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Why are the British so appalingly bad at foreign languages?
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I think its primarily due to the lack of options that kids have in schools, its so much easier to pick up languages when children are younger, but most primary schools don't have that option of learning foreign languages. By the time that they get to high school when they are forced to start learning another language its often quite difficult for people to pick it up which is discouraging. Once you can speak one language to a relatively advanced degree, it does make other languages very easy to pick up. I speak English, German, Punjabi and basic French and I've just enrolled myself on an Italian course so it can be done provided children are given the education to do so 
Lazy =/= appallingly bad ><'
Because so many other people speak English in other countries, that the English seem to see no point in learning other languages, which seems ludicrous to me because I would have thought, if anything, the fact that other countries are taught our language means we should make an effort to learn theirs.
On a more practical level which leads on from this I think it's also the fact that it's not compulsory to learn a language until secondary school, and even then you can drop it after 3 years when you pick your GCSEs. So most of us have 3 years experience of learning a language whilst those in other countries have more like 10
On a more practical level which leads on from this I think it's also the fact that it's not compulsory to learn a language until secondary school, and even then you can drop it after 3 years when you pick your GCSEs. So most of us have 3 years experience of learning a language whilst those in other countries have more like 10
Original post by Mr Inquisitive
Lazy =/= appallingly bad ><'
It does a lot of the time..
Original post by abc:)
It does a lot of the time..
Correlation doesn't imply causation, though.
I think, as does everyone else in the thread, it seems, that languages aren't taught in primary school and this is the biggest problem.
That said, I wasn't taught a language at primary school, and I'm studying Spanish at sixth form, and not doing too badly. It's about the level of interest you as an individual have in the subject. I didn't enjoy Spanish at school (secondary), but I loved the language itself. I still can't SPEAK a word, mind - I absolutely adore reading and writing Spanish, and I like how other people sound when they speak it. So actually, while I'm quite good with one foreign language, it is of little to no practical use at all to me.
There is probably also a level of laziness and arrogance about "everyone speaking English", but I think this is really secondary to the educational issue. More importantly, keeping kids engaged with it - schools can link up with other schools in the country whose language they want to learn, set up a class penpal system thing.
Just thought I'd put in my two pennies worth
That said, I wasn't taught a language at primary school, and I'm studying Spanish at sixth form, and not doing too badly. It's about the level of interest you as an individual have in the subject. I didn't enjoy Spanish at school (secondary), but I loved the language itself. I still can't SPEAK a word, mind - I absolutely adore reading and writing Spanish, and I like how other people sound when they speak it. So actually, while I'm quite good with one foreign language, it is of little to no practical use at all to me.
There is probably also a level of laziness and arrogance about "everyone speaking English", but I think this is really secondary to the educational issue. More importantly, keeping kids engaged with it - schools can link up with other schools in the country whose language they want to learn, set up a class penpal system thing.
Just thought I'd put in my two pennies worth
We don't need to learn to another language because we spent a lot of time and effort getting the rest of the world to learn another language for us.
Original post by Mr Inquisitive
Correlation doesn't imply causation, though.
Not necessarily no, but I don't see how you can deny that being appallingly bad at something can be caused by being lazy. If you're lazy at learning a language, you will probably be appallingly bad at it.
Edit - as a direct result, just to be clear
Original post by abc:)
Not necessarily no, but I don't see how you can deny that being appallingly bad at something can be caused by being lazy. If you're lazy at learning a language, you will probably be appallingly bad at it.
Edit - as a direct result, just to be clear
Edit - as a direct result, just to be clear
Yes, so lazy =/= appallingly lazy still stands - there's a correlation, but no absolute cause. :')
My friend's one of the most lazy people I know (particularly with language learning), but he can speak three languages fluently.
Original post by Marc707
Brits risk causing political and social isolation by their arrogance to refuse to learn other languages. English as a universal language is in decline and languages like mandarin and spanish may have more international influence in the future than they do now.
English is a first world language. Spanish is a 2nd/3rd world language at best and Mandarin is spoken by people living in a communist dictatorship.
It's a simple matter of economics. We tend to export services to the first world and import goods from the 2nd/3rd world. The buyer generally gets to dictate terms, so if you want us to buy your goods you have to speak English or we go elsewhere.
Trade in China is regulated by the government - who speak English when it suits them. Most of the population of China, although they don't speak English, are not allowed any contact with the outside world so it really doesn't matter.
Never felt the need, everywhere abroad I've been speak english
It's the English, not the British afaik - in Wales, most of us have spoken Welsh, if not from birth then from the age of three, and children who come to Wales from the age of 7 upwards go to a Welsh unit and learn to speak it there, so most of us are already bilingual - especially in North Wales. Speaking Welsh makes it so much easier to learn French and Spanish at school (never did German so I can't really comment), but almost all of us left secondary school able to speak two languages fluently and at least one conversationally - and some of us left speaking French almost-fluently too (we had a great GCSE French teacher 
)
)Of course, when you go to foreign countries the foreigners actually want to practise their English on you. Even though I speak French competently (I was working over there for a few months) people would still insist on speaking English (even if it was horrendous English) when they worked out from my accent that I was probably English. I don't think this reflects laziness or a lack of intelligence, but foreigners recognizing the global importance of speaking English and trying to make the most of an opportunity to learn the language.
In some cases, then yes it might be a case of laziness, and the fact that it isn't really compulsory in schools to study a language to GCSE level if you don't want to- would aggravate the situation. At the end of the day though, it is a matter of choice. If you want to learn the language to fit in with another culture, then all the better and you will probably have a more authentic cultural experience. If you are the type who isn't really fussed and is happy to continue to speak English in a foreign country, then that is fine too- it is good practise for the natives who want to learn. However, I would personally prefer to speak the language in order to prevent being taken advantage of in a foreign country.
In some cases, then yes it might be a case of laziness, and the fact that it isn't really compulsory in schools to study a language to GCSE level if you don't want to- would aggravate the situation. At the end of the day though, it is a matter of choice. If you want to learn the language to fit in with another culture, then all the better and you will probably have a more authentic cultural experience. If you are the type who isn't really fussed and is happy to continue to speak English in a foreign country, then that is fine too- it is good practise for the natives who want to learn. However, I would personally prefer to speak the language in order to prevent being taken advantage of in a foreign country.
Speak for yourself, I speak a further 3 languages.
By the time our education system gets round to languages, our young brains are past the 'sponge' stage and I guess without a good teacher, language learning can seem boring, repetitive and pointless.
Living abroad is actually embarrassing. We are that far behind, we don't even know it.
By the time our education system gets round to languages, our young brains are past the 'sponge' stage and I guess without a good teacher, language learning can seem boring, repetitive and pointless.
Living abroad is actually embarrassing. We are that far behind, we don't even know it.
Being someone who only really thought seriously about learning languages at university, I understand why.
First of all, I loved studying languages at school, though the teaching was not really useful and we ended up memorising the names of numbers, stationary, food, shops and never got past the present and passé composé. There is no real stimulus to learn more in your own time, nor to work out how the language works.
It is true that when you go abroad, you can get by with English, but this is NO excuse to just speak English. It's polite to learn someone else's language, plus it really improves the travel experience if you can communicate in the native language.
At university I am constantly stimulated, with language plays, tandem, societies, opportunities to speak, films etc, so now am proud to say I have learnt two more languages at the age of 20!
First of all, I loved studying languages at school, though the teaching was not really useful and we ended up memorising the names of numbers, stationary, food, shops and never got past the present and passé composé. There is no real stimulus to learn more in your own time, nor to work out how the language works.
It is true that when you go abroad, you can get by with English, but this is NO excuse to just speak English. It's polite to learn someone else's language, plus it really improves the travel experience if you can communicate in the native language.
At university I am constantly stimulated, with language plays, tandem, societies, opportunities to speak, films etc, so now am proud to say I have learnt two more languages at the age of 20!
Because schools don't start teaching languages properly until year 6/7 and then most children give them up a few years later because they're not compulsory at GCSE like Maths/Science/English (unless that's been changed since I went to school). They were compulsory at our school because we had a good languages department. We are appalling at making a concerted effort to learn/teach languages. I don't think anyone is under a different impression 
.
.Its really a matter of incentives. The reasoning is quite subtle.
For a young English person who wants to get on in life, there are about 1,000 subjects that will be more use to you than learning a foreign language fluently, mainly because there is no one obvious language to choose - French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu etc. You're better off waiting to find out which one will be most useful in whatever career you end up in and learning it then. It may turn out that you never need to learn a language properly because your career isn't going to benefit from it after all. Hence most people never really learn a language because they never really need to.
In comparison, for almost everyone else in the world, the situation is entirely different - there is one obvious language to learn - English - so you might as well get on with learning it right away. So even if it turns out they never need it, the probability that they might is sufficient incentive to learn it early.
For a young English person who wants to get on in life, there are about 1,000 subjects that will be more use to you than learning a foreign language fluently, mainly because there is no one obvious language to choose - French, German, Spanish, Italian, Russian, Cantonese, Mandarin, Japanese, Hindi, Arabic, Urdu etc. You're better off waiting to find out which one will be most useful in whatever career you end up in and learning it then. It may turn out that you never need to learn a language properly because your career isn't going to benefit from it after all. Hence most people never really learn a language because they never really need to.
In comparison, for almost everyone else in the world, the situation is entirely different - there is one obvious language to learn - English - so you might as well get on with learning it right away. So even if it turns out they never need it, the probability that they might is sufficient incentive to learn it early.
This is a stupid post. I speak 3 languages and can understand almost everything in a fourth even if I can't get my message across that well. 1) We can't all be good at everything; I may be able to speak all these languages, but I would fail in business and anything to do with maths - I still use my fingers to score up in scrabble! 2) Have you actually travelled around and gotten to know the culture? Yes, languages are compulsory in many countries, but how many people remember them when they leave school. I was au pairing for a family and the mother had to learn Russian, Danish and English at school and the only language she could still speak was Danish and that was only because she lived there for 3 years; many of my friends in Germany didn't want to speak English and couldn't speak any, in the same way we have people who may pass French GCSE here, but then afterwards, wouldn't actually be able to make conversation in French afterwards! My foreign friends from my language class out there also taught me that not many people could speak English. I was told by an Italian girl outright that she couldn't speak any English, which came as a shock to me because I'd been conversing with her until that moment in German :/.
My bf is also Greek and the language education out there is not much better and tells me not many people speak much English out there. When I went to Spain, I told them, in my very limited Spanish, that I couldn't really speak Spanish, but I do speak X, Y, Z and every time they either wanted to speak in German or French.
So whilst, yes, as a language student and hopeful language teacher, I say we should be learning more languages. But the fact is, we are no worse than other countries, we are just more open about not wanting to learn languages. It's all well and good these people learning 3 or 4 languages at school, but if they never use them again, they will forget the language and so the whole procedure was utterly a waste of time. People who have not got the aptitude for languages or the interest, are not going to learn very well, and that has nothing to do with being British as my TEFL course has taught me.
My bf is also Greek and the language education out there is not much better and tells me not many people speak much English out there. When I went to Spain, I told them, in my very limited Spanish, that I couldn't really speak Spanish, but I do speak X, Y, Z and every time they either wanted to speak in German or French.
So whilst, yes, as a language student and hopeful language teacher, I say we should be learning more languages. But the fact is, we are no worse than other countries, we are just more open about not wanting to learn languages. It's all well and good these people learning 3 or 4 languages at school, but if they never use them again, they will forget the language and so the whole procedure was utterly a waste of time. People who have not got the aptitude for languages or the interest, are not going to learn very well, and that has nothing to do with being British as my TEFL course has taught me.
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