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Are language degrees useful? David Landsman argues that they’re highly underestimated
In Britain we often like to play down our skills and achievements (except perhaps in sport). There’s nothing wrong with a bit of modesty. But I’m not sure we do ourselves – or the next generation – any favours if we end up boasting about how bad we are at something or another. We rightly admire those who have overcome, say, dyslexia to achieve academic success and a great career. But it’s decidedly odd how people make light of not being able to do maths (“not really my thing, thank goodness for calculators”). I’ve never heard anyone in Asia, for example, boasting about being functionally innumerate….
We’re also a bit too ready to shrug off being monolingual in what is, without doubt, a multilingual world. Pretty well everywhere you go, you’ll meet people who take speaking multiple languages for granted. I once visited a village school in Eastern India: the schoolgirls, aged from 8-12, spoke to me in reasonable English, one of the five languages they could communicate in. In many, people speak one or two “home” languages, but I’m not sure our culture values these skills highly enough. I remember asking a South African lady how many languages she spoke. Her initial answer was “just a bit of French from school [in addition to English]”. After a few more questions, she admitted that she spoke a couple of African languages, but hadn’t thought it worth mentioning…
My own story with languages, like most, started at school, in my case with French and Latin, followed a year or so later by Ancient Greek. I recall my teacher saying that the best thing about the ancient languages was that they had no practical use – probably not the best motivational talk for a twelve-year-old boy!
But what I found exciting about Greek and Latin was their sheer “otherness”: new words, new grammar (and lots of it) and new ways of expressing yourself, for example in Greek you express the idea of “if only…” with a whole new piece of grammar (the optative mode for anyone who’s interested). The puzzles that you have to solve in order to decipher complex constructions are the classics’ answer to a tough computer game or Sudoku.
It was, in my case, the language puzzles rather than the ancient history or archaeology that persuaded me to opt for classics at university. But before starting my degree, I spent a few months in Greece, which without making me change my degree plans, ultimately changed everything. Within a minute of landing in Athens, I realised that the linguistic skills which had landed me my place at Oxford wouldn’t let me read most of the signs at the airport, still less order a beer.
That’s when I decided to spend as much as possible of my time in Greece learning the modern language which, apart from being of more use in the bar, also got me fascinated by how the language had evolved. I took this fascination with me to university where I studied philology (the history of languages) as part of my degree and with that went on to do a Masters and PhD in linguistics (the structure and behaviour of languages), focusing naturally on Modern Greek.
I can’t say that my languages were an essential part of my path to the Diplomatic Service, but they certainly helped me once there. The British Foreign Office doesn’t require candidates to speak foreign languages before they arrive, but instead uses a (pretty reliable) language aptitude test to find out who’s best suited to being trained in the most difficult languages.
In my own case I soon found myself being sent off to fill a gap in the Embassy in Greece, belying the old joke that if you speak Russian, they’ll send you to Brazil. Later I learned Serbo-Croat and Albanian for postings in Belgrade and Tirana; I also took a course to improve my French which is still a key diplomatic language; and have acquired along the way varying amounts of German, Turkish and Hungarian, though not as much as I would like.
Today, after over a decade in business, I’m still at it, trying to improve my German (an important wedding to attend next year) and taking an online course in Russian with a brilliant teacher, just because I can. I’m a strong believer in the BOGOF principle of languages: learn one, get another if not actually free, much “cheaper” as every language you learn trains your mind to learn the next one.
There are so many ways to learn languages, and different things you can be good at. I’ve got quite a good ear, so sometimes my pronunciation can be deceptive and give the (dangerous) impression I know more than I do. On the other hand, I’m no artist, which always put me off languages like Chinese and Thai as I’m sure I couldn’t master the elaborate writing systems. You can learn by reading classic literature if you like, but if you prefer the news, or social media, or films, it’s your choice. My wife has to put up with me listening to songs in whichever language I’m focusing on at the time.
But is it really worth learning languages, when “everyone speaks English”? First, it’s good for you. There’s plenty of evidence that language learning staves off Alzheimer’s because it’s a great form of gymnastics for the mind, which makes sense even if you’re far too young to worry about losing your memory.
Languages are an excellent way to understand quite how differently it’s possible to think. Take colours, for example: some languages don’t distinguish between “blue” and “green” and have a single word covering both. On the other hand, Greek and Turkish have completely different words for light and dark blue. So if you’re speaking one of these languages, you’ll see light and dark blue as differently as we see, say, red and pink.
This opens up a new world of understanding difference, going well beyond colours to the essence of people and civilisations. And when you understand better, you can communicate better. Nelson Mandela might have been talking to diplomats when he said: “If you talk to a man in a language he understands, that goes to his head. If you talk to him in his language, that goes to his heart.” But it’s not just diplomats who need to communicate. As former German Chancellor Willy Brandt is reported to have said: “If I’m selling to you, I speak your language. If I’m buying, Dann müssen Sie Deutsch sprechen”. Prosperity depends on trade, and trade depends on dealing with abroad. Language learning isn’t just an academic exercise. I’d like to see more businesspeople, not just teachers, speaking up for language learning.
If I were back at school today, what would I want to study? To be honest, I’m not sure it would be classics (maybe my old teacher had a point). But perhaps it wouldn’t be a pure languages degree either. I was talking recently to students about languages at a secondary school in London and was struck by how many were thinking about taking a course combining a language with another discipline. There are many more such courses today and they look to be well worth exploring. You choose law or business or maths, while getting all the benefits of studying a language at the same time. You prove that you can acquire a valuable real-world skill while giving your mind two different types of gymnastics at the same time. And don’t worry if you can’t decide which language to study: once you’ve tried one, there’s always BOGOF.
David Landsman is a former British Ambassador and senior executive. He is now Chair of British Expertise International and the author of the Channel your Inner Ambassador podcast.
