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The best languages to study?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/9487434/Graduate-jobs-Best-languages-to-study.html

The Telegraph reported today a top ten of most desirable foreign languages from the point of view of businesses. The rankings are based on a survey carried out by the CBI which received replies from 542 UK business managers.

The rankings are not terribly surprising, actually, as German was ranked first, followed by French. Spanish was third with Mandarin fourth. One slight surprise to me, though it should not have been, was Polish, which was ranked fifth.

When teachers are asked by leaders and parents why Mandarin is not the main language offered in a school they should remind them that we do most of our business with our near neighbours in the EU. But just as important, and maybe more so, is the fact that our cultural heritage is more closely related to that of our European partners and that learning French, for example, is a route into a world of culture, literature, film, art and the rest. We are also far more likely to travel to the continent, to meet Europeans in our everyday life and to live and work in Europe.

That's not to ignore the fact that we should open our minds to more distant cultures, but when you add on the fact that Mandarin, Arabic and Russian are more difficult languages for young people to learn, the case for French, German and Spanish remains cast iron.

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