Languages are a great gift – but money talks

PROFESSOR Helen Wallace makes a strong case for learning a foreign language (Yorkshire Post, August 18). What must never be forgotten is using a foreign language is essentially a personal activity. In many languages you don’t just say the translation for “How are you?”, you have to signal that you are talking to a woman or to a child or to a group and you have to be careful to use a polite form. Sometimes you don’t speak directly but you speak as if to a third person.

We all of us convey cultural differences the moment we open our mouths in another language, so it is not just learning a different vocabulary.

If we are all to get on together in the world, it is important that we are sensitive to the way other people express themselves. So whatever language you learn in school, it will give you a greater understanding of this world, a very precious possession and well worth the time you spend acquiring it.

From: John Jepson, The Mount, Driffield.

Professor Wallace in her excellent piece bemoaning the lack of foreign language skills amongst our MPs (Yorkshire Post, August 18) was too courteous to mention one reason for their reluctance to study a language – greed.

When William Hague became Secretary of State for Wales, the taxpayer generously provided him with a personal Welsh language tutor, although no record appears to exist of him ever saying anything in Welsh.

When his party was in opposition, he devoted himself 
to making money, and is legendary for being paid up to £1m per year for extra-Parliamentary activities. In the year before he became Foreign Secretary, he registered payments of at least £94,000, including for several speeches on the rubber chicken circuit at up to £20,000 a pop.

He could have spent some of this time and some of this money on learning another language, but clearly had other priorities

It means that Britain is in the shameful position of being the only country in Europe with a monoglot Foreign Secretary and where the manager of the English football team is fluent in more European languages than the entire front bench.