Brutkey

Emeritus Prof Christopher May
@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us

I've posted before on the UK's ongoing monolingualism & its impact on the (once trumpeted) attempts to promote a 'Global Britain'.... as we know, there has been reductions in funding & the time to teach languages in the school curriculum.

Now while there are other routes to language learning, nonetheless the striking reduction of A-level entries for modern languages (with the exception of Spanish) is a clear example of the progressive reduction of language learning.

#education #language

Steve Woods
@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk

@ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us I see the same trio of languages as were dominant 50 years ago are still dominant.

🦕 Justus ☠️ Tóth 🏁 Römeth
@Squig@eupolicy.social

@wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us Not like the map of Europe changed a lot to the detriment of those 3 languages.

David Chisnall (*Now with 50% more sarcasm!*)
@david_chisnall@infosec.exchange

@Squig@eupolicy.social @wood5y@mastodonapp.uk @ChrisMayLA6@zirk.us

The number of people in those countries who speak English has increased a lot though. I speak moderately competent French and can just about get by in German, but I rarely need to in major cities or tourist locations (it’s embarrassing how quickly people switch to speaking English to me, often before I’ve said anything).

In contrast, in Japan or China, I’m often reliant on miming or machine translation tools. Learning Japanese or Mandarin as a child would probably have been more useful.