posted by Simon Kemp

You should study modern languages at university, because if you don’t, it’ll cost us fifty billion pounds. Every year.

According to a recent BBC report, the UK may be losing that much due to our poor language skills as a nation. A cross-party group of MPs has called for a “national recovery programme” to improve our skills in foreign languages.  Baroness Coussins, speaking for the group, claims that ‘the UK economy is already losing  around £50bn a year in lost contracts because of a lack of language skills in the workforce.’ She also suggested British businesses were losing out on export opportunities, and struggling to fill posts, because of a lack of British workers able to speak a foreign language. Apparently,  only 9% of 15-year-olds are competent in their first foreign language in the UK, compared with 42% in 14 other European countries.

What could Britain do with an extra fifty billion a year?

Well:

£50 000 000 000 buys….

625 London Eyes every year. 

three hundred thousand Ferraris.

an Olympic Games in a different UK city every two months forever.

a Twix for everyone in China  every week (with enough left over to give everyone in Spain a Curly Wurly).

a fleet of 157 brand new Airbus 380s every year.

the NHS’s full running costs for 6 months,  or enough money to double the education budget.

an £800.00 Christmas present to every man, woman, child, baby and grandma in the UK every year.

And if helping out your country in its hour of need isn’t reason enough for you, then there’s also the fact that the dire state of Britain’s language skills puts people with, say, a university degree in French in a very competitive position on the UK job market at the moment…

A new study clarifies the beneficial effects that learning a foreign language can have on the brain. Even if the lessons start late in adult life, as brain function naturally decreases, they can help ward off dementia. This builds on existing research that shows, for bilingual adults, Alzheimer’s setting in an average of four years later – at 75 instead of 71. The data is strong enough to suggest that the NHS ought to consider encouraging patients, especially the elderly, to try their hand at a new language.

Besides the travel opportunities, the sense of achievement that comes with such study might appeal. As the number of people suffering from dementia is expected to rise to over a million by 2021, prevention needs to take its place near the top of the health service’s agenda – and language-learning should now be packaged up with exercise, the other preventative tool backed up by a number of neurological investigations. It is a sad fact that the best time to treat the disease is before it’s even begun. In this case, drugs can only smooth the descent.

We have yet to fully turn the corner in embracing foreign languages, though there are positive signs in the education system. After decades of decline, the number of students choosing to study French, German and Spanish increased last year – and from this year all will be required to study one foreign language between the ages of seven and 14. Now we know that the benefits of language-learning are not limited to the young, there is all the more reason for parents to join in.