The British are crap at learning other languages
because there is not enough emphasis on it in schools. I was fortunate (?) enough to study French, German and Latin at school, and whilst my natural English hatred of the French means I think learning their language was a waste of time and effort, what with them being virtual Commies, German has proved useful, and there's been many a time I've been in restaurants overseas, read an 'English' menu and then referred to the German version to try to fathom out what the hell is on offer.

I've tried to learn Portuguese but it's fiendish. I try a few words when I go to the Algarve, but as soon as I say a few words, they automatically switch to good English. Quite embarrassing really. I have been to petrol stations on German Autobahns, struggled for the word for a big pack of fags, ie 200, and they've just known what I want, and served me in English. Can you imagine that over here- a Dane going to Esso and being given service in his language?

I have a colleague at an office in Europe who speaks German, French, English, Portuguese, Spanish, some Italian, a little Polish and is, I understand, now trying Arabic.

We're crap. We need to wake up.
(randomstupidname would really like this signature field to be bigge, Sun 22 Feb 2009, 16:40, 1 reply)

The trouble is
As a friend of mine found out when she went to Germany as part of her German degree, she got very little opportunity to practice German on the locals. They all soon twigged that the accent wasn't local, and wanted to practice teh English on her.
(Sir Tainley Barking Ezekiel 23:20, Tue 24 Feb 2009, 0:38, closed)