It would be interesting to know your thoughts 
I’m sure this post will evoke some debate. I have written my thoughts in my latest blog post
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Haha I LOLd at this. I’m American and I literally don’t know ANYONE (personally, outside of language learning communities like this one) who is as interested in learning foreign languages as I am. And when I discuss it with anyone else their eyes glaze over haha. I do know multiple people who say, “I would love to learn a foreign language but I just don’t have the time.”
I have a hypothesis. I dunno what it is with Brits, but in America, almost everyone has tried and failed to learn a foreign language exactly one time. We are (I think, universally) required to study a foreign language in high school. This is 1) forced learning which most people don’t want to do, 2) taught only with textbooks, flash cards, and grammar drills, and 3) only enough of a time commitment to get the person to lower intermediate levels. Subsequently, unless one marries a speaker of it, makes lifelong friends who speak it, or uses that language in their future career, which is statistically highly unlikely here, they walk out of high school and never think about that language again. So, of course, they lose it, and then end up with an attitude of “I studied French/Spanish for four years and look where it got me, nowhere. I can’t speak a word of it now.”
So I think the motivation is extremely low and the “I will never get this” defeatist feeling is extremely high.
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Thanks for your comment!
Yes, as I mentioned in my post, all students are required to study a language at some point during school and almost all of them forget everything they “learned” from that time! 
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The school and university system failed me so badly that I became defeatist. I called myself “language deficient” until I resurrected my dream of becoming bilingual in 2020 and now I’m fluent in Spanish and learning more languages.
But it can also be geographical. I’ve heard large countries with one main language tend to be very monolingual as well, such as possibly Russia.
I definitely agree with this, that most Americans learn a language and then quickly forget it. In my experience tho most of my high school classmates never got to low intermediate even after 3-4 years of “study”—they were lucky if they could string a simple sentence or two together and could barely understand a single word spoken by a native. I specifically recall most of my high school language classes being taught in English, with very little in the target language. I think the main reason tho why so few Americans care to learn a foreign language is a perceived lack of utility. In a large country with tons of native material to consume and rarely running into foreign language speakers, there are just no opportunities to learn or maintain or use a foreign language unless you deliberately seek out these opportunities. Similar things happen with other large and somewhat isolated countries with lots of native language material like Brazil or Japan. Those that I know in the US who don’t follow this pattern either 1) studied abroad and still remember something, 2) are language enthusiasts who like the process and find ways to incorporate language learning and use in their lives, or 3) live in an area where the target language is regularly spoken and they use it in daily life (eg Spanish in CA, TX or Miami).
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This rings a bell. I told my friends from home I started learning Spanish for fun, and they looked at me blankly and asked, “Why?”
Americans can live their whole lives without even encountering a minor inconvenience due to our monolingual status, even when traveling.
For other languages and locations, being bilingual is often just more beneficial or even necessary, to varying degrees.
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Funny, I studied Spanish from 8th grade through college, where I minored in Spanish literature, and somewhere in there did a summer in Spain (hoping to achieve fluency, but, in reality, hanging out with a group of Americans and speaking English all the time.) Then never touched the language again afterward.
At that time, I was under the impression that I was “fluent enough” and would never forget it. Whoops!
Now I speak pretty good Portuguese but can’t say one word in Spanish without it coming out Portunhol. And I’m kinda kicking myself, because I live in Southern California where literally every business has Spanish-speaking employees, there are Spanish speakers everywhere, and the opportunity to speak Spanish has always been there. Yet, I don’t even use Spanish to order a burrito anymore. If I’d just stuck to using it frequently, I would still be fluent (even more so).
I do plan to go back to it and am now slowly reading in Spanish, although I’m afraid of losing my Portuguese if I start speaking Spanish again.
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It really annoys me when people bash school language learning. Usually they do this to advertise their own product. As for putting learned in quotes, and a laughing emoji, for goodness sake.
Of course most people forget everything they learned at school. What do you expect them to do? People who stop speaking their mother tongue gradually forget it. Polyglots who don’t practice an L2 will gradually forget it.
Most school students are not motivated, and they are in large classes. Over five years students don’t do enough hours to get fluent even assuming motivation. Despite being a poor student I came out with a good foundation in French that allowed me to progress later on. That was 45 years ago. Teaching today is better, students have t’internet.
Germans are good at English because they have to be if they want a good career. They learn it at school. Dutch and Scandinavians also study languages at school. They all have English language films on national TV channels.
Americans and Brits don’t have the need to learn languages in the same way that Europeans and Chinese do. English is the lingua franca of business.
I have met countless Flemish speaking Belgians, they all speak English, none speak French, or even German, both are official national languages.
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Thanks for your comment.
did you read the blog post? Because you would know that I agree with all of the points you mentioned.
It was a light hearted comment but a truthful one. Most students leave school with a poor level in their L2, this is a fact. I don’t deny that you were a rarity who happened to do well.
There are some really good theories here.
Most of the main points have been touched on like lack of time spent, foundation, purpose and our youthful priorities.
In Australia second language learning was only compulsory in primary school (up to age 12) - And for an hour a week.
I don’t think the point was learning the language, but goes back to school just exposing us to lots of things that we might like to deep dive later.
It’s obvious that most of the community is not young, this is a hobby of people with expendable time. Maybe if I met a Foreign girl at 16 things would be different .
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That’s interesting! I didn’t know it was only to age 12!
And which languages were you taught in school? Was Mandarin Chinese commonly taught?
Thanks for your comment 
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I did.
You ignore many important reasons for knowing a second language. You ignore English being a lingua franca. You ignore border regions, smaller countries and regional languages. Thus a friend who grew up in Andorra knows English (his mother tongue), Catalan, French and Spanish. A Luxembourgish friend knows English, French, German and of course Luxembourgish. Catalans are fluent in Spanish as well as Catalan. Italians have local languages, and usually speak the local language and standard Italian. A lot of older east Europeans speak Russian having learnt it at school.
Europeans who speak a second language do so for good practical reasons.
Many Americans deliberately don’t teach their heritage language to their children, to ensure integration. A Korean friend’s brother, a native Korean speaker living in America, has two children who speak only English. A Welsh friend tried to teach her children Welsh from their early years, but they refused. It’s hard to teach a language without a language community and sound motivations.
Mocking UK school teaching is light hearted ?
I am not a rarity who happened to do well. I did poorly. My CSE grade was equivalent to a fail at O level, or GCSE as it is now called. The CSE exams were for less able students. For our foreign readers, the GCSE is the exam UK school students take at approximately age 16. CSE exams were abolished a long time ago. Many people, especially followers of the Krashen nonsense, denigrate school lessons. I found them a great help later on.
It is not rare for UK school language students to do well. Approximately 72 % of French language students get a pass i.e. grade C or higher. For German the figure is 78 %.
A UK student who completes their GCSE French course would only have done enough class hours to reach an upper B1 or lower B2 level. They could of course reach a higher level if they self study or if they know target L2 speakers.
Unfortunately only 47 % of UK school students study at least one foreign language to GCSE level, thus just over half do not study any foreign language up to age 16.
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Where did I ignore English being a lingua Franca? This is what I mentioned in my blog
And yes I didn’t mention border regions but it wasn’t relevant to the discussion.
I also mentioned that it is the government’s responsibility to change the curriculum. This would help a classroom teacher to motivate their students. I completed my GCSEs only 10 years ago and I remember clearly how languages were taught in my school.
To say I was mocking teachers is a blatant lie and a total misinterpretation of my post.
I would also question your definition of doing well?
If by saying a student achieving a pass or higher at GCSE is doing well, I would agree to an extent.
Yes on paper the student has attained a GCSE in a foreign language but you and I both know that it doesn’t automatically correlate with a B1 level of knowledge. The curriculum has been designed to make students cram revision in the final weeks of their GCSE to pass an exam not to achieve a long lasting foundation in their L2.
Border regions, countries with local languages etc are very relevant when you quote statistics showing that 65 % of Europeans speak a second language. I would also be a bit wary of the statistics. Most Irish are supposed to speak Irish, but few can actually speak it.
To say that I was saying that you were mocking teachers is a blatant lie and a total misinterpretation of my post. Here is what I wrote:
Quote: It really annoys me when they bash school language learning.
Quote: Mocking UK school teaching is light hearted?
I made no mention of you mocking teachers. You were mocking UK school teaching:
Quote: all students are required to study a language at some point at school and almost all of them forget everything they “learned” from that time!
That certainly looks like mockery to me.
In reference to your blog post, you suggest that it is the responsibility of the government. How exactly? To spend huge amounts in order to have small classes? And where is the money to come from? Change the curriculum? How exactly?
I did evening classes in my early twenties with L’Institut Français and L’Alliançe Française. They weren’t much different from my time at school, except that the classes were small, five or six students from memory. That makes a huge difference. And the teachers were native French speakers. Another huge difference. Plus the students were there by choice.
Actually I do have a practical suggestion. Katherine Birbalsingh, a headteacher, achieves great results in her school, even though it is an inner city state school, and most students are first or second generation immigrants, whose first language is not English. She has created an atmosphere whereby the students are forced to behave, to be polite, to not run in corridors, to be quiet in lessons unless speaking is part of a lesson and so on. She also inculcates pride in the school, and in being British. Unfortunately she is hated by most state school teachers. She was forced to leave the profession as a result of bullying by other teachers. I believe she suffered mental illness from the abuse. Why? Because she voted conservative, and she spoke up about the lack of discipline in schools, the prevalent blame culture and the acceptance that children from minority communities would do poorly. She created her own state school, outside the usual system i.e. an academy. They have more applicants than they can take, parents queue up to send their children to her school. Someone I knew years ago is a school teacher. I mentioned KB to him. He rubbished her, saying she didn’t achieve good results. He hates her because she is a Tory. It’s sad that tribal politics is so prevalent in teaching.
One of the big advantages Germans, Dutch and Scandinavians have is that their language is close to English, and they are exposed to huge amounts of English language culture, including music, films, games and YouTube videos. And oddly enough they often speak pretty good English. In other words, English is hip. They learn English because they want to.
And many European countries are small, knowing only one language is a serious career handicap.
I learnt French because I wanted to, I knew French speakers as friends and I really liked the music. I didn’t care for crappy French philosophers as one French mother tongue speaker called them.
When I was at school, we had almost no access to French language materials. Just an old crappy reel to reel tape recorder in the classroom. Sadly foreign music isn’t so popular in Britain, and most films are American. Yes there are some popular Scandinavian police series, and a few groups like Rammstein, but not many.
I wish this were the case in all US states and school districts. The both state in which I graduated high school and the one where I attended school before high school have no second language requirements, and (at least when I was attending school) had virtually no options to start learning languages before 9-10th grade. Encouraging students to start learning a language before the age of 14-15 would be a very good thing, in my opinion!
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I didn’t realise that in England at least one L2 is compulsory between ages 7 and 14. I find it hard to believe that most learn nothing of value from that. I started at age 11.
But at the end of the day, you can take a horse to water, but you can’t make it drink.
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I think it’s largely a difference between “nice to have” and “need to have”.
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