Learning a language is resolution for one in five Brits, survey says.

From The BBC

29 December 2017

Learning a language will be a new year's resolution for about one in five Britons in 2018, a survey suggests. About one in three said they intend to learn at least some key phrases. Spanish was the most popular language among 2,109 UK adults questioned by Populus for the British Council. "If we are to remain globally competitive post-Brexit, we need more people who can speak languages," said British Council schools advisor, Vicky Gough.

Of the representative sample of adults polled:

64% said they had always wanted to speak another language fluently
56% said they regretted never having made the effort to do so
58% agreed it was more important than ever for people in the UK to learn another language but only a third said they could currently hold a basic conversation in one
45% were embarrassed by their poor language skills.

In November, a British Council report identified Spanish, followed by Mandarin, French, Arabic and German, as being the most important language for Britons to master as Brexit approaches. The organisation warns that uptake of languages in schools continues to fall with official figures indicating a 7.3 percentage point fall in the number of pupils in England, Wales and Northern Ireland taking GCSE exams in languages in the past year. In Scotland, official figures show a similar falls in numbers taking French and German qualifications.

A report by MPs has estimated that poor language skills in the workforce costs the UK economy £50bn a year in lost export opportunities. Businesses struggle to fill posts that require language skills said the report from the All Party Parliamentary Group on modern languages. The MPs called for a national recovery programme to improve language skills. Ms Gough said the New Year was the perfect time for budding linguists to get started. "It is fantastic that many of us hope to brush up on our language skills in 2018," said Ms Gough. "The languages we are most keen to learn are some of the languages the UK needs most. But the country is still facing a languages deficit."

[I’m definitely not one for New Year’s Resolutions but I have been thinking of learning an alternate language for some time now. Presently, and most embarrassingly, I can only speak one language fairly fluently – my own. But at least when ‘abroad’ I do make some effort to at least be able to say ‘hello’, ‘goodbye’ and ‘thank you’ in the language of where I’m staying. I can even, if pushed, hold a brief ‘conversation’ in French as long as we don’t discuss anything more than ordering a drink or asking directions. I’ve even successfully ordered something in Portuguese and managed to say thank you afterwards which I’m still impressed by. But anyway – I’m thinking Cantonese for 2018. Partially because there’s a Chinese contractor at work I can get to correct my undoubtedly poor pronunciation and, probably like everywhere else on the planet, my local university is drowning in Chinese students and you really can’t help bumping into them. I’ll probably give up after some easy words/phrases but you never know….. If my sister can learn conversational French (spending her summers at her property in France helps) and my brother can say a few words in various Eastern European languages to say hi to people at his gym I’m sure that I can shoot the breeze in Cantonese. We’ll see……]