The UK has had a relatively easy time in the EU, with English being the organisation’s lingua franca, but what will happen after Brexit when its traders will be expected to go out into the wider world?
The British Council has identified the languages that it claims British citizens should learn if the country is to prosper in a post-Brexit world.
It seems that it will not be leaving Europe totally behind as the top five languages listed by the Council in its report Languages for the Future are Spanish, Mandarin Chinese, French, Arabic and German.
Available at www.britishcouncil.org, this explains that the languages were selected on the basis of extensive analysis of economic, geopolitical, cultural and educational factors, including the needs of UK businesses, the UK’s overseas trade targets, diplomatic and security priorities, and prevalence on the internet.
The top five languages listed were found to be significantly ahead of the next five, which were Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, Japanese and Russian.
For the UK to succeed after Brexit, international awareness and skills – such as the ability to connect with people who do not necessarily speak English – will be more vital than ever, the report argues.
However, the UK is currently facing a languages deficit, with a worryingly low proportion of those aged 18-34 able to hold a basic conversation in the top five languages: French (14%); German (8%); Spanish (7%); Mandarin (2%) and Arabic (2%).
That lack of language skills is estimated to be holding back the country’s international trade performance at a cost of almost £50 billion a year, the report claims.
It is therefore necessary, the British Council concludes, to initiate a bold new cross-government, cross-party initiative aimed at sustaining improvement in language capacity over the medium to long term.
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