immigrants with no second language? it’s true britishness
do the brits really need to learn a foreign language when everyone speaks english?
We need a little help perhaps:
Top tips — How to learn a language
Luis von Ahn, the founder of Duolingo, has two tips for learning a language. The first is to accept the cold reality that it takes time and work. “The more time you put in the better. It’s not magic,” he tells i.The second piece of advice is to use your target language while abroad – don’t surrender to embarrassment by reverting to your native tongue.
“I suffer from this,” Von Ahn admits. “I’m very ashamed – when I’m not nearly perfect in a language, I don’t want to talk because I feel like you’re going to judge me.”
He adds: “The people we’ve seen that are best at learning a language are the ones that don’t care about sounding stupid.”
The crisis in language education across the UK — what it means for schools and the future of business
Britain is bottom of the class when it comes to second languages. Will Hazell asks why learning the lingo remains so foreign to us
As a nation, we are not known for our proficiency in foreign languages. The stereotype of the Brit abroad, repeating English slowly and loudly to the locals, has more than a grain of truth.
In England, language study has declined so much that the exam regulator, Ofqual, recently decided to lower grade boundaries in GCSE French and German to encourage teenagers to take them.
Can anything be done about our struggles? Or should we lighten up about it? A former Downing Street education expert has told i that seriously improving our language ability is not a high-enough priority to justify the vast expense involved.
In Britain, 34.6 per cent of people aged between 25 and 64 report that they know one or more foreign language, compared with an EU average of 64.8 per cent.
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