Saw a programme the other night on Robert Maxwell .
I was impressed at his perfect well spoken English , he didn’t learn English until he was 20 an age where it is almost impossible to speak like a native in another language .
Apparently he was a natural polyglot - someone who speaks in many languages .He spoke 10 .
I am always impressed when Europeans speak English so well especially children .
Why don’t our children speak languages so well or at all ?
I learned French at school but cannot converse in French beyond the basics .
I learned Spanish at 20 and am fluent but with an atrocious accent .
Why are we so bad at languages ?
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I think parents don’t see the need to teach their children to speak other languages since “everyone speaks English anyway” Plus the schools aren’t really into teaching it beyond a vocational subject.
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I’m just not cut out for it. Been dabbling in Portuguese for 30 something years, but can’t understand them when they get going with their diphthongs, triphthong , hiatus and stuff only a native can do. It’s an exclusive club.
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English is open to all.
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Learning a language keeps dementia at bay or so I’m told
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It is on the school curriculum .
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Yes I know, but I think more should be done beyond a few hours a week. Language is something you need to use every day in all sorts of circumstances, so having that daily practice would be better, both in speech and writing. Especially since we are becoming more multi cultural and extending business beyond our shores.
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But not taught very well all too often to an unwilling audience I’m afraid.
Anyway, as PK suggests, languages can only be learnt if there’s a degree of immersion beyond the classroom walls. Opportunities to practise and develop ones skills are few and far between on a regular basis in the UK.
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Why are they unwilling my grandson hates languages and starts to yawn even before the lesson starts .
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I think because there is no context. Language lessons are dry and boring, with no relevance to young people’s lives. They don’t see the richness within language…its just something they have to do in school.
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I knew of one school who thought that a great way to teach languages was through the use of wordsearches. Hardly inspirational.
Portuguese is a difficult language I will admit . We used to go there and I spoke Spanish to them . Now the Portuguese don’t love the Spanish but they knew from my accent I was English speaking Spanish and they answered me easily enough in that language .
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I suspect it’s also partly down to those around them in schools (teachers, friends etc) also only use one language whereas maybe in different countries eg English is used in different subjects and contexts within schools as well. Hence it’s a norm to try. Ethos is entirely different. This is a total guess though!
I learned basic French & German at school, but as I rarely need it in the UK I have forgotten most of it.
I have been to France quite a few times and, on the occasions where I have been to small towns ( where nobody speaks English) and was amazed at how quickly I understood what they were saying to me.
Once I couldn’t find my husband on an outdoor market so I thought hard about how to tell somebody & managed to ask in French. The man laughed and said in Fench " it doesn’t matter, find another one" 
, and amazingly I understood what he had said… The market people all tried to help and when I showed them his photo a lady took me to the flower stall where she had just seen him.
I think if children learned a small amount of languages , with the help of a phrase book & visiting the country ( but speaking the language as much as poss) they would be surprised how easy it is & it would make them more confident.
We British travel abroad & expect people there to understand English ( which many do), but I wonder how many in the tourist industry here can speak to visitors in their own language? 
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when I did French at school all i was taught was verbs no conversation at all. I suspect the terrible teachers I had could not speak the language either
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I remember some chap on Radio 4 ages ago who was dire at learning languages at school and left knowing pretty much nothing. By the time He was 30 he had a good working knowledge of several languages. He said that it began when he had to go into a hardware store in France to get something and that after several attempts of pointing and speaking loudly in English which got him nowhere, he took a leap of faith and tried using the few words of French he remembered from school. This led to the locals being really helpful, presumably using dumbed down French like we use dumbed down English when speaking to foreigners. So his motto was pretty simple - just try!!!
As said, within a few years he could get by in several languages as his mind isn’t closed to the process and he doesn’t view it as an academic and hence smarmy smart arse thing to do.
This article came up randomly just now in my news feed (when I’m not using the phone for this forum…how weird is that?!)
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I would love to be fluent in Spanish. I can speak it and get by but for the life in me can I understand when the Spanish are talking to me because they talk so flipping fast…mas despacio, por favor!
I don’t like the German language, it sounds so harsh and brash.
Italian is similar to Spanish and a lovely language, I also would like to speak French but can only remember how to count to twenty from what I learned at school. Oh and J’habite en Angleterra, quel age as tu.
I once read somewhere where this woman had a stroke and she started speaking in a foreign language!
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The Portuguese at home love to meet an English native to practice the lingua. Get to know them well enough and they’re get you to go through the ambiguity and irony of their favourite pop lyrics.
The Portuguese at home love to meet an English native to practice the lingua. Get to know them well enough and they’ll get you to go through the ambiguity and irony of their favourite pop lyrics.