an early age anyway (what I picked up from my French Dad- only basics). AFAIK it’s still compulsory up until GCSE so they get a good six years if they don’t choose it at GCSE level.

I didn’t choose it because the teachers were awful, they made it so dreadfully boring.

Kazzyhoward after only two years of learning German at school, my parents took me to the Aachen Christmas Market. They were amazed that I could understand what was going on around me, read signs and order cake and coffee for the entire family in German. They still talk about this.

I had a very good German teacher.

Rumboogie wouldn't that be the other way round? English is a germanic language after all. Think german might be slightly easier to learn over french because the sounds and the structure were more in common. (Though I'd still argue for most kids both are pointless. Unlike a poster above despite having a level german I would have no way been able to deal with for example translating a menu and food ordering)

A-level really is a pretty decent standard. I have taught French and German up to A level standard for years. They are expected to be able to discuss complex social issues, immigration, culture, architecture, the evolution of family life etc etc.

Menus are a really bad thing on which to judge your standard of language though. You can have really good conversational French and still be baffled by a lot of stuff you'd find on a restaurant menu. Certainly at GCSE you learn basic foods that you'd be likely to eat at home, but restaurant menus are full of specific cuts of meat, particular types of fish, a bewildering range of sauces etc. The aim at GCSE is to cover a range of conversational topics, which inevitably only allows for a limited range of vocab in each.

You can have really good conversational French and still be baffled by a lot of stuff you'd find on a restaurant menu

We were in Paris last year and my (very old) O grade French and DH's Higher French stood us in very good stead in restaurants. That might reflect my food obsession though!

I really struggled with Latin GCSE and got it into my head I couldn't learn languages. Then came back to Latin at uni, found myself loving it, and good at it. I'm now also learning Dutch and Danish, though I'm still terrible at both.

Zwellers No, English is a hybrid language and exists in its own category linguistically, but was much influenced by Norman French. Hence much of our vocabulary is French-derived, and just as importantly much of the nuance of word usage derives from similar (but not the same) meanings existing in French-derived and Anglo-Saxon derived words.

Thinking about learning languages at school then struggling to read a menu as a pp has mentioned, if you at least know how to say "I would like..." or "please can I have..." there is no harm in using a dictionary for some of the unusual things you find on a menu. If you know the basics, it gives you the confidence to at least try, and hopefully enough interest to learn some vocabulary yourself that isn't taught in school.
Also learning a MFL does help with English grammar, as it makes you more aware of the structure of languages and the differences between them. All to the good imo.

The names of food products and traditional dishes are absolute basics of vocabulary in any language.

Depends on the menu - cabillaud and colin and merlu and loup de mer and écrevisse and homard and perdrix and gésiers are not basics that you will learn for GCSE. You'll learn fish and chicken and potato, but not necessarily parmentier or aligot or gratin dauphinois, nor all the different cuts of meat and culinary terms for preparations.

When in France we just used a translator app for the menus - it was all good! It feels like menus (even in the UK) are often written to baffle you anyway.

If we won't learn a foreign language, we should aim to find out more about the structure of English. More and more people are learning English as a foreign language around the world. It's helpful for us to use less complicated English and avoid idioms and understand nuances of English, such as accepting that "I want" and "I would like" are the same to a non-native speaker. They're not being intentionally rude when they use the former.

My favourite example was a Chinese PhD student with excellent English being told by her native English speaking supervisor that she "might like to change" an element of her thesis, not realising that what the supervisor actually meant was "change it" and that there was no element of choice.

If you have a good level of conversational French you can ask the waiter "qu'est-ce que c'est que la perdrix?"

Imo the whole Brexit debate has thrown up the danger of not making an effort around other cultures: the attitude that it's the other country that should be making the effort, the insistence that the Europeans will be reacting in this way or the other without the slightest attempt to check how matters are reported in the national press of other countries, the naïve belief that European politicians similarly don't have access to the British press ("make them blink", "pretend to be harder than we are" splashed all over the front pages), the unwavering faith in the "specialness" of Britain and British culture. One aspect of this is the belief that Europeans only learn English, that they only engage (as one culture) with Anglophones and not with each other: prime example being ?Boris trying to frighten the Swedish ambassador with the idea that if things were different he might have to speak German (he probably already does).

It would be much healthier for this nation to think of itself and its language as one of many possible options. Language teaching, if done well, might help with that. Deciding on behalf of the nation's children that language learning is useless is not going to help.

Totally agree Cory. British politicians should be embarrassed that they don’t speak German themselves, not trying to use other countries’ superior linguistic skills to try and create diplomatic offence. It’s laughably pathetic and the only person who comes out of it looking bad is the ignorant asshole who thought that speaking German was some kind of meaningful taunt.

(I think it was John Humphreys wasn’t it? Boris may have said something similar too.)

Totally agree about the awful attitude, but surely nobody is assuming that Europeans only learn English to speak to Brits. They use it as a lingua franca to talk to each other too, rather than attempt to learn all of each other's languages, which would be impossible. Yes it would be great if UK politicians spoke German. And French, Italian, Spanish etc etc... That's a bit of an ask though.

surely nobody is assuming that Europeans only learn English to speak to Brits. They use it as a lingua franca to talk to each other too, rather than attempt to learn all of each other's languages, which would be impossible.

They use it as a lingua franca to avoid having to speak every single language, but at least in my birth country it is not the only foreign language learnt and used. Most would also make an effort to speak German, quite a few know French or Spanish or Italian. English is important but it does not fill the role of The One and Only Foreign Language. Most of my uni friends would happily go and watch foreign films in at least 5 European languages without subtitles.
Even my youngest brother, who was known in the family for not being good at languages, speaks German to customers. It helps his business.

Most of my uni friends would happily go and watch foreign films in at least 5 European languages without subtitles.

I'm a linguist, but find this pretty astonishing tbh. I teach two foreign languages to A Level and can have basic conversations in another two (but would have trouble in a non-subtitled film in them if I wanted to actually understand it properly). I don't know how a normal person would physically have the time to learn 5+ languages to that level. I guess maybe if you lived in a very cosmopolitan city and did a job which involved lots of direct contact with people who spoke those languages.... Still, most people aren't in that situation.

Totally agree that, in terms of being a uni student or graduate, it seems normal to be able to speak two or three languages pretty well for Scandinavians, Dutch and Belgian people, a considerable number of Germans, Czechs, Poles and French people. And these are people who are studying politics or something- not a language degree.
I did Erasmus at uni and had a couple of conversations with Swedish / Dutch people that went like this - (non native English speaker in perfect colloquial, RP English ) “I’m really bad at languages” - (me) “what!? your English is great!” (Reply) - “oh no English doesn’t count, I’m not very good at Spanish and (insert other language)”.

Find it fascinating that almost- mastery in English is such an obvious given that it didn’t factor as ‘learning another language’. And I obviously don’t mean everybody (apart from in the Netherlands where I was astounded by how good everyone was at English) but in the UK a graduate who speaks one other language is notable and usually has a degree in languages.
I don’t know how it happens but it somehow does!

I reckon A level languages is one of the more practical choices for actual real life use. I couldn’t take my biology and chemistry A levels into a hospital and say - hello I’d like to start working as a doctor now, A levels are a step in the process of doing a degree usually. By themselves they don’t achieve much rather they give an impression of your academic aptitude.
I could use my French A level to make holidays easier, read in French, access French culture though.

As I didn’t apply for medicine in the end my science A Levels are pretty much ‘useless’ in terms of the content I learnt (which I’ve now completely forgotten) and in any actual proper science they are pretty redundant as comparatively basic.

this pretty astonishing tbh. I teach two foreign languages to A Level and can have basic conversations in another two (but would have trouble in a non-subtitled film in them if I wanted to actually understand it properly). I don't know how a normal person would physically have the time to learn 5+ languages to that level

This is very much a question of attitude. As speakers of a small language we just tended to accept that the world wasn't geared up to our convenience, that we didn't have the luxury of waiting around until we had mastered another language enough to enjoy its products effortlessly, that if we wanted to get anywhere we would have to get stuck in, understand as much as we could and hope things got easier with time.

When I started as an undergraduate my reading list on the archaeology module involved works in 5 different languages. There was no point in wailing that I hadn't got to the right degree of mastery: clearly nobody was going to go to the expense of setting up a publishing company and translating textbooks into my language for an annual readership of maybe 30 students. Translators need to live, publishing companies need to make profits, this wasn't going to happen. If I found it difficult or made mistakes, that was part of the learning process.

I grew up in a very small town in the middle of nowhere, but again you very quickly came up against the fact that not enough books were being translated so if you wanted to read beyond the most common books you had to read "foreign". I could read a French novel fairly effortlessly long before I had had the chance to meet a French person. There were no French people where I lived, no internet in those days, very rarely a French film on television. But my friends who took French at uni were setting up Moliere in their second year.

You're right, it is a question of attitude, or rather of motivation. But it doesn't seem very reasonable of people to reproach native English speakers for not doing this when there is basically no motivation for them to do it. If pretty much everything you'll ever need to access is in your own language, a difficult, mistake-ridden learning process is simply not worth the effort, especially when it is far from obvious which languages it might be worthwhile learning.
I love learning languages. It's pretty much my favourite thing to do. But even as a language teacher, learning more than French and Spanish wouldn't be much practical use to me. Even my German isn't that much use any more, as German has disappeared from most British schools in favour of Spanish. I've taught myself enough Spanish to teach primary level and would love to do enough to teach GCSE and eventually A Level, but I don't have the time to devote to it.

Ugh, I swear I put paragraphs in that.

But it doesn't seem very reasonable of people to reproach native English speakers for not doing this when there is basically no motivation for them to do it

This is because we are fostering a culture where understanding where other cultures are coming from to advance communication is not seen as a motivation in itself. I find that is a sad indictment of our educational system.

I’m interested in the extent to which language has been a factor in limiting the extent to which people in the U.K. feel they benefit from the EU. One of the common things I have heard in the referendum debate is about the disparity in migration - ‘they’ come over here but ‘we’ don’t go ‘over there’ for work (obviously different when it comes to retirement) and therefore people don’t see migration as involving the give and take which I think perhaps other EU countries can see? And if that’s the case I suspect it is partly because it is harder for U.K. workers who don’t speak another European language to go and work elsewhere in the EU than it is for other EU countries’ workers who learn English from an early age to come and work here. Maybe. Just a thought.