brits wish they'd learnt another language

Mark Herbert of the British Council spoke back in 2015 about the Brits being 'bad at languages' - but regretting that they were:

"We're a nation full of regret when it comes to losing our language skills, but will we ever change" 

Do you have regrets from your school days?

I’m sure the answer is 'yes, of course'. What it may not be is 'oui, bien sûr', 'ja, natürlich' or 'sí, ciertamente', because despite a new survey from the British Council revealing that more than half of us in the UK regret losing languages learnt during our school days, the same study highlights that most of us have seen those skills vanish within just one year of finishing education.

Brits ever bother with language learning?'

It was the same news in 2020:

Two in three (66 per cent) adults in the UK say they did not fully appreciate the benefits of studying a foreign language when they were at school, a new survey from the British Council has revealed. Just nine per cent of UK adults said they had kept up the foreign language they studied at school, with more than six in ten (64 per cent) wishing that they had done so.

Six in ten UK adults wish they’d kept up the foreign language they studied at school | British Council

Another report in 2021 showed the same:

New research shows that just 6% of Brits say they can speak a second language proficiently, despite a third (33%) of UK adults having grown up in a bilingual household. The British Council estimates that over 300 languages are spoken in London alone, and yet Brits are still recognised as the ‘worst language learners in Europe’. The research from Duolingo also revealed that one in five (21%) UK adults admit they believed ‘everyone abroad spoke English’ when they were school age.

When quizzed about their experience of language learning at school, 81% admitted they wish they’d paid more attention in language classes. Respondents said they had not focused at the time because they didn’t think learning a language would be useful (41%) and that the classes were too difficult (40%).

However, it now appears bilingualism could be on the up. Committed to highlighting the importance of families learning languages together outside the classroom, Duolingo’s research paints a far more promising picture when it comes to the next generation of language learners. Set to broaden their language horizons, over three quarters of parents (77%) said that their child is learning to speak a second language, despite the fact a third of adults (33%) admitted they hadn’t taken a language at school themselves.

Just 6% of us are proficient in a second language, research shows - Wales Online

And this month, the latest from the British Council is saying the same:

One in four UK adults regret not speaking a second language | E L Gazette

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