quote:

Originally posted by evil_bastard Personally, I think the UK and America should do more to learn foreign languages. Countries like Britain and America are all apalling at learning other languages. I feel quite stupid when I go to another country, and a lad my age can speak my language and I can't speak his.

That is partly true but the UK is improving. At my secondary school it was compulsory to take two foreign languages for three years and take atleast one for another two after that. Then they encouraged us to take one for another two years on top of that.

I learnt French from my last year of junior school through to my fifth year of secondary school (six years) and I learnt Spanish for seven years at secondary school. The school also encouraged extra-curricular language lessons and I took a two year Italian course to extend the Italian I knew from my childhood.

At university i'm given ample opportunity to study atleast one foreign language with my course.

I understand that this is a very recent development and earlier generations were not given such an opportunity.

The point I will make about the UK is that we are influenced greatly by the US market. For example, very few foreign language movies are ever shown in prime time and are usually scheduled on an obscure digital channel whereas about 50% of all our TV is from the US. In my opinion the government should make an effort to enhance coverage of EU life through the UK media to generate awareness of other cultures which is a key factor.

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Chiller Twist - Stringz Unlimited (Shelley Remix)
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I don't doubt there is ample opportunity to learn a foreign language, but there's a general unwillingness to do so. I think part of it stems from the American culture which is invading our daily lives. More Britons are becoming obese than ever before, another thing that has come from American culture. The average American walks just 1.1 miles a week, and when you look at the fast food chains that have come form there to here, it's very telling.

I think a part of it is due to the teaching. I got a C in my French GCSE even though I could not compose a single sentence in French. Something is wrong with the system if I can blagg it that easily. We were never taught to speak French, we were just taught 5 years of rubbish about correct grammar, more so than we'd learn in English. This is not the way to learn a language. You can speak English fluently without knowing how to correctly use apostrophes. We were also taught a lot about how sentences are formed. This was pointless, because you learn this naturally, just as we learnt English when we were children.

I think we should be a bit more pro European than pro American. Contrary to popular belief, our economic ties with America are not that strong. We do the vast bulk of our trading with Europe. This might sound like I'm having a dig at America - I'm not. It's up to ourselves whose culture we follow, but I can't say I enjoy the growing arrogance and overall egotistical nature of Britain both as a country and as a people.