Interesting if depressing. I am surprised businesses do not make more of an issue of this. It seems that even if a lot of business is done in English, British firms can only really find out about other countries (eg opportunities, problems etc) if they have the linguistic capacity to do so.
I also wonder if more use should be made of capacity to teach languages spoken in this country rather than the traditional foreign languages.
language learning in the UK
http://www.guardian.co.uk/education/2010/aug/24/who-still-wants-learn-languages
Interesting if depressing. I am surprised businesses do not make more of an issue of this. It seems that even if a lot of business is done in English, British firms can only really find out about other countries (eg opportunities, problems etc) if they have the linguistic capacity to do so.
I also wonder if more use should be made of capacity to teach languages spoken in this country rather than the traditional foreign languages.