British Council: Languages for the Future

[sjintje]

This report seems to be from 2013. Languages ranked according to usefullness from British perspective.

https://www.britishcouncil.org/sites/de ... report.pdf

Spanish
Arabic
French
Mandarin
German
Portuguese
Italian
Russian
Turkish
Japanese


Based on:

1. current UK export trade
2. the language needs of UK business
3. UK government trade priorities
4. emerging high growth markets
5. diplomatic and security priorities
6. the public’s language interests
7. outward visitor destinations
8. UK government’s International Education Strategy priorities
9. levels of English proficiency in other countries
10. the prevalence of different languages in internet.

Surprised to see Arabic so high. Seems to be based on the government strategegic interests critera (3,5,8) and the poor English skills of that region (9), but I would have thought most interactions would be with the educated elite.

Turkish also.

Portuguese slightly high.

Russia bizarrely low on the government interest scores.

Dutch and Polish just outside the top 10. I'd have thought they were more useful to the British.

Rating of foreigners' English abilities seems a bit variable too (category 9). Seems to indicate Japanese speak better English than the French.
(Actually this category is incorrectly rated, many less important languages are ignored, effectively giving them a zero, implying they speak perfect English. Probably not that important, but a more consistent methodology woulld have raised the overall ranking of Korean and Indonesian, for example)

(I didn't really read much, just looked at the tables and annexes)

[Elenia]

Not surprised about Turkish. In my part of London there are a lot of native Turkish speakers. Second generation immigrants tend to still speak Turkish with each other. Children of Turkish speakers don't seem as ready to throw out their parents language in favour of English as speakers of other languages, either. Turkish was the first foreign language outside of French that I was aware of, and the first language I tried to learn. I didn't get very far, given that I was about seven and had no clue how to go about it.

I am very surprised that Polish doesn't rate higher.

[sillygoose1]

I've been reading around that Portuguese is supposedly getting pretty big these days. I know that at my former university the Portuguese department is mixed with the Spanish one and they are starting to offer dual degrees.

I'm a bit surprised at the Italian rating. I was under the impression that the British didn't have much that much contact with Italy outside of vacationing.

Does anyone know if a report like this exists for America/Canada/Australia? I'm curious to compare the ratings of the big Anglophone countries. The closest you can probably get for America is the CIA and FBI most wanted languages list but that's only based on domestic and government interests...

[Brian]

Second generation immigrants tend to still speak Turkish with each other. Children of Turkish speakers don't seem as ready to throw out their parents language in favour of English as speakers of other languages, either.

Yes, that's interesting. Germany has a large Turkish population and even 2-3 generations down the line, there are still widespread issues with Turkish children having difficulties in school due to lack of command of the host language.

Never met a German that speaks Turkish though!

[limey75]

German is dying in the UK. It's barely available for A-Level anymore. Fewer children are doing it for GCSE.

On a recent trip to a massive London bookstore, French and Spanish had many shelves of books. German had 1.5 shelves. Even Italian and Portueguese had more than German. From memory Chinese had nearly as much.

[Elenia]

German is dying in the UK. It's barely available for A-Level anymore. Fewer children are doing it for GCSE.

On a recent trip to a massive London bookstore, French and Spanish had many shelves of books. German had 1.5 shelves. Even Italian and Portueguese had more than German. From memory Chinese had nearly as much.

I think I know exactly which big London bookshop you are talking about here. To be honest, it's not such a surprise. The French population of London is massive and still very French. German also has a much smaller linguistic spread than French, although it is definitely spoken in some powerhouse countries.

(I'm not so sure I do know which bookshop you are talking about, actually. The one I'm thinking of, German has an entire aisle, as does Italian. Chinese gets just over a quarter of an isle, which it most notably shares with Japanese and Korean...)

[limey75]

I'm talking about the big Waterstones in Bloomsbury (right by UCL). I'm guessing you're talking about Foyles?

[gsbod]

Take up of French for GCSE and A level is also declining, so I don't think this is a good indicator of the status of German in the UK.

I was actually pleasantly surprised by the number of people I have met here who have done a good job of learning German. I've had no trouble joining good quality classes and there is an active conversation group in my city. I think the idea of learning French and Spanish is more popular here, but I don't know how well that translates into results.

[Ogrim]

Thanks for sharing this report. It is interesting and a bit surprising that they put Spanish at the top and French and German only third and fifth repsectively, but I guess it has to do with the criteria they use for measuring "usefulness". Obviously the diplomatic and security priorities must play a big role in putting Arabic in second place.

Another survey from 2014 of UK business by the CBI, referred to in this article has the following ranking:

1. French
2. German
3. Spanish
4. Mandarin
5. Arabic

This is of course only from a business perspective, so government priorities or the public's language interests do not come into play.

[Elexi]

German is definitely on the decline in English schools and universities - less schools offer it at all compared to 30 years ago and a number of university departments have been closed to re-allocate funds elsewhere.

German (and languages in general) is perceived as a hard subject by students hoping to get an A or A* in their exams. As many Russell Group universities require three straight As for entry, and no longer do interviews to make individual offers, students are choosing subjects that increase their chances. In addition the connection between results tables and school status that came about under the previous Labour government mean that schools slowly drop subjects that do not improve their statistics.

In saying that, there are plenty of Germans in London - where I live in South East London appears at times to be a German colony - and there are plenty of adults learning German post school. The problem is in mainstream education, not in the desire of people to learn German.