Britain | Modern languages
Mother tongue
The latest push to prevent the British becoming ever more monolingual
IF AN Englishman wants to speak a foreign language, runs the old joke, he can always go abroad and speak English. Over the past decade the number of secondary-school children in Britain passing exams in modern languages has almost halved. Just 30% bother with French, by far the favourite second language (see chart). On March 22nd a House of Lords committee called for compulsory language-learning in primary and secondary schools.
This article appeared in the Britain section of the print edition under the headline "Mother tongue"
From the March 24th 2012 edition
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