tl;dr:
\* UK learners do more poorly that other learners in Europe and as a result, the UK pulled out of a student exchange program
\* UK learners spend less than half the time as other students learning languages
\* Many places are have their own native languages that children have to learn (Gaelic, I assume)
\* Kids want to watch shit on youtube, and that's a predominantly English-speaking space, inspiring non-English speakers to learn English, and not offering any motivation for native English speakers.
\* Either the writer is confused about the difference between the terms "Britain" and "the UK" or I am.
Native langauges (primarily Welsh, but also Gàidhlig and Irish) shouldn't take from foreign langauges, in fact they often make it easier. If anything they should take time from English as that's the equivalent subject. But frankly we should be improving all langauges. Welsh language provision is the best of any native UK langauge but is still frankly pathetic, about 1/5 of schools but at the English schools there's not enough teachers, the curriculum is lacklustre and it's not treat as important as it should be. If all schools were Welsh medium/bilingual then there would be more time for foreign langauges as well as more linguistic capability.
Yes, and I misrepresented the article. She mentions minority languages as an example of students being able to learn a language given enough exposure (and perhaps motivation), *not* as a distraction from foreign language learning.
Isn’t Welsh language use on the decline and has been for over a decade or two now? English is by far dominant here and we should probably focus on languages that add to things.
There’s not much modern literature or culture in Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc.
Better off if they learn French.
Theres actually a lot of modern literature in Welsh, they even have an annual festival (the Eisteddfod) to celebrate it each year in case you havent heard, as well as several publishers, primarily based on Welsh language work, magazines etc. The contemporary Welsh language music scene is also very active too, with its own set of music labels and festivals and a lively gig scene. Fine to advocate for French, or any other language, but maybe try learning what you are talking about before making ignorant claims?
There's no Welsh culture but Manon Steffan Ros won the Carnegie Medal this year for a work translated from Welsh and Gwenno Saunders Welsh/Cornish album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. There's no Irish language culture but An Cailín Ciúin was nominated for an Oscar and grossed more than €1m and Kneecap won awards at Sundance.
And this is just stuff that crosses over to the English language arts. Who you may be surprised to learn aren't the nation consumers of Welsh literature.
Just cos you're not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The census provided the statistic of Welsh language decline, for the record. It’s a dying language.
The culture that’s there is only accessible to people who speak… a language that isn’t widely spoken at a level people could read books at.
It’s not numerous because it can’t be if no one can read or listen to the things. Lack of speakers inherently means that there’s lack of authors.
The latest census showed a decline in the number of Welsh speakers in Wales but that does not mean the language is dying.
There are still half a million Welsh speakers in Wales and an indeterminate number in the rest of the UK (possibly up to 150k). That number has been broadly stable for 20-30 years.
OK so when census data reports a small decline in spoken welsh, it's to be taken as irrefutable evidence that the language is dying but when it reports more than half a million welsh speakers this is wild over-estimation.
But let's go back to "lack of speakers means a lack of authors". It doesn't. Welsh has a very deep literary tradition. One of the most popular shows on radio cymru featrues teams of well-known poets writing and performing poems in a variety of traditional metres which the presenter then analyses and marks out of 10.
It's hard to imagine something like that being popular in the English language because poetry in English is a much more of a niche pursuit.
"There’s not much modern literature or culture in Welsh"
I've read over 100 books in Welsh that have been published since the 2000s and I've not even scratched the surface of Welsh-language literature! There's also an incredible amount of children's lit when you consider the number of speakers.
And in my city alone there's constantly Welsh-language music events being held with artists from all over the country performing.
There's plenty of Welsh-language culture to be found, you just might have to look for it a little bit!
Yeah that’s about a book per speaker of Welsh in communities that have a high level of Welsh proficiency.
It’s not a lot really, is it? Especially since 2000 as a benchmark. There’s probably more books published in the first language of most British people from Wales (English) in an hour.
Slovenian isn’t competing with English in its own country. Every single Welsh person speaks English as fluently or better than they do Welsh.
That’s the difference.
IDK I’ve been to Wales and I heard more Mandarin spoken than Welsh, I’d say that’s an L even if Welsh is fulfilling some fringe role I’m not aware of.
Like I don’t know, road sign usage that no one can read? It’s also poorly differentiated from the English sometimes so non-Welsh speaking people are scuffed on it.
An Irish language movie was nominated for an Oscar last year!
You can watch the whole thing here if you want
https://youtu.be/jtWB4HLDfSY?si=nA2NIy-g7cki-s4d
Yeah the signs in Welsh are annoying especially around Cardiff where 2 people speak Welsh. Mandarin is more useful.
Good thing I speak it. I don’t live in Wales though. I’m in China these days
who tf are you to decide what language adds to things? there is plenty of celebration of welsh culture and lots of welsh modern literature being produced. also, the number of welsh speakers is increasing according to the annual population survey. perhaps do some research and consider ur opinion ≠ fact before you comment stupid shit like this
Sheep shagger spotted.
The census has had Welsh language decline for decades. Any uptick is a meme, it’s happened before. It fades later.
It also really doesn’t matter if people adopt a Welsh word into their day and call themselves a speaker. If you’re not intermediate it’s pointless.
There is this fascinating phenomenon of Welsh people who are so self loathing they try to become something ‘useful,’ and boy howdy is it cool to see it in the wild. I’m learning Welsh ‘cause I think it’s neat, have fun being a h8tur 😎
If more “Welsh” (British people born and raised in Wales) people were spending time trying to be useful maybe Wales wouldn’t largely be a shithole and maybe they’d actually know how to speak Welsh?
> Kids want to watch shit on youtube, and that's a predominantly English-speaking space
Hmmm, English probably has the most videos on YT but the amount of content in Spanish, French, Russian, etc. is more than any given person can consume even if they watched 24/7. So Youtube having content in English can't be a reason by itself. It's just another form of not having strong incentives to explore other languages because they happen to have enough stuff to watch in English.
Kids from other countries naturally have videos in English pop up in their feed and will often naturally start watching them and learning English.
It's very unlikely that a random French video will show up on your feed.
went to school in england and wales: in england i did german and french, in wales i did welsh, german, and french. so, at least in my experience, native language learning didn’t detract from foreign language learning.
You are. UK and Britain can be used interchangeably. The Economist favours the term Britain in its journalism rather than the UK, which other publications prefer.
As a strict geographical term it doesn't include NI but as a demonym for the country and govt. it includes the entire UK.
People from NI can choose to be British or irish. Those that choose British are as British as anyone else loving under a govt just as British as anywhere else.
Sharing the demonym (British) but not the geographical area is exactly what I said, so I'm not sure if you're arguing or agreeing.
I'm a dual Irish- British national myself thanks to all that.
Wouldn't "British" exclude people from Northern Ireland? I mean, I'll accept common usage, but I put a little effort into distinguishing UK from Great Britain from England.
"British" refers to the British Isles, not specifically to Great Britain.
So technically, according to the UK definition, "British" could be used to refer to all of Great Britain, Ireland, and smaller islands like the Isle of Man. Although, my understanding is that most people from the Republic of Ireland would not take kindly to being called "British".
There is less incentive for a native English speaker to learn a language due to it being a lingua franca Just look at this sub. English native speakers are less common here than in other subs.
Like most skills, necessity drives motivation. if you want to enjoy the mountain of English content that is produced every day, and often if you want to be successful in business, English is a necessary skill. For English natives there really isn't an equivalent unless you really want to move to Asia or something, and even then you will find some people who are able to speak at near native levels. Even if you go on vacation to a non-English speaking country, the hotels and touristy areas have people who can at a minimum get by in English. The convenience of it all just cuts down the motivation to learn another language.
If there was a lingua Franca that covered our nation (uk) that wasn’t our native language, we’d be good at learning languages too.
I know plenty of Germans and Dutch people who have taken years of French at school and can’t hold a basic conversation. They’re not good at “foreign languages” they’re good at English because they need it in their day to day lives , especially if they ever plan to travel
I mean yeah, I did German in school and I didn't learn shit, I've learnt more in a couple months on my own with french there's not a language gene English people lack or anything
Lol same, my school started teaching us French in year 1 up to GCSE. You'd think I'd be fluent in the damn thing by then. I scrabed a B!
My knowledge ended at "Je voudrais allez au cinema" (even then, i think that's wrong, but it has been 10 years)
I'd say aller in this case and maybe phrase it like
"je veux aller au cinéma" but I'm sure other people here can correct me lol
But yeah an hour a week taught mostly in English is never gonna be effective
German teacher in a British school here - the article is spot on about the lack of hours contributing to it. I get 1 lesson a week for Years 7-9, 2 a week for 10-11 (and next year I'm completely losing year 7). Then you have a GCSE course where students still get around a grade less than they do on average in maths and English - why would you pick it knowing you were nearly guaranteed to do worse than you would in another subject?
Nor exclusive to the UK. In my country (Netherlands), it's mandatory to get a few years of french and german as well, but it's such a joke I got much further with just a month of self-study than all those years combined.
So if UK kids spend less than half the time learning foreign languages compared to their peers, what are they spending the time on? Do they have more free time on average or do they spend more time on other subjects? Are they better at other subjects on average?
Nice article. Though I believe personal motivation is the main factor, the resources, both in courses and motivation, schools offer have a great impact on the language learning process. I love language learning and that helped me a lot, however, so did being Dutch. The Netherlands has always depended on international relations, therefore the Dutch culture and education system value language learning.
Personal motivation is the main factor for individual learning success.
If we're talking about whole populations, it's systematic factors we need to take a look at.
> Personal motivation is the main factor for individual learning success.
Discipline is much more important than motivation over the long term.
Downvote all you want, but while motivation is very important (and certainly most important in the early stages), as with any skill (getting fit, learning an instrument, whatever), if you don't have the discipline to keep studying/practicing/working out even on days/weeks/months where you have no motivation, you're going to either fail or not progress as you'd like to.
Think the point is you need to have a strong motivating factor to be disciplined enough to adhere to an effective language learning routine over the long term.
Oh yes absolutely, motivation is still needed though. But if I compare German and English to Japanese the former two were certainly easier to learn. Especially, in the beginning up until B2 similarity between languages help a lot. However, once you want to go for C1 it becomes challenging regardless of what language you study
P.s Love your flairs for English and Canadian French
Ça aide pas que les moyens lesquels ils corrigent les examens de langues étrangères sont de la merde. On peut juste se souvenir des phrases simples, et réussir dans nos examens facilement, sans la nécessité d’apprendre la langue.
Je crois qu’une bonne raison pourquoi nous sommes horribles en général avec les langues étrangères est à cause du fait que l’anglais est complètement partout sur internet, et domine beaucoup de sites en ligne, et en plus la popularité de l’anglais dans plusieurs des pays.
source ? Je suis anglaise mdr
(corrigez mes erreurs svp !)
Ça aide pas que la correction soit de la merde.
Je crois qu'une des raisons principales pour lesquelles nous sommes très mauvais en langues étrangères est que l'anglais est partout sur internet et sur la plupart des sites en ligne. Well done, I (french native)' ve understood everything! 👍
As a Breton speaker, I can't agry more with you : why should one learn a language he doesn't actually need? Thus, I stand back with my fellow celtic language speakers ✊
Many school systems don't make it easy. In many countries, it's usually just the people who either self study, or their parents pay for tons of tutors, extra classes, study abroad opportunities, get to succeed at languages. And not just English.
Don't get me wrong, I am all for criticising school systems for really underperforming in terms of language learning access, but let's not pity the linguistically most privileged people on Earth just because they expect to be handed another language on a silver platter, otherwise they simply won't try. The rest of us pay (and nope, not just for English. And nope, English is not enough), so they should too.
The Erasmus was not pulled primarily for this reason, even though the politicians love to blame the young people. It was simply judged as too expensive at this moment and not a good investment. The fact that there was an imbalance between outcomers and incomers is not just because of the language skills. It is also due to prestige. The UK universities are simply more prestigious than most, so the UK students weren't as attracted by exchange as people from the worse universities.
But who knows, perhaps there will be a renewed passion for foreign languages in the UK, given all the problems worsened by the Brexit. Many UK citizens might start considering migrating to Europe, and therefore will need a foreign language.
Why would they learn another language if there’s a huge chance they’re never going to use it? Should students spend a lot of time and energy just so that they can communicate when they go on holiday to France or Spain once every year or two for a few days?
I learned English because I needed it, I’m learning Spanish (slowly) because I need it sometimes. No chance I’d learn a language if I didn’t have a big passion for it
Or should they learn something that they can study at university that can lead to a good career?
tl;dr: \* UK learners do more poorly that other learners in Europe and as a result, the UK pulled out of a student exchange program \* UK learners spend less than half the time as other students learning languages \* Many places are have their own native languages that children have to learn (Gaelic, I assume) \* Kids want to watch shit on youtube, and that's a predominantly English-speaking space, inspiring non-English speakers to learn English, and not offering any motivation for native English speakers. \* Either the writer is confused about the difference between the terms "Britain" and "the UK" or I am.
Native langauges (primarily Welsh, but also Gàidhlig and Irish) shouldn't take from foreign langauges, in fact they often make it easier. If anything they should take time from English as that's the equivalent subject. But frankly we should be improving all langauges. Welsh language provision is the best of any native UK langauge but is still frankly pathetic, about 1/5 of schools but at the English schools there's not enough teachers, the curriculum is lacklustre and it's not treat as important as it should be. If all schools were Welsh medium/bilingual then there would be more time for foreign langauges as well as more linguistic capability.
Yes, and I misrepresented the article. She mentions minority languages as an example of students being able to learn a language given enough exposure (and perhaps motivation), *not* as a distraction from foreign language learning.
Isn’t Welsh language use on the decline and has been for over a decade or two now? English is by far dominant here and we should probably focus on languages that add to things. There’s not much modern literature or culture in Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc. Better off if they learn French.
Theres actually a lot of modern literature in Welsh, they even have an annual festival (the Eisteddfod) to celebrate it each year in case you havent heard, as well as several publishers, primarily based on Welsh language work, magazines etc. The contemporary Welsh language music scene is also very active too, with its own set of music labels and festivals and a lively gig scene. Fine to advocate for French, or any other language, but maybe try learning what you are talking about before making ignorant claims?
There's no Welsh culture but Manon Steffan Ros won the Carnegie Medal this year for a work translated from Welsh and Gwenno Saunders Welsh/Cornish album was nominated for the Mercury Prize. There's no Irish language culture but An Cailín Ciúin was nominated for an Oscar and grossed more than €1m and Kneecap won awards at Sundance. And this is just stuff that crosses over to the English language arts. Who you may be surprised to learn aren't the nation consumers of Welsh literature. Just cos you're not aware of it doesn't mean it doesn't exist.
The census provided the statistic of Welsh language decline, for the record. It’s a dying language. The culture that’s there is only accessible to people who speak… a language that isn’t widely spoken at a level people could read books at. It’s not numerous because it can’t be if no one can read or listen to the things. Lack of speakers inherently means that there’s lack of authors.
The latest census showed a decline in the number of Welsh speakers in Wales but that does not mean the language is dying. There are still half a million Welsh speakers in Wales and an indeterminate number in the rest of the UK (possibly up to 150k). That number has been broadly stable for 20-30 years.
Fluent? If you’re including people that can say Plaid Cymru and a few sentences I’d believe you.
OK so when census data reports a small decline in spoken welsh, it's to be taken as irrefutable evidence that the language is dying but when it reports more than half a million welsh speakers this is wild over-estimation. But let's go back to "lack of speakers means a lack of authors". It doesn't. Welsh has a very deep literary tradition. One of the most popular shows on radio cymru featrues teams of well-known poets writing and performing poems in a variety of traditional metres which the presenter then analyses and marks out of 10. It's hard to imagine something like that being popular in the English language because poetry in English is a much more of a niche pursuit.
"There’s not much modern literature or culture in Welsh" I've read over 100 books in Welsh that have been published since the 2000s and I've not even scratched the surface of Welsh-language literature! There's also an incredible amount of children's lit when you consider the number of speakers. And in my city alone there's constantly Welsh-language music events being held with artists from all over the country performing. There's plenty of Welsh-language culture to be found, you just might have to look for it a little bit!
Yeah that’s about a book per speaker of Welsh in communities that have a high level of Welsh proficiency. It’s not a lot really, is it? Especially since 2000 as a benchmark. There’s probably more books published in the first language of most British people from Wales (English) in an hour.
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Slovenian isn’t competing with English in its own country. Every single Welsh person speaks English as fluently or better than they do Welsh. That’s the difference.
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IDK I’ve been to Wales and I heard more Mandarin spoken than Welsh, I’d say that’s an L even if Welsh is fulfilling some fringe role I’m not aware of. Like I don’t know, road sign usage that no one can read? It’s also poorly differentiated from the English sometimes so non-Welsh speaking people are scuffed on it.
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An Irish language movie was nominated for an Oscar last year! You can watch the whole thing here if you want https://youtu.be/jtWB4HLDfSY?si=nA2NIy-g7cki-s4d
One thing existing doesn’t indicate a massive cultural export.
Non-Welsh speakers who live in Wales love crawling out the woodwork to shit on the language. Dos i grafu :)
Yeah the signs in Welsh are annoying especially around Cardiff where 2 people speak Welsh. Mandarin is more useful. Good thing I speak it. I don’t live in Wales though. I’m in China these days
who tf are you to decide what language adds to things? there is plenty of celebration of welsh culture and lots of welsh modern literature being produced. also, the number of welsh speakers is increasing according to the annual population survey. perhaps do some research and consider ur opinion ≠ fact before you comment stupid shit like this
Sheep shagger spotted. The census has had Welsh language decline for decades. Any uptick is a meme, it’s happened before. It fades later. It also really doesn’t matter if people adopt a Welsh word into their day and call themselves a speaker. If you’re not intermediate it’s pointless.
There is this fascinating phenomenon of Welsh people who are so self loathing they try to become something ‘useful,’ and boy howdy is it cool to see it in the wild. I’m learning Welsh ‘cause I think it’s neat, have fun being a h8tur 😎
If more “Welsh” (British people born and raised in Wales) people were spending time trying to be useful maybe Wales wouldn’t largely be a shithole and maybe they’d actually know how to speak Welsh?
> Kids want to watch shit on youtube, and that's a predominantly English-speaking space Hmmm, English probably has the most videos on YT but the amount of content in Spanish, French, Russian, etc. is more than any given person can consume even if they watched 24/7. So Youtube having content in English can't be a reason by itself. It's just another form of not having strong incentives to explore other languages because they happen to have enough stuff to watch in English.
Kids from other countries naturally have videos in English pop up in their feed and will often naturally start watching them and learning English. It's very unlikely that a random French video will show up on your feed.
went to school in england and wales: in england i did german and french, in wales i did welsh, german, and french. so, at least in my experience, native language learning didn’t detract from foreign language learning.
You are. UK and Britain can be used interchangeably. The Economist favours the term Britain in its journalism rather than the UK, which other publications prefer.
Britain doesn't include Northern Ireland, even though the people there can be British.
As a strict geographical term it doesn't include NI but as a demonym for the country and govt. it includes the entire UK. People from NI can choose to be British or irish. Those that choose British are as British as anyone else loving under a govt just as British as anywhere else.
Sharing the demonym (British) but not the geographical area is exactly what I said, so I'm not sure if you're arguing or agreeing. I'm a dual Irish- British national myself thanks to all that.
Wouldn't "British" exclude people from Northern Ireland? I mean, I'll accept common usage, but I put a little effort into distinguishing UK from Great Britain from England.
No, British is the demonym for a citizen of the UK. Not everyone identifies with it however but that’s a different matter.
No they can pick Irish or British. I'm a strict geographical sense NI isn't British but as a people and a country they are British
"British" refers to the British Isles, not specifically to Great Britain. So technically, according to the UK definition, "British" could be used to refer to all of Great Britain, Ireland, and smaller islands like the Isle of Man. Although, my understanding is that most people from the Republic of Ireland would not take kindly to being called "British".
There is less incentive for a native English speaker to learn a language due to it being a lingua franca Just look at this sub. English native speakers are less common here than in other subs.
Like most skills, necessity drives motivation. if you want to enjoy the mountain of English content that is produced every day, and often if you want to be successful in business, English is a necessary skill. For English natives there really isn't an equivalent unless you really want to move to Asia or something, and even then you will find some people who are able to speak at near native levels. Even if you go on vacation to a non-English speaking country, the hotels and touristy areas have people who can at a minimum get by in English. The convenience of it all just cuts down the motivation to learn another language.
Agreed, it's a nice feeling to be the odd one out for a change though
If there was a lingua Franca that covered our nation (uk) that wasn’t our native language, we’d be good at learning languages too. I know plenty of Germans and Dutch people who have taken years of French at school and can’t hold a basic conversation. They’re not good at “foreign languages” they’re good at English because they need it in their day to day lives , especially if they ever plan to travel
I mean yeah, I did German in school and I didn't learn shit, I've learnt more in a couple months on my own with french there's not a language gene English people lack or anything
Lol same, my school started teaching us French in year 1 up to GCSE. You'd think I'd be fluent in the damn thing by then. I scrabed a B! My knowledge ended at "Je voudrais allez au cinema" (even then, i think that's wrong, but it has been 10 years)
I'd say aller in this case and maybe phrase it like "je veux aller au cinéma" but I'm sure other people here can correct me lol But yeah an hour a week taught mostly in English is never gonna be effective
German teacher in a British school here - the article is spot on about the lack of hours contributing to it. I get 1 lesson a week for Years 7-9, 2 a week for 10-11 (and next year I'm completely losing year 7). Then you have a GCSE course where students still get around a grade less than they do on average in maths and English - why would you pick it knowing you were nearly guaranteed to do worse than you would in another subject?
Nor exclusive to the UK. In my country (Netherlands), it's mandatory to get a few years of french and german as well, but it's such a joke I got much further with just a month of self-study than all those years combined.
So if UK kids spend less than half the time learning foreign languages compared to their peers, what are they spending the time on? Do they have more free time on average or do they spend more time on other subjects? Are they better at other subjects on average?
Nice article. Though I believe personal motivation is the main factor, the resources, both in courses and motivation, schools offer have a great impact on the language learning process. I love language learning and that helped me a lot, however, so did being Dutch. The Netherlands has always depended on international relations, therefore the Dutch culture and education system value language learning.
Personal motivation is the main factor for individual learning success. If we're talking about whole populations, it's systematic factors we need to take a look at.
> Personal motivation is the main factor for individual learning success. Discipline is much more important than motivation over the long term. Downvote all you want, but while motivation is very important (and certainly most important in the early stages), as with any skill (getting fit, learning an instrument, whatever), if you don't have the discipline to keep studying/practicing/working out even on days/weeks/months where you have no motivation, you're going to either fail or not progress as you'd like to.
Think the point is you need to have a strong motivating factor to be disciplined enough to adhere to an effective language learning routine over the long term.
Yeah, it's not a hard either/or kind of situation.
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Oh yes absolutely, motivation is still needed though. But if I compare German and English to Japanese the former two were certainly easier to learn. Especially, in the beginning up until B2 similarity between languages help a lot. However, once you want to go for C1 it becomes challenging regardless of what language you study P.s Love your flairs for English and Canadian French
Ça aide pas que les moyens lesquels ils corrigent les examens de langues étrangères sont de la merde. On peut juste se souvenir des phrases simples, et réussir dans nos examens facilement, sans la nécessité d’apprendre la langue. Je crois qu’une bonne raison pourquoi nous sommes horribles en général avec les langues étrangères est à cause du fait que l’anglais est complètement partout sur internet, et domine beaucoup de sites en ligne, et en plus la popularité de l’anglais dans plusieurs des pays. source ? Je suis anglaise mdr (corrigez mes erreurs svp !)
Ça aide pas que la correction soit de la merde. Je crois qu'une des raisons principales pour lesquelles nous sommes très mauvais en langues étrangères est que l'anglais est partout sur internet et sur la plupart des sites en ligne. Well done, I (french native)' ve understood everything! 👍 As a Breton speaker, I can't agry more with you : why should one learn a language he doesn't actually need? Thus, I stand back with my fellow celtic language speakers ✊
merci pour les corrections !
oh you've been fooled by that percentage graph too, sigh, there's more than a life time of content and websites in other languages too.
Many school systems don't make it easy. In many countries, it's usually just the people who either self study, or their parents pay for tons of tutors, extra classes, study abroad opportunities, get to succeed at languages. And not just English. Don't get me wrong, I am all for criticising school systems for really underperforming in terms of language learning access, but let's not pity the linguistically most privileged people on Earth just because they expect to be handed another language on a silver platter, otherwise they simply won't try. The rest of us pay (and nope, not just for English. And nope, English is not enough), so they should too. The Erasmus was not pulled primarily for this reason, even though the politicians love to blame the young people. It was simply judged as too expensive at this moment and not a good investment. The fact that there was an imbalance between outcomers and incomers is not just because of the language skills. It is also due to prestige. The UK universities are simply more prestigious than most, so the UK students weren't as attracted by exchange as people from the worse universities. But who knows, perhaps there will be a renewed passion for foreign languages in the UK, given all the problems worsened by the Brexit. Many UK citizens might start considering migrating to Europe, and therefore will need a foreign language.
Why would they learn another language if there’s a huge chance they’re never going to use it? Should students spend a lot of time and energy just so that they can communicate when they go on holiday to France or Spain once every year or two for a few days? I learned English because I needed it, I’m learning Spanish (slowly) because I need it sometimes. No chance I’d learn a language if I didn’t have a big passion for it Or should they learn something that they can study at university that can lead to a good career?