English Natives are ignorant. There, I said it. For the most part, at least. For students and young people, it’s ingrained in in our minds that language lessons (be it French, German or Spanish, etc.) are dreadful, a waste of time, a distraction, and providing no advantage unless we decide to study abroad to fully utilise the language.
>> This could not be any further from the truth! <<
We don’t prioritise foreign language classes as we should, which has therefore inadvertently created a society full of culturally close-minded people.
This entire mind-set that “English is the most important language” and that “most people speak English anyway” is so toxic. It is also the 2nd most common reason in the UK as to why students didn’t choose a MFL for GCSE (which has fallen by 40% between 2010 and 2016) – closely following “because they’re too difficult”. Most fail to realise how daunting it is for non- native English speakers to speak their own language or even attempt English in public or to other natives. Those heard speaking a foreign language are assumed not to be able to speak English, or have failed to learn it. I have friends from Germany, Norway, Sweden and Poland who have been ordered to speak English by people who’ve overheard them speaking their mother-tongue. They all speak English exceptionally well, but are consequently afraid about speaking their OWN language in case they’re met with abuse.
One of my favourite quotes is by Michael Hofmann, who said,
“Learning a new language isn’t just cultured, it’s a blow against stupidity.”
Not only this, but the demand that people who live here learn English also fails to take account of people’s financial situation, ability and motivation. Even learning the basics of a language takes dedication, focus, incentive, access to resources, time and in some cases a financial commitment - be it funding a course or having to not attend work to attend a class. A lot of people coming to the UK – either for work or to flee war or persecution – could only dream of enrolling on a five-day-a-week private English course! Instead, in most cases, they must make do with learning through interaction, on the job, and/or by using applications and books, all while juggling the demands of work and life.
Take it from my best-friend Eva. She joined Fearnhill a few weeks prior to me in 2016. She’s from Bulgaria and couldn’t speak a word of English when she moved here. After getting to know her, she grew more confident – asking me for spellings, definitions, etc. all of which I was happy to provide. She could talk to me for hours about anything on her mind, yet was extremely shy when around other people. She couldn’t even buy bus tickets, ask to use the toilet in class, phone her family or friends in public – it’s heart-breaking! It’s heart-breaking that we live in a society where this issue isn’t recognised and the idea of bilingualism is often frowned upon.
Take it from me, too. I’m a native English speaker and I speak fairly fluent German. One of my very good German friends flew over to live in London for a few months, and of course for his benefit, we communicated in German, both in public and at home. Whenever talking in public, we’d constantly be thrown dirty looks from by-passers and on occasion, the odd ‘scoff’. I was once in a train station with him, and we were waiting for the train and having a conversation nearby to a train station worker. I must say, there was nothing better than the look on that worker’s face when I asked him a question in perfect English!
Now don’t get me wrong, I’d be lying if I said languages weren’t difficult. All of this contributes to the stereotype regarding languages – that there is a perceptions of languages being difficult and only attainable by high achievers. And because of this, I do understand that languages aren’t favoured by most and can be quite off-putting because of this. However, a lot of this is down to the way it’s perceived and exposed to people when they’re young. In fairness, the school system bombard students with terms such as “nominative, dative, accusative and genitive subjects”, complex grammar rules such as feminine, masculine and sometimes neutral nouns and the abundance of tenses that we just don’t have/recognise in English. I’ve been in lessons at school where students learn and memorise spellings and translations of all the colours, yet couldn’t say “The sky is blue.” Or even when students are taught how to talk about dream holidays abroad and their favourite animals, yet would be unable to ask a realistic questions such as “what is the time?” or “how much does this cost?”.
As well as being natively English and confident in German, I study French for GCSE and I’ve picked up small amounts of Swedish, Norwegian, Polish and Arabic from my Internet friends. It’s always fun to have a laugh when I’m trying to pronounce “Nysgjerrig” meaning ‘curious’ in Norwegian, or “Pszczoła” meaning ‘bee’ in Polish.
So where am I getting at? The ignorance and stigma around foreign language in becoming increasingly worse. Despite it being easier than ever before to learn a new language with the internet and all the resources out there, young people are becoming less and less interested about languages – most of you probably haven’t even read to the end! But to the few of us out there left that have a true passion for languages, or are bilingual, or anything of the sort, you’re free to be a little smug, knowing that you and I have a passion for something truly unique and not understood or loved by many. :)
~Caitlin Padfield
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