British Expat Newsletter

8 March 2006

Hello, and welcome to those who have joined up since our last newsletter.

In this issue

This week: English Next
On the website
Virtual Snacks
Sponsor
Bizarre Searches
Quotation and joke

This week

You may have seen in the news that the British Council have just released a report, English Next, on the position of the English language in the world. The report, by language researcher David Graddol, contains some startling conclusions for those who contend that since the rest of the world increasingly speaks English, there's no need for Britons to make much effort to learn to "speak foreign".

Anyone who's travelled abroad for more than a few years will probably be aware that many more people worldwide seem to speak English. At the very least, the English language is more in evidence on street furniture such as road signs, advertisements and business premises namesigns. English has established itself as the language of commerce, and of diplomacy - bumping out French in the process, much to the chagrin of the French. (In fact, French is becoming more and more irrelevant for international use, except in parts of Africa.)

Certainly around here there's very little incentive to learn Thai. Most of the time the Thai shopkeepers, bar staff and public office workers speak enough English for us to be able to get by. (I've probably learnt more German than Thai in the last eighteen months.)

However, Brits can't afford to sit back, relax, and let others do all the hard work when it comes to language learning. Graddol's research suggests that other languages are on the rise in the world of commerce and information exchange, notably Mandarin (which is supplanting other Chinese dialects throughout China), Spanish (with the large influx of Spanish speakers into the United States) and Arabic (where the rise of Al-Jazeera as a major news source has shown that genuinely international communication doesn't necessarily have to be conducted in the default language of English).

All this means that businesses wanting to trade internationally - and there are more and more of these - may look for competence in these other languages when searching for new recruits in the future. Even within the EU, if a company's looking for a recruit to work internationally it's likely to favour a candidate who can speak English and another language besides. And the fact is that they're more likely to find a native speaker of another language who can speak English to an acceptable level, than they are to find a Briton who can speak even French or German to that same level. In short, monolingual Britons may suffer in a multilingual workplace.

However, it's not all doom and gloom. A recent Eurobarometer survey suggests that 48% of the British population agree that everyone in the EU should be able to speak at least two languages besides their mother tongue. Just under half doesn't sound that impressive - after all, more than 70% of Poles and Greeks agree with the same proposition - but it's better than either Germany or France, where just 36% and 31% respectively think it's worth the bother.

Do you have anything to say about this topic, or do you have some suggestions for other issues we might discuss in our weekly email? Why not tell us about it on the forum?
British Expat Forum: BE Newsletter discussion

On the Website

A couple of extra new bits and pieces for the site in the last week. A new Pic of the Week, of course - this time it's one from the archives, a shot of the Khyber Pass in the Wild North-West (of Pakistan). We've also added Ian Williamson's description of the Rubondo Island National Park. And just today we've added not one, not two, not even three, but FOUR new trivia quizzes - try them and see how you get on!

All the new articles and features are listed on our What's New page:
What's New on BE?

If you're looking for travel features on the site, a good place to start is our Expat World page.
Expat World

Virtual Snacks

English Next (2006): at 132 pages it's not a quick read but well worth the effort.
British Council: English Next

The Future of English (1997): this was the precursor report to English Next.
British Council: The Future of English (PDF file: 918KB)

Here's the Eurobarometer report mentioned above - some interesting facts and figures about the levels of language skills and attitudes to language learning in the various EU member states, accession countries and candidate states.
Eurobarometer: Europeans and their Languages (PDF file: 485KB)

Sponsor

Offshore Companies House offer fast online registration of offshore companies in the British Virgin Islands, Belize, Dominica and other tax havens, as well as quick and easy setting up of multicurrrency bank accounts. OCH, through their offshore services, will provide you with the full necessary support at each stage and will always try to offer the best possible prices. They offer attractive and inexpensive offshore packages, and their reliability and quality of offshore service say even more for them than their prices. Most of their new clients - over 15,000 in the last ten years - are referred by previous satisfied customers. However, if you can get the same service, or an offshore package which is a genuinely cheaper offer, they promise to match it!
Offshore Companies House

Bizarre Searches

Some strange search terms which have led people to visit British Expat recently:

shaking finger symptom
goddess kali picture gallery
mould wardrobes alternative
ruggie 2 to 3 yard dump body
ammaniti i m not scared summary
cartoon dog four ears
broken scottish meal
monster inc glitter picture
penis tied legs
pain turning into dust
wot no... peering wall
perfect chastity through chastity belts

Till next time...
Happy surfing!

Kay
Editor
British Expat Magazine

Quotation

"English? Who needs that? I'm never going to England!"
- Homer Simpson

Joke

Flawless English

An African chieftain flew to the United Kingdom to visit the Prime Minister. When he arrived at the airport, a host of reporters and television camera crew met him. One of the reporters asked the chief if he had a comfortable flight. The chief made a series of weird noises...."screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z-"...and then added in perfect English, "Yes, I had a very nice flight."

Another reporter asked, "Chief, do you plan to visit the House of Commons while you're in the area?

The chief made the same noises..."screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z"...and then said, "Yes, and I also plan to visit Buckingham Palace and Gordon Ramsey's latest restaurant."

"Where did you learn to speak such flawless English?" asked the next reporter.

The chief replied, "Screech, scratch, honk, buzz, whistle, z-z-z-z...From the short-wave radio."