“‘Scuse me mate, do you speak-a any, erm, Eeeng-lish?”
This emerging elitism paired with fewer A and A* grades being awarded in modern foreign languages at schools and sixth-form colleges adds to the general downward trend language study has taken, and worryingly suggests a long-term continuation in the current trend.
Learning a language provides the learner with much more than a skill valued in the modern-day workplace. Acquiring a new language gives the learner an insight into a county’s culture and a richness of vocabulary even in their mother tongue. From personal experience, learning French and Spanish at secondary school helped me understand grammar rules existing in English that as a native speaker I had never needed to learn per se.
As far as education is concerned, a greater push is needed to promote not only school students to take languages, but also the everyday person if only to lessen the all too familiar humiliation of the half broken-English (because that skipping out every other word makes it easier to understand, right?), half-made up sign language conversations on holiday.
Sahar Eljack
VOIX Education Editor
1. Gigil
Filipino - The overwhelming urge to pinch or squeeze something unbearably cute
2. L’esprit d’escalier
French – Thinking of a clever comeback after an argument
3. Wabi-Sabi
Japanese – Beauty found within imperfections, or a flawed detail creating an elegant whole
4. Tartle
Scottish – The panicky hesitation experienced when you forget someone’s name mid-introduction
5. Cafuné
Brazilian Portuguese – The affectionate act of running fingers through someone’s hair
6. Ya’burnee
Arabic – “The one to bury me”, of a lover one could not live without
7. Firgun
Hebrew – Taking pleasure in someone else’s joy/success
COOL WORDS & PHRASES THAT
DON'T EXIST IN ENGLISH
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