Shoc'n

As they say in the NE this is shoc'n: but as a linguist I would say that wouldn't I? Or perahps it's not just that I like languages. Isabel Moore of CILT said: "This will leave school leavers short of vital skills and affect the competitiveness of British business. With 70% of businesses now involved in some form of international activity the idea that languages are just for 'academic' pupils is shortsighted and damaging to the economy."

The fact is that shortly it will be a huge advantage to know know Mandarin. People who have already learnt languagesare better placed to learn another. The skills of language learning are what's most lacking. In fact the really and truly shoc'n thing is that we don't do what other European countries do and start to teach other languages to kids in infant and junior schools.