The Spanish are as bad at languages as we are!

Brits bad at languages?  What about the Spanish?  Paul Whitelock discovers that all is not well with foreign language learning in the Iberian Peninsula…

THE SPANISH are as bad as the English when it comes to learning foreign languages. It is an accepted fact back home that we are not good at learning foreign languages.

According to Mike Baker, Education Correspondent of the Guardian, writing recently in that paper, “… when it comes to learning foreign languages, the UK is worryingly out of step with the rest of Europe. We have long been the language-learning dunces, but now we are slipping further behind.” When new Europe-wide league tables about language learning competence in schools were published for the first time in 2012, the UK was in the relegation zone.

Foreign language learning is most definitely in crisis in the UK – but it is not a healthy situation in Spain either.  Despite the fact that since 2009 a foreign language has been compulsory from age three in Spanish schools there is still a huge problem here.

Historically, poor relations between Spain and England meant that there was little interest in English in Spain until the middle of the last century. During the 19^th Century and the first half of the 20^th the external language of communication for the Spanish was French.  It was not until the inter-war period that the Spanish social elite began to show an interest in English language and culture.  Another mistake that Spain has made and continues to make is that everything foreign is translated or dubbed into Spanish.  There is no culture of subtitling, for example, foreign films and TV programmes, as in certain other countries, like the Netherlands.

Since English is clearly the lingua franca of today, in other words the language of business, politics, technology, culture and the academic world, it is extremely important that the Spanish improve their English language skills.  Globalisation has brought about the internationalisation of English and that will never change, despite the growth of Arabic, Chinese and, indeed, Spanish itself.  A Spaniard without some knowledge of English will be less employable in the future than one who has and, as a nation, Spain has begun to realise that fact.  But it will take time.  In England, alas, the politicians have not yet realised that they need to act now to make learning a foreign language compulsory from primary school through to age 16, as is the case now in most other developed nations.

The English have to realise that just because English is a worldwide language it does not mean we do not need foreign language skills. As the late former German Chancellor Willi Brandt famously said:  “If I am selling to you I’ll happily speak English, but if you are selling to me, dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen!”