Why English-speakers should not give up on foreign languages
Governments that cut funding for language study will come to regret it
ASTON UNIVERSITY in Birmingham is closing the department that teaches languages and translation. The University of Sheffield stands accused of sending its language students on dumbed-down courses to save money. Fewer pupils at British schools are taking foreign-language exams (a drop in French, the most popular choice, accounts for most of the decline). A hasty analysis might see this trend as a nationalist, populist, post-Brexit mindset at work. But it has been gathering for a long time, not just in Britain but in America, and not just in the Brexit and Trump eras, but well before them.
This article appeared in the Culture section of the print edition under the headline “Dictionary blues”
From the May 22nd 2021 edition
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