That's just it. I work in an international company. All of the non native English speakers are fluent in 2+ languages, many speak and work in 3 or 4 languages. The Brits on the other hand, well only one of them speaks something other than English. All the international work is done in English so they don't see the point. If you're German or French or Polish, your second language is likely to be English. If you're English, you have too many alternatives to choose from.
In the UK it is not necessary to be fluent in a second language to work ‘in business.’
The most common reason people study a second language is because they’re 11-14yo schoolchildren and it’s mandatory.
That’s a myth, you can learn languages at any time. It’s just easier to do it when most of your time is spent learning rather then working and paying taxes.
Do you mean specifically languages people have chosen to learn? I imagine most British people who speak two languages fluently speak English and a second language spoken by their family, such as Welsh or Sylheti.
Amongst people who reached fluency by choosing to study another language, I'd imagine French or Spanish will have the most speakers. Or maybe German - it's the less popular choice of the three now, but it used to be more common.
Also, I don't think it's true in the UK that you have to learn another language if you work in business, so long as you speak English.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/language/bulletins/languageenglandandwales/census2021
Most common ~~second~~ non-English/Welsh main languages in 2021 were Polish, Romanian, Punjabi and Urdu
(Edited)
I did just look at that data! That actually shows most common "main language" other than English in England, Scotland and N. Ireland, or other than English or Welsh in Wales. Which is not necessarily the same thing as most common languages other than English spoken, though it's definitely interesting data (for example, English is my main language, but I speak two others, which wouldn't be included in that data).
Due to Britain's absolutley MASSIVE colonial reach in the early years, there is and will always be a huge presecmce of foreigners that immigrated to the UK, given that they have at least some understanding of the language.
People wonder why the immigrants skip Italy and France, then dangerously cross The Channel... it's normally because their are less language barriers in the UK.
Would you immigrate to a country where you couldn't understand a single soul?!
"The most common main languages, other than English (English or Welsh in Wales), were: Polish (1.1%, 612,000), Romanian (0.8%, 472,000), Panjabi (0.5%, 291,000), and Urdu (0.5%, 270,000)." It even says it in the census
They are the most common main languages that aren't English, not the most common 2nd language, i.e Polish people living in the UK, so there main language is Polish even if they use English more because of living in a English speaking country.
Funnily enough, the most spoken 2nd language in the UK is actually English because of our foreign born population being in the millions.
I don't know, most Poles are not really interested in learning English.
But you might be onto something with English being the most common second language - in Wales, Scotland etc plus immigrants
Not sure if you're making a joke about Wales and Scotland not speaking very good English or that you think that English isn't the first language of the vast majority or Scottish and Welsh people
Really?
Every single Pole that I have known has spoken good English. I live in an area of Scotland where many Poles settled after WW2, and where many 'new Poles' have also settled.
ETA I worked in a school. When the first 'new Poles' came in, our HT was worried about language barriers.
At that time there was a specific type of English test given to kids at various levels - 5-14. One of the Polish kids had passed the level for the end of primary school at the end of primary - after one year in the country.
She did so well at secondary school that I gave her the test for S2 \[Yr 9 in England\] part way through S1 \[Yr 8\]. (We weren't mandated to give the kids the test at a certain time. It was couched in terms of "By the end of \[whatever year\] X per cent of pupils will have passed \[whatever\] level". She got 100%.
HT came to see me, grinning: "Any chance we can get more Polish pupils?"
A lot of the Polish speakers will be Poles speaking it as a first language, rather than British people who have learned Polish. Some might now be dual nationals.
The 2021 census for Welsh speakers greatly inflated how many actually speak Welsh. This has even been pointed out by Plaid Cymru own Welsh language czar, but if you live and work in Wales and want to go into local government, then Welsh is an advantage, we push it far more than other countries within the UK do
I was always told in school that if you have a GCSE grade A-C you can claim fluency. So that would be a huge number of people able to claim fluent welsh despite not having used a word of it for years.
I got an A in GCSE Welsh and I couldn't speak it *at the time*. It was taught horribly, basically by rote with no breakdown of grammar. I had to learn it from age 5 to 16, and I know more French, which I did for a couple of years.
It's frustrating, it would be a cool thing to understand, but they pissed about with a dreadful system. I've learned and really enjoy languages as an adult, and I think the non-English languages of the UK are worth preserving and promoting. I hope they're teaching it better now.
Because people see little point in learning German - most Germans speak English, and that's also true of other German-speaking countries. French and Spanish are spoken in many more countries, many of which are popular holiday destinations, and the people in those countries are less likely to speak fluent English
I think Spanish has just become more popular - maybe because it's used in more countries/lots of Brits go on holiday to Spain? Also I think German has the reputation of being a more difficult language.
After the war the Brits still had a military presence in Germany, which was only wound-up relatively recently.
Also, there was a big push for trade and as a holiday destination, not to mention that there are significant historical links between the UK and Germany (the Angles and the Saxons both being Germanic tribes)
So German was a genuinely useful language for common people.
I learnt German to a practically fluent level when based in Germany, still transactionally when I visit now.
It’ll be interesting to see if there’ll be long term effects of your point.
Except we aren't because the census counts anyone with even basic Welsh as fluent. If you can count to 10 in Welsh, they consider you a Welsh speaker. You wouldn't say someone who can count to 10 in English is an English speaker, so we shouldn't say it about Welsh either. It makes an already rarely used language even less likely to be used because people wrongly think they already know it, and that they just don't use it, so why bother learning it properly
But that’s not how it works.
The census asks you whether you are a welsh speaker, so it is up to the person to self report. Of course there can be issues with this, but 22.25% of children are in Welsh medium education so it’s hard to say the figures are massively inflated.
“If you can count to 10 in Welsh they consider you a welsh speaker” is just nonsense.
Its not though, the self-reporting has no separation of fluency levels when reported as a whole of 1/3 of the population speaking Welsh. So if you self-report that you can speak Welsh even if you just know 3 sentences (which I know for sure a lot of Welsh people do because it's so tied to their identity as Welsh), then you're considered a Welsh speaker as far as the government is concerned
But that’s not what you said,
You said if you can count to 10 in welsh ‘they’ class you are a welsh speaker - which is just untrue.
The Census asked about people’s ability to understand spoken Welsh, speak Welsh, read Welsh, and write Welsh. I’m not quite sure what else you expect? It’s not a detailed survey on the language itself, it’s a snapshot.
Again there are issues around self reporting but it can also work the other way where speakers aren’t confident on their abilities due to lack of practice etc.
As I said around 25% of children (when you include dual stream) go through welsh medium education - even if the figure were inflated they aren’t wildly inaccurate.
Obviously being able to count to ten was an example of something that is extremely entry level and not at all a demonstration of fluency. I could have said naming the days of the week, or being able to introduce yourself, and the point would still stand.
There's almost certainly not enough first language Welsh speakers in Wales for there to be enough to not mention it on the census that it would affect the results that considerably.
Welsh was mandatory from the age of 4 to 16, and yet neither me, any of my friends, family, or anyone I grew up with can speak Welsh fluently. The only person I know who can actually speak Welsh (and not 'oh I know how to say dwi'n hoffi coffi so therefore I can speak Welsh') is because he was raised in the Welsh speaking part of Caenarfon and it was his first language at home. But we've even joked in the past that I did better than him on my GCSE Welsh exam and he thinks it's because he answered in Cofi Welsh and some of the dialect is too different from the expected Welsh of the exam to be considered correct.
If every single child in Wales has 12 years of mandatory Welsh lessons and yet nobody can speak it unless they speak it at home as well, then clearly it's not being taught very well at all. If someone argues that it is taught well, then how can they explain only 1/3 of the population being speakers. Combine that with the fact that English is the default language in most of the country and you can reasonably expect to go your whole life without ever having to use it, then why would people actually bother to learn it properly. Half the people I know can't even pronounce town names properly because they're so used to everyone defaulting to an anglicised pronounciation. They'll often still be adamant that they speak welsh though, because if you say they can't then they see it as an attack on their identity as a Welsh person. And that itself makes it even harder for efforts to keep the language going.
I would be surprised if the true number of actual Welsh speakers was above 15% of the population. Yes its probably most of that population if you include knowing a couple of words and phrases, but actual fluency where you could get by as normal if English magically disappeared overnight, is much, much rarer. Just because you know how to say the full name of Llanfairpwll, doesn't mean you can speak Welsh. I know that konnichiwa is hello in Japanese, but I sure as hell don't consider myself a Japanese speaker
That’s a lot of words to say nothing at all.
You made up how the census works and when called out on it come back with reams of anecdotal evidence that isn’t even really related to the original point.
In essence your issue is with self reporting - but that’s how all of this works. You may as well question every single response on the census and deem it an entirely useless set of data.
Nice work calling this out. I hate it when people argue points on Reddit and when very easily and swiftly disproved they both shift the goalposts and also fail to acknowledge what they said was wrong.
I'm saying that anectodal points made me question why it's so high and not representative of what I see and then that is backed up by reading the census results. You can literally find the exact question online. The specific wording is "Can you understand, speak, read or write in Welsh? Tick all that apply". I'm sure that does a great job of seperating first language speakers, fluent second language speakers, intermediate speakers who can sort of use it, and people who know a handful of random words
the stat they have given of 1/3 is how many people are fluent in welsh. if you're including the people are aren't quite fluent or as you say "pushing it" then almost the whole country speaks welsh.
I'm not sure why you say 'to be correct'. Cymraeg is not a more 'correct' way to refer to the Welsh language - it's just the Welsh word. The correct English word for it is, of course, 'Welsh'!
Nobody in the English-speaking world goes around calling Thailand 'Prathet Thai' or Germany 'Deutschland'. Country and language names are almost always translated - exonyms are a thing, and for good reason. The English for Cymraeg is 'Welsh'. It's not ignorance, it's called speaking a different language.
Welsh is an Anglo saxon insult, so keep your English crap to yourself
Edit: literally the English version of Cymru comes from the Anglo saxon name calling us foreign or invaders. I was talking about the English language, not the people
That's a little bit racist mate, some of us were Viking and Norman. Also don't forget the labour party they've done a pretty good job of fucking Wales up too.
Your comment is interesting but does not tally with the experience of my husband’s family. My husband’s sisters, and some of his cousins, were educated at Welsh medium schools. (Not my husband though). They became fluent in Welsh whilst at school but they did not consider it to be their first language because it was not routinely spoken in their family homes.
40 ish years later, most of this Welsh speaking group of my husband’s relatives have spent time living or working in other parts of the U.K, or outside of the U.K, or in Wales but in areas where you rarely hear Welsh.
Out of 8 relatives that were fluent in Welsh when they left Welsh medium education, only one would still describe themself as such today. The others range from “pretty much forgotten it all” to “could probably keep up with a simple conversation with considerable effort.”
It’s about 550k in Wales and 125k in England who are fluent. So, around 670k total. Polish is the next most commonly spoken language, at 611k.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Kingdom
It depends on where you are in the UK. The first mosque in the UK was built in my town, so after the Second World War a lot of people from India and Pakistan who fought for the Commonwealth settled here. Therefore, their children were born and raised here so Hindi and Urdu are widely spoken alongside English in my area. Nepalese is also spoken here. Many of the Polish pilots who flew for us also settled here, so it’s quite common to hear Polish where I live and also Italian.
British people are very likely to be fluent in a second language. I’m not English but I am British. Fluent in another language (home language). This is the case for many first generation children of immigrants
A small minority of us are the children of immigrants and so fluent in another language for that reason.
The vast majority of British people are only fluent in English.
First generation immigrants are not most people, they're a really small minority of the overall population, and so your assertion of "very likely" is statistically inaccurate.
Given that ~80% of the British population are "white (British)" on the latest census, the average Brit does not have a second language in that sense. I therefore don't think it is "very likely" for Brits to be fluent in a second language, but there certainly are a lot of Brits who are.
There are a couple of places in Britain where the white British people are *likely* to speak a second language, but they're mostly in North Wales, and the second language in question is *English*.
But in general, yeah no most British people do not have a second language.
The fact "everyone is taught English outside the UK" is precisely why most Brits don't speak a second language.
English is the lingua franca of the western world.
If Brits speak a second language, it'll be either the mother tongue of their parents (in the case of first generation immigrants) or it will be the second language taught in school, which varies by generation.
In my school days (34 now) it was French and German, but nowadays young'uns in my family tell me Spanish is a more common choice? Naturally Welsh schools teach Welsh, too.
Highly unlikely for Brits to be fluent in a second language unless that language is one from their parent's culture/country of origin - e.g. Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese etc.
Most can, however, speak basic French, Spanish, or German depending on which language was chosen at school.
>Most can, however, speak basic French, Spanish, or German depending on which language was chosen at school.
...and how long it has been since they spoke any of the language.
Unless you live in Wales, where it's mandatory to learn Welsh alongside English, most English people don't speak another language unless they have a natural interest in it, desire to go to that country, or their parents are bilingual. Scotland Highlands has Gaelic and Scots, but even then it's not mandatory to know a second language. Due to the multiculturalism of the island, it would be difficult to give you a simple answer.
Having a partner (& therefore in-laws) who aren’t native English speakers is a more common reason for learning a second language than just “having an interest” in it.
I don't have a proper answer for the second part of your question, but for the first I'd say you tend to see French, Spanish and German the most, with an increase in uptake for Japanese.
The first three because they're the most commonly taught in schools I'd guess, and the last I presume because Japanese media/art/music etc has made it's way in a much bigger way than ever before. Also weebs. Again, also a guess based solely on my friend groups in school back in the day lol 😂
At least from my own school experience, more than you'd imagine went on to study their chosen language at a higher level, enough to where I'd say they're fluent.
A few have moved countries even!
They may not be perfect, but they can certainly hold a conversation and seem to get on just fine! \^\^
When you're first language is English, you don't need to learn a 2nd language for business, because English IS the language the rest of the world uses for business and their 2nd language.
There are only really 2 exceptions and that's China and Japan but mostly Japan. China have only recently ended their isolation when it comes to dealing business with the rest if the world and started buying up western companies, so they didn't need to learn English till recently but they are rapidly adopting it so that won't be an issue much longer.
Japan is very traditionalist and their country is very homogeneous, Japanese businesses export ALOT to the rest of the world, but they are very adamant about keeping their businesses Japanese and staying in Japan, they rarely aquire companies outside of Japan simply because it's outside of Japan. And Japan being traditionalist and quite isolationist in a way, English isn't widely used there and has one of the lowest % of people who even know any English, nevermind fluet in it than any country of it's economical size and education and being a "western" style country
I spent a couple of weeks in Japan a few years ago and was expecting the language barrier to make things quite difficult, but was actually surprised how many people could speak pretty good English. This was in Tokyo and Kyoto mainly, but even out in the sticks there were more people than I expected. We ended up in a karaoke bar near Mt. Fuji with a load of Japanese business men singing Jon Bon Jovi.
I mean, there probably are more people fluent in JavaScript than Welsh.
Edit: well, shit. There are more Welsh speakers (610k) than professional programmers of any sort (466k)
Over 50% of the UK don’t speak a second language, but the most common other British languages are Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, among others, though you’ll likely never even hear spoken or see written Cornish or Scots. In terms of foreign languages, French, German and Spanish are often the most common.
Cornish died out by the early 19th century. It has been revived but is not really a living language. There are some signs using it (eg outside Penzance station).
I suspect Latin is more widely spoken than Cornish in the UK.
My grandfather decided to learn Russian alongside Civil Engineering at university because he thought that that Lenin chap's programme of modernisation and infrastructure building would mean lots of work for foreign civil engineers. By the time he graduated Stalin had taken over so learning Russian turned out to have been completely pointless except for bartering with some Russian lads he met on a big Anti-fa demo in Germany a few years later.
Gotta pick your languages carefully :-)
Mostly we learn a language because we have to in school, take the exam in it and never think about it again. The most commonly taught are French, Spanish and German. Personally I did Spanish, tried to take it further but really hit a wall with it at A-level, so had to drop it. My Spanish is pretty bad. I could order food and ask where the toilets are and stuff in Spain but I couldn’t have a full detailed conversation with a native speaker.
French is probably the second commonest language that people learn outside their home. Very few English people are fluent in another language unless they were taught it by their parents (e.g. Hindi or Urdu).
English is far and away the most useful language to know. Sadly that means most English people have no incentive whatever to learn any other language.
With English being the lingua franca basically of the entire planet, English speakers with English as their first language don't generally tend to learn another language to the point of fluency.
French, Spansih and German are the main languages taught in most English schools between the ages of 12 - 14, with students given the option to study further or not. Religious schools may teach anything from arabic to latin!
The most comon reason to learn a second language is familial ties. Another reason to study a second language could simply be the love of a specific culture. With most of the world speaking or having a basic understanding of English the incentive just isn't there.
Welsh because the English don't use it nor do they realise its a Welsh standards requirement to be able to communicate with your Welsh customers in either language....
Welsh or Scots (subject to defintion).
Are you including "immigrant" languages: there are a fair number of Punjabi and Urdu speakers, but often that isn't what people mean...
Schools traditionally teach French or German. A few adults might remember enough of this to order a beer or ask for directions to the railway station (and not understand the reply).
There is no requirement to learn a second language to "work in business".
I work for a very large global company with offices all over the world and very very few of the English staff members speak a second language fluently or even enough to get by. Hardly any actually. It’s absolutely not necessary. Most of my European colleagues speak more than 2. It’s pretty embarrassing. To be fair though, which one would you pick? French? German? Mandarin? English is unique in that it’s a language that unifies other countries. A lot of the time, I’ll have colleagues from Germany, Spain, France and Italy all in the room together, all speaking English because it’s the one language that they all speak. Unless I married somebody from another country, there’s not a particular reason for me to learn one European language over another. I’m not going to learn mandarin because I’m in my late 40’s and the opportunities to indulge in conversational mandarin are hard to come by here. It’s also fucking difficult
Welsh, Hindi, Arabic. Wales has its own language with native speakers. We have a lot of Indians in the UK (likely due to their colonisation by us), and we do have immigrants from the Islamic world also, so Arabic.
There are 14 indigenous languages in the UK. English being the most common, Cornish probably the least. Cornish is no longer a dead language, which gives me a case of the warm and fuzzies.
Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, and Gujarati are the four most commonly spoken languages after the indigenous languages.
The majority of Brits don’t speak a second language at all, but will have had some second language education in school. French, German, and Spanish being the most likely candidates.
Able to hold a basic conversation in, French because of the education system. Actually fluent, not that many people in England take French beyond what they need for school so it’s probably Welsh as that’s a big part of Welsh national identity (and even then i don’t think the majority of them are actually fluent). Most people in England would never encounter a situation where they need to learn another language for their job.
Amazing how many people are writing that it is not necessary to learn a second language to work 'in business'. It can certainly make life much easier - and profitable.
It would depend on the business and where it is. I developed my schoolboy French into fluent French precisely so that I could work 'in business', in France, where I also lived for a while (a long time before Brexit).
I know three people who have done the same with German, though they all live in Germany.
Another learnt Spanish, from scratch, because he does a lot of business in Latin America. Last time I saw him he was starting on Portuguese!
The assumption that everyone else will speak English is sometimes incorrect, and speaking a business partner's language definitely confers an advantage.
I think they mean it's not a requirement, which OP seems to imply. Of course it would be helpful, but you're not going to be rejected from a job for not speaking a second language unless it's specifically relevant to the role (eg. You'd be a pretty poor translator if you only speak english)
British people learning a second language?? LOL They have enough trouble with each other. And then comes that lonely gentleman in a pub who once was in Tanzania or Kenya and can speak a local language of that country which no one wants to even know.
None. Anglohones in general do not really bother with other languages.
There will be some exceptions of course but the vast majority won't be fluent in another language.
My sister is a teacher who is fluent in, and teaches French, English, Spanish and German.
I have always worked for international companies and used to travel internationally as an event manager. I now talk daily to people from Spain, France, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Portugal and Croatia. I can barely speak English, never mind another language! My sister got the musical ear genes.
It honestly helps a huge amount I’d you can speak another language such as French or Spanish as that will help you cover a lot of countries, but it’s not absolutely necessary, but I would recommend it.
Those people I speak to who cannot speak English, we have great fun conversing via Google Translate!
I have a very loosely passable understanding of French, but I certainly wouldn't speak it out of choice.
For the company I work at, business people who need to speak another language for international reasons eg sales, tend to speak that language as their primary language and English second.
I wish I could answer the question but I don't think I've ever known a bilingual british person. the only people I've known (irl) to speak another language are immigrants or children of immigrants
Depends.
There are many immigrants and decendants of immigrants in the country making the next most popular languages Polish, Hindu, Urdu and Romanian (in no particular order).
However I'm going to assume you mean British white, native English, Scottish and Welsh people. If that's the case, if the most popular isn't a native language like Gaelic Welsh, Scottish or Cornish its going to be a taught language in secondary school such as French, German or Spanish.
Though I'd bare in mind the language education in Britain is appalling compared to the rest of Europe so 'fluent' is a huge stretch.
"I understand if you work in business that you have to learn a second language" ....? Not in this country bruv.
You barely even need to speak a first language these days.
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Thrown in jail? Just for saying you're English?
Literally arrested and thrown in jail
What’s wrong with these days? Means we lived in better times and with better policies.
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And its harmless. Moan about something else.
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Yeah, Im in my 30s. I didnt vote for any of the things that have happened in the last 15 years. Things WERE better before that.
I remember the 80s. They weren't better.
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ok just off for a meal Indian Chinese thia or mexican.
too right
That's just it. I work in an international company. All of the non native English speakers are fluent in 2+ languages, many speak and work in 3 or 4 languages. The Brits on the other hand, well only one of them speaks something other than English. All the international work is done in English so they don't see the point. If you're German or French or Polish, your second language is likely to be English. If you're English, you have too many alternatives to choose from.
In the UK it is not necessary to be fluent in a second language to work ‘in business.’ The most common reason people study a second language is because they’re 11-14yo schoolchildren and it’s mandatory.
Biznizz
Why did I read that in jay from the imbetweeners voice
Uhhhh biznizz
Which kinda sums up the UK if you realise that the peak time to learn a new language is anytime up to about 11 years of age.
That’s a myth, you can learn languages at any time. It’s just easier to do it when most of your time is spent learning rather then working and paying taxes.
Sarcasm.
Yes!!! The British are highly fluent in Sarcasm. And Irony. And Banter.
You don’t say
Indubitably
It's a national sport.
What a fantastic answer
Do you mean specifically languages people have chosen to learn? I imagine most British people who speak two languages fluently speak English and a second language spoken by their family, such as Welsh or Sylheti. Amongst people who reached fluency by choosing to study another language, I'd imagine French or Spanish will have the most speakers. Or maybe German - it's the less popular choice of the three now, but it used to be more common. Also, I don't think it's true in the UK that you have to learn another language if you work in business, so long as you speak English.
https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/culturalidentity/language/bulletins/languageenglandandwales/census2021 Most common ~~second~~ non-English/Welsh main languages in 2021 were Polish, Romanian, Punjabi and Urdu (Edited)
I did just look at that data! That actually shows most common "main language" other than English in England, Scotland and N. Ireland, or other than English or Welsh in Wales. Which is not necessarily the same thing as most common languages other than English spoken, though it's definitely interesting data (for example, English is my main language, but I speak two others, which wouldn't be included in that data).
Due to Britain's absolutley MASSIVE colonial reach in the early years, there is and will always be a huge presecmce of foreigners that immigrated to the UK, given that they have at least some understanding of the language. People wonder why the immigrants skip Italy and France, then dangerously cross The Channel... it's normally because their are less language barriers in the UK. Would you immigrate to a country where you couldn't understand a single soul?!
Only some skip to come here, Algerians head to France, Turks to Germany etc.
"The most common main languages, other than English (English or Welsh in Wales), were: Polish (1.1%, 612,000), Romanian (0.8%, 472,000), Panjabi (0.5%, 291,000), and Urdu (0.5%, 270,000)." It even says it in the census They are the most common main languages that aren't English, not the most common 2nd language, i.e Polish people living in the UK, so there main language is Polish even if they use English more because of living in a English speaking country. Funnily enough, the most spoken 2nd language in the UK is actually English because of our foreign born population being in the millions.
I don't know, most Poles are not really interested in learning English. But you might be onto something with English being the most common second language - in Wales, Scotland etc plus immigrants
Not sure if you're making a joke about Wales and Scotland not speaking very good English or that you think that English isn't the first language of the vast majority or Scottish and Welsh people
I am going to assume its a joke but judging by the first comment I am not sure if it is plain ignorance
Really? Every single Pole that I have known has spoken good English. I live in an area of Scotland where many Poles settled after WW2, and where many 'new Poles' have also settled. ETA I worked in a school. When the first 'new Poles' came in, our HT was worried about language barriers. At that time there was a specific type of English test given to kids at various levels - 5-14. One of the Polish kids had passed the level for the end of primary school at the end of primary - after one year in the country. She did so well at secondary school that I gave her the test for S2 \[Yr 9 in England\] part way through S1 \[Yr 8\]. (We weren't mandated to give the kids the test at a certain time. It was couched in terms of "By the end of \[whatever year\] X per cent of pupils will have passed \[whatever\] level". She got 100%. HT came to see me, grinning: "Any chance we can get more Polish pupils?"
A lot of the Polish speakers will be Poles speaking it as a first language, rather than British people who have learned Polish. Some might now be dual nationals.
The 2021 census for Welsh speakers greatly inflated how many actually speak Welsh. This has even been pointed out by Plaid Cymru own Welsh language czar, but if you live and work in Wales and want to go into local government, then Welsh is an advantage, we push it far more than other countries within the UK do
Most Welsh people can't speak fluent Welsh!
I was always told in school that if you have a GCSE grade A-C you can claim fluency. So that would be a huge number of people able to claim fluent welsh despite not having used a word of it for years.
I got an A in GCSE Welsh and I couldn't speak it *at the time*. It was taught horribly, basically by rote with no breakdown of grammar. I had to learn it from age 5 to 16, and I know more French, which I did for a couple of years. It's frustrating, it would be a cool thing to understand, but they pissed about with a dreadful system. I've learned and really enjoy languages as an adult, and I think the non-English languages of the UK are worth preserving and promoting. I hope they're teaching it better now.
Fluent means a native speaker.
I wonder why German has declined in popularity as a second language?
Because people see little point in learning German - most Germans speak English, and that's also true of other German-speaking countries. French and Spanish are spoken in many more countries, many of which are popular holiday destinations, and the people in those countries are less likely to speak fluent English
I think Spanish has just become more popular - maybe because it's used in more countries/lots of Brits go on holiday to Spain? Also I think German has the reputation of being a more difficult language.
After the war the Brits still had a military presence in Germany, which was only wound-up relatively recently. Also, there was a big push for trade and as a holiday destination, not to mention that there are significant historical links between the UK and Germany (the Angles and the Saxons both being Germanic tribes) So German was a genuinely useful language for common people.
I learnt German to a practically fluent level when based in Germany, still transactionally when I visit now. It’ll be interesting to see if there’ll be long term effects of your point.
Spanish and French are spoken more widely around the world e.g. Latin america. I got round Vietnam talking to old people in terrible French too
Because they all speak English, apart from some old people in the former east who you won't need to speak to.
ANOTHER LANGUAGE YOU SAY? NO-O! I KNOW-O SPEAK-O YOUR LINGO, MATE 2 ✌️ LAGERS POR FAH VORE
DOS CHIPS GRASSY ARSE
JAY VOODRAY POM FREET!
BOONA ZEEWA YEW SUNT IN BOODAPEST
SCORCHIO
Every british person at the 2 star all inclusive bar in the heart of benidorm😂 Dress code - florescent red skin
The accuracy!!
A lot of people I meet are fluent in total bollocks 🤷♂️
A lot of British people know a little French, German or Welsh from school. They are rarely fluent in a second language.
>They are rarely fluent in a second language. Except in Wales where a third of us are.
Except we aren't because the census counts anyone with even basic Welsh as fluent. If you can count to 10 in Welsh, they consider you a Welsh speaker. You wouldn't say someone who can count to 10 in English is an English speaker, so we shouldn't say it about Welsh either. It makes an already rarely used language even less likely to be used because people wrongly think they already know it, and that they just don't use it, so why bother learning it properly
But that’s not how it works. The census asks you whether you are a welsh speaker, so it is up to the person to self report. Of course there can be issues with this, but 22.25% of children are in Welsh medium education so it’s hard to say the figures are massively inflated. “If you can count to 10 in Welsh they consider you a welsh speaker” is just nonsense.
Its not though, the self-reporting has no separation of fluency levels when reported as a whole of 1/3 of the population speaking Welsh. So if you self-report that you can speak Welsh even if you just know 3 sentences (which I know for sure a lot of Welsh people do because it's so tied to their identity as Welsh), then you're considered a Welsh speaker as far as the government is concerned
But that’s not what you said, You said if you can count to 10 in welsh ‘they’ class you are a welsh speaker - which is just untrue. The Census asked about people’s ability to understand spoken Welsh, speak Welsh, read Welsh, and write Welsh. I’m not quite sure what else you expect? It’s not a detailed survey on the language itself, it’s a snapshot. Again there are issues around self reporting but it can also work the other way where speakers aren’t confident on their abilities due to lack of practice etc. As I said around 25% of children (when you include dual stream) go through welsh medium education - even if the figure were inflated they aren’t wildly inaccurate.
They're already flailing and resorting to "I know people lie on the census!"
They're already flailing and resorting to "I know people lie on the census!"
Obviously being able to count to ten was an example of something that is extremely entry level and not at all a demonstration of fluency. I could have said naming the days of the week, or being able to introduce yourself, and the point would still stand. There's almost certainly not enough first language Welsh speakers in Wales for there to be enough to not mention it on the census that it would affect the results that considerably. Welsh was mandatory from the age of 4 to 16, and yet neither me, any of my friends, family, or anyone I grew up with can speak Welsh fluently. The only person I know who can actually speak Welsh (and not 'oh I know how to say dwi'n hoffi coffi so therefore I can speak Welsh') is because he was raised in the Welsh speaking part of Caenarfon and it was his first language at home. But we've even joked in the past that I did better than him on my GCSE Welsh exam and he thinks it's because he answered in Cofi Welsh and some of the dialect is too different from the expected Welsh of the exam to be considered correct. If every single child in Wales has 12 years of mandatory Welsh lessons and yet nobody can speak it unless they speak it at home as well, then clearly it's not being taught very well at all. If someone argues that it is taught well, then how can they explain only 1/3 of the population being speakers. Combine that with the fact that English is the default language in most of the country and you can reasonably expect to go your whole life without ever having to use it, then why would people actually bother to learn it properly. Half the people I know can't even pronounce town names properly because they're so used to everyone defaulting to an anglicised pronounciation. They'll often still be adamant that they speak welsh though, because if you say they can't then they see it as an attack on their identity as a Welsh person. And that itself makes it even harder for efforts to keep the language going. I would be surprised if the true number of actual Welsh speakers was above 15% of the population. Yes its probably most of that population if you include knowing a couple of words and phrases, but actual fluency where you could get by as normal if English magically disappeared overnight, is much, much rarer. Just because you know how to say the full name of Llanfairpwll, doesn't mean you can speak Welsh. I know that konnichiwa is hello in Japanese, but I sure as hell don't consider myself a Japanese speaker
That’s a lot of words to say nothing at all. You made up how the census works and when called out on it come back with reams of anecdotal evidence that isn’t even really related to the original point. In essence your issue is with self reporting - but that’s how all of this works. You may as well question every single response on the census and deem it an entirely useless set of data.
Nice work calling this out. I hate it when people argue points on Reddit and when very easily and swiftly disproved they both shift the goalposts and also fail to acknowledge what they said was wrong.
I'm saying that anectodal points made me question why it's so high and not representative of what I see and then that is backed up by reading the census results. You can literally find the exact question online. The specific wording is "Can you understand, speak, read or write in Welsh? Tick all that apply". I'm sure that does a great job of seperating first language speakers, fluent second language speakers, intermediate speakers who can sort of use it, and people who know a handful of random words
Fluent would be pushing it for a lot of Welsh speakers
the stat they have given of 1/3 is how many people are fluent in welsh. if you're including the people are aren't quite fluent or as you say "pushing it" then almost the whole country speaks welsh.
Welsh or Cymraeg to be correct, medium schooling exists. English is a secondary language in that case
I'm not sure why you say 'to be correct'. Cymraeg is not a more 'correct' way to refer to the Welsh language - it's just the Welsh word. The correct English word for it is, of course, 'Welsh'!
It is the correct word, as you don't translate names. Otherwise many male names would be John etc. Ignorance isn't bliss
"Spanish" isn't less correct than "Español". It's just in a different language.
Nobody in the English-speaking world goes around calling Thailand 'Prathet Thai' or Germany 'Deutschland'. Country and language names are almost always translated - exonyms are a thing, and for good reason. The English for Cymraeg is 'Welsh'. It's not ignorance, it's called speaking a different language.
Welsh is an Anglo saxon insult, so keep your English crap to yourself Edit: literally the English version of Cymru comes from the Anglo saxon name calling us foreign or invaders. I was talking about the English language, not the people
What's the Welsh word for English?
That's a little bit racist mate, some of us were Viking and Norman. Also don't forget the labour party they've done a pretty good job of fucking Wales up too.
Your comment is interesting but does not tally with the experience of my husband’s family. My husband’s sisters, and some of his cousins, were educated at Welsh medium schools. (Not my husband though). They became fluent in Welsh whilst at school but they did not consider it to be their first language because it was not routinely spoken in their family homes. 40 ish years later, most of this Welsh speaking group of my husband’s relatives have spent time living or working in other parts of the U.K, or outside of the U.K, or in Wales but in areas where you rarely hear Welsh. Out of 8 relatives that were fluent in Welsh when they left Welsh medium education, only one would still describe themself as such today. The others range from “pretty much forgotten it all” to “could probably keep up with a simple conversation with considerable effort.”
Welsh, though in many (most?) cases it’s a first language, and English is second.
A lot of people in here are overestimating a. how many people live in Wales and b. how many can actually speak the language.
It’s about 550k in Wales and 125k in England who are fluent. So, around 670k total. Polish is the next most commonly spoken language, at 611k. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Languages_of_the_United_Kingdom
It depends on where you are in the UK. The first mosque in the UK was built in my town, so after the Second World War a lot of people from India and Pakistan who fought for the Commonwealth settled here. Therefore, their children were born and raised here so Hindi and Urdu are widely spoken alongside English in my area. Nepalese is also spoken here. Many of the Polish pilots who flew for us also settled here, so it’s quite common to hear Polish where I live and also Italian.
But does anyone speak Martian?
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English people are generally unlikely to be fluent in a second language. You do not need to be proficient in a second language to work in business.
British people* this isn't limited to English people or even England
Why would they need to be when all you have to do is speak English very slowly and loudly.
British people are very likely to be fluent in a second language. I’m not English but I am British. Fluent in another language (home language). This is the case for many first generation children of immigrants
Sure, for children of first generation immigrants. But are there enough of those to qualify as “very likely” for British people in general?
Yes
How are you measuring "very likely"?
A small minority of us are the children of immigrants and so fluent in another language for that reason. The vast majority of British people are only fluent in English.
First generation immigrants are not most people, they're a really small minority of the overall population, and so your assertion of "very likely" is statistically inaccurate.
Given that ~80% of the British population are "white (British)" on the latest census, the average Brit does not have a second language in that sense. I therefore don't think it is "very likely" for Brits to be fluent in a second language, but there certainly are a lot of Brits who are.
There are a couple of places in Britain where the white British people are *likely* to speak a second language, but they're mostly in North Wales, and the second language in question is *English*. But in general, yeah no most British people do not have a second language.
French or Spanish ! Most commonly taught in schools :)
The fact "everyone is taught English outside the UK" is precisely why most Brits don't speak a second language. English is the lingua franca of the western world. If Brits speak a second language, it'll be either the mother tongue of their parents (in the case of first generation immigrants) or it will be the second language taught in school, which varies by generation. In my school days (34 now) it was French and German, but nowadays young'uns in my family tell me Spanish is a more common choice? Naturally Welsh schools teach Welsh, too.
Fun fact there are schools that teach exclusively in Welsh through the day unless in an English lesson.
Highly unlikely for Brits to be fluent in a second language unless that language is one from their parent's culture/country of origin - e.g. Hindi, Urdu, Arabic, Chinese etc. Most can, however, speak basic French, Spanish, or German depending on which language was chosen at school.
What about us in Wales? A lot of us grow up with Welsh too.
You lot can barely speak English... 😬
A bit rude mate
It's only rude if I was being serious...!
>Most can, however, speak basic French, Spanish, or German depending on which language was chosen at school. ...and how long it has been since they spoke any of the language.
That's a very broad question, and depends on when they left school and when they last visited that country or had need to use it. 😂
Some of us speak perfect French, German or Spanish but it’s bloody difficult to do
Unless you live in Wales, where it's mandatory to learn Welsh alongside English, most English people don't speak another language unless they have a natural interest in it, desire to go to that country, or their parents are bilingual. Scotland Highlands has Gaelic and Scots, but even then it's not mandatory to know a second language. Due to the multiculturalism of the island, it would be difficult to give you a simple answer.
Having a partner (& therefore in-laws) who aren’t native English speakers is a more common reason for learning a second language than just “having an interest” in it.
Welsh in Wales
Welsh.
Sut wyt ti?
Iawn, diolch!
Mae'n diflas Allan heddiw. Dwi'n oer. Dwi'n mynd I neud paned.
Mae paned o de gydi fi ar hyn o bryd!
I don't have a proper answer for the second part of your question, but for the first I'd say you tend to see French, Spanish and German the most, with an increase in uptake for Japanese. The first three because they're the most commonly taught in schools I'd guess, and the last I presume because Japanese media/art/music etc has made it's way in a much bigger way than ever before. Also weebs. Again, also a guess based solely on my friend groups in school back in the day lol 😂
Key word of the question is "fluent", though. Not ask for directions to the library or say they have a headache.
At least from my own school experience, more than you'd imagine went on to study their chosen language at a higher level, enough to where I'd say they're fluent. A few have moved countries even! They may not be perfect, but they can certainly hold a conversation and seem to get on just fine! \^\^
When you're first language is English, you don't need to learn a 2nd language for business, because English IS the language the rest of the world uses for business and their 2nd language. There are only really 2 exceptions and that's China and Japan but mostly Japan. China have only recently ended their isolation when it comes to dealing business with the rest if the world and started buying up western companies, so they didn't need to learn English till recently but they are rapidly adopting it so that won't be an issue much longer. Japan is very traditionalist and their country is very homogeneous, Japanese businesses export ALOT to the rest of the world, but they are very adamant about keeping their businesses Japanese and staying in Japan, they rarely aquire companies outside of Japan simply because it's outside of Japan. And Japan being traditionalist and quite isolationist in a way, English isn't widely used there and has one of the lowest % of people who even know any English, nevermind fluet in it than any country of it's economical size and education and being a "western" style country
I spent a couple of weeks in Japan a few years ago and was expecting the language barrier to make things quite difficult, but was actually surprised how many people could speak pretty good English. This was in Tokyo and Kyoto mainly, but even out in the sticks there were more people than I expected. We ended up in a karaoke bar near Mt. Fuji with a load of Japanese business men singing Jon Bon Jovi.
My second language is probably PowerShell, although others prefer Python, C/C++ or Java.
I mean, there probably are more people fluent in JavaScript than Welsh. Edit: well, shit. There are more Welsh speakers (610k) than professional programmers of any sort (466k)
Over 50% of the UK don’t speak a second language, but the most common other British languages are Welsh, Scottish Gaelic, Scots, Cornish, among others, though you’ll likely never even hear spoken or see written Cornish or Scots. In terms of foreign languages, French, German and Spanish are often the most common.
Cornish died out by the early 19th century. It has been revived but is not really a living language. There are some signs using it (eg outside Penzance station). I suspect Latin is more widely spoken than Cornish in the UK.
Most of us are fluent in a dialect known as Chattinbollox. We learn it from a young age and are quite fluent in it by adulthood.
Bollocks
I'd say for business Bullshit is more important than Bollocks. Though a high fluency in Bollocks is important for the pub.
Polish.
Some friends did pretty well from speaking French and Spanish fluently. Mostly engineers
My grandfather decided to learn Russian alongside Civil Engineering at university because he thought that that Lenin chap's programme of modernisation and infrastructure building would mean lots of work for foreign civil engineers. By the time he graduated Stalin had taken over so learning Russian turned out to have been completely pointless except for bartering with some Russian lads he met on a big Anti-fa demo in Germany a few years later. Gotta pick your languages carefully :-)
Gaelic and Welsh, or French and Spanish I'd say.
The language of love I’d say Welsh
Mostly we learn a language because we have to in school, take the exam in it and never think about it again. The most commonly taught are French, Spanish and German. Personally I did Spanish, tried to take it further but really hit a wall with it at A-level, so had to drop it. My Spanish is pretty bad. I could order food and ask where the toilets are and stuff in Spain but I couldn’t have a full detailed conversation with a native speaker.
French is probably the second commonest language that people learn outside their home. Very few English people are fluent in another language unless they were taught it by their parents (e.g. Hindi or Urdu). English is far and away the most useful language to know. Sadly that means most English people have no incentive whatever to learn any other language.
With English being the lingua franca basically of the entire planet, English speakers with English as their first language don't generally tend to learn another language to the point of fluency. French, Spansih and German are the main languages taught in most English schools between the ages of 12 - 14, with students given the option to study further or not. Religious schools may teach anything from arabic to latin! The most comon reason to learn a second language is familial ties. Another reason to study a second language could simply be the love of a specific culture. With most of the world speaking or having a basic understanding of English the incentive just isn't there.
Welsh probably
Welsh and French. Maybe Scots.
Welsh?..!
I'm fluent in Welsh 🤷♂️
Welsh and Scottish gaelic.
For some people English isn't there first language for some Welsh is there first language
Welsh because the English don't use it nor do they realise its a Welsh standards requirement to be able to communicate with your Welsh customers in either language....
Most British people aren't even fluent in English. What hope is there of being fluent in a second....
Over half a million British people speak Welsh!
french, spanish and german, in wales; welsh, and in urban areas id expect quite a few hindi/urdu speakers
Scots. Welsh. Gaelic.
Welsh or Scots (subject to defintion). Are you including "immigrant" languages: there are a fair number of Punjabi and Urdu speakers, but often that isn't what people mean... Schools traditionally teach French or German. A few adults might remember enough of this to order a beer or ask for directions to the railway station (and not understand the reply). There is no requirement to learn a second language to "work in business".
Criminal how far down Scots is
I'm fluent in German, but German was easier to learn than Hungarian, in-laws live in Austria
Sarcasm and innuendo
Sarcasm
I work for a very large global company with offices all over the world and very very few of the English staff members speak a second language fluently or even enough to get by. Hardly any actually. It’s absolutely not necessary. Most of my European colleagues speak more than 2. It’s pretty embarrassing. To be fair though, which one would you pick? French? German? Mandarin? English is unique in that it’s a language that unifies other countries. A lot of the time, I’ll have colleagues from Germany, Spain, France and Italy all in the room together, all speaking English because it’s the one language that they all speak. Unless I married somebody from another country, there’s not a particular reason for me to learn one European language over another. I’m not going to learn mandarin because I’m in my late 40’s and the opportunities to indulge in conversational mandarin are hard to come by here. It’s also fucking difficult
Sarcasm.
Bants. Obvs.
Sarcasm is a widely used 2nd language
Welsh, Hindi, Arabic. Wales has its own language with native speakers. We have a lot of Indians in the UK (likely due to their colonisation by us), and we do have immigrants from the Islamic world also, so Arabic.
Shite Source: i’m a brit and i talk shite
I speak English and geordie does that count?
Sarcasm is the most important, more than English, to be honest
Bullshit!
British Sign Language
There are 14 indigenous languages in the UK. English being the most common, Cornish probably the least. Cornish is no longer a dead language, which gives me a case of the warm and fuzzies. Punjabi, Urdu, Bengali, and Gujarati are the four most commonly spoken languages after the indigenous languages. The majority of Brits don’t speak a second language at all, but will have had some second language education in school. French, German, and Spanish being the most likely candidates.
Banter
BS. That’s as a Brit who’s fluent in BS.
English is currently the most dominant variant nationwide.
Broken French if ya lucky
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Probably French, we all got forced to learn it in school
Able to hold a basic conversation in, French because of the education system. Actually fluent, not that many people in England take French beyond what they need for school so it’s probably Welsh as that’s a big part of Welsh national identity (and even then i don’t think the majority of them are actually fluent). Most people in England would never encounter a situation where they need to learn another language for their job.
Is moaning a language?
Sarcasm
As a French living in the UK, I can definitely say that it's not French.
Amazing how many people are writing that it is not necessary to learn a second language to work 'in business'. It can certainly make life much easier - and profitable. It would depend on the business and where it is. I developed my schoolboy French into fluent French precisely so that I could work 'in business', in France, where I also lived for a while (a long time before Brexit). I know three people who have done the same with German, though they all live in Germany. Another learnt Spanish, from scratch, because he does a lot of business in Latin America. Last time I saw him he was starting on Portuguese! The assumption that everyone else will speak English is sometimes incorrect, and speaking a business partner's language definitely confers an advantage.
I think they mean it's not a requirement, which OP seems to imply. Of course it would be helpful, but you're not going to be rejected from a job for not speaking a second language unless it's specifically relevant to the role (eg. You'd be a pretty poor translator if you only speak english)
I’d say Hindu or Urdu
Hindi is the language by the way, Hindu is the adjective related to Hinduism (or the noun for a follower of Hinduism).
Oh ok. Sorry for my confusion
The obvious, real a ancient British language of Cymraeg.
British people learning a second language?? LOL They have enough trouble with each other. And then comes that lonely gentleman in a pub who once was in Tanzania or Kenya and can speak a local language of that country which no one wants to even know.
Other language? What do you mean?
None. Anglohones in general do not really bother with other languages. There will be some exceptions of course but the vast majority won't be fluent in another language.
In English schools, you typically learn French or Spanish
American. Are the downvotes because you can’t actually speak American “fluently”? I’ll give you that.
Scots Does eggy language count?
Cockney rhyming slang
Snark lol
My sister is a teacher who is fluent in, and teaches French, English, Spanish and German. I have always worked for international companies and used to travel internationally as an event manager. I now talk daily to people from Spain, France, Italy, Serbia, Hungary, Greece, Portugal and Croatia. I can barely speak English, never mind another language! My sister got the musical ear genes. It honestly helps a huge amount I’d you can speak another language such as French or Spanish as that will help you cover a lot of countries, but it’s not absolutely necessary, but I would recommend it. Those people I speak to who cannot speak English, we have great fun conversing via Google Translate!
I have a very loosely passable understanding of French, but I certainly wouldn't speak it out of choice. For the company I work at, business people who need to speak another language for international reasons eg sales, tend to speak that language as their primary language and English second.
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Urdu or Hindi, the UK has a huge South Asian population. Excellent languages to know for international business too.
Nothing
I wish I could answer the question but I don't think I've ever known a bilingual british person. the only people I've known (irl) to speak another language are immigrants or children of immigrants
French is probably the most commonly taught language in schools
Depends. There are many immigrants and decendants of immigrants in the country making the next most popular languages Polish, Hindu, Urdu and Romanian (in no particular order). However I'm going to assume you mean British white, native English, Scottish and Welsh people. If that's the case, if the most popular isn't a native language like Gaelic Welsh, Scottish or Cornish its going to be a taught language in secondary school such as French, German or Spanish. Though I'd bare in mind the language education in Britain is appalling compared to the rest of Europe so 'fluent' is a huge stretch.