this post was submitted on 05 Apr 2024
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Britain turned down the offer to remain a member of the cultural exchange program after Brexit.

The U.K. decided to leave the EU's Erasmus+ student exchange scheme because Brits’ poor foreign language skills made membership too expensive to justify, a senior British official has revealed.

Lower take-up of the scheme by British students compared to other nationalities — put down to a weak aptitude for language learning — meant London expected to pay in nearly €300 million more a year than it received back, Nick Leake, a veteran senior diplomat at the U.K. Mission said this week.

It comes as youth organizations on both sides of the channel launch a renewed push for the U.K. to rejoin the scheme — and as an EU advisory body urges the Commission to get negotiations going.

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[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago* (last edited 4 months ago) (1 children)

Not entirely sure what you're saying, sorry if I got it wrong, but it seems like you're implying I said the opposite of what I actually posted.

My point was there is no genetic predisposition to being bad at language learning but that the language education in the UK is woefully bad. I've spent more time learning how to learn Spanish than actually learning it because we're not taught the skill of language acquisition from childhood.

The reason the government hasn't invested in language skills is because it's the lingua franca (the irony of that phrase isn't lost on me), but the argument of "weak aptitude for language learning" used in the article is patently false.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 months ago (1 children)

I was agreeing with you and being a little sarcastic. Of course you are right, there is nothing genetic about it.

There is very little incentive for native English speakers to learn a second language because English is far and away the most popular second language.

Which I’m sure is a contributing factor to the complete lack of investment in second language education the anglophone world.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 months ago

Ahh just misread then, all good :D