Admittedly, the incentives to learn seem to be diminishing as time goes on, but I think there will always be some of us who want to carry on with it. (And there are many other ways to meet people if one wants to).ĭespite the stereotypes, I think Britain is a nation of frustrated language-learners. This is very sad in one way, as people obviously used to enjoy such classes, for social reasons as much as language reasons.īut in another way, it may be a blessing since people will be forced to seek out other ways, including the kind of self-teaching that HTLAL always supported and which LLF is continuing, and they may get more out of it, language-wise, than they ever did in a classroom. This is changing now as they become uneconomic to run, or rather, short-sighted decisions from on high mean that the course providers have to charge too much for them, so people don't subscribe, and then classes don't run, and it becomes a downward spiral. I should add that evening language classes in the UK in my experience have always been well-attended (at least at first), and popular languages are (or were) often over-subscribed. I more or less fit this category, except that since discovering HTLAL, I am determined to break out of this mould. Then there are others who have slogged away for years in the UK, perhaps reaching a plateau at a moderately high level, but who can't usually compete with those who have worked in the TL country. In my experience, the best of them will always have worked abroad in a TL-speaking country, and are coming to the class or the group mainly to keep up their skills. Over many years, I've been to quite a few adult learner classes of many types, and conversation groups of varying descriptions, and you will quite often find British people who are quite fluent and also have a wide vocabulary. I've met quite a few, even at C1/C2 level, but that's because I go every month to a german-speaking meet-up group in Edinburgh where I've encountered Brits who previously lived and worked in Germany.īut yes, among the general population there are few UK citizens who can function in a language not native to the island. I'm not saying that it's a good thing but it's how it is. You simply don't need it in your day to day life, and you can get by with English when you travel as it's widely spoken in tourist areas. Other sources and details for each entry may be specified in the relevant footnote.In the UK I have very rarely encountered a British person who can speak a foreign language to any funcitional use (say A2). The CIA World Factbook is most often used when different UN departments disagree. For over 99 of the 6000 languages and dialects there are today hardly any quality language learning tools available, because these languages are simply not profitable for commercial education providers. Land and water are taken from the Food and Agriculture Organization unless otherwise noted. Comprehensive list including number of speakers, countries and ISO codes. Total area is taken from the United Nations Statistics Division unless otherwise noted. Contiguous zones and exclusive economic zones are not included. Territorial seas are not included unless otherwise noted.
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