Europe needs to get real on defence; Britain needs to get real on Europe
13 February 2025
Why we should be upgrading not downgrading language teaching in schools across the UK
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9 November 2024
So yesterday was a big day for me … my first speech in German since my Goethe Institute courses in lockdown to brush up a language I had slowly lost since student days. It was last night, at the German Embassy, who had been hosting a symposium on “making the case for German”, a language which fewer and fewer British children are learning.
The point of the speech, in English, is at the bottom of this post, but for the German speakers who were there, and who asked for a text, here it is. And if British journalists want a half decent diary story out of it, Google Translate the bit about Blair and Schröder. Oh, and look closely, and you’ll find me making a rare criticism of New Labour.
Los geht’s … here we go …
Heute ist ein großer Tag für die Welt – Trump wird Präsident, die Ampelkoalition in Deutschland steckt in der Krise, die Ukraine und der Nahe Osten, wer weiß? – und es ist auch ein großer Tag für mich persönlich… meine erste Rede auf Deutsch, seit ich im Lockdown zwei Kurse beim Goethe-Institut gemacht habe.
For the non German speakers, I will eventually revert to English, but given the subject of this event, and the venue, it would seem odd not to give German a go.
Ich bin ein seltsamer Brite, und das nicht nur, weil ich ein in England geborener Dudelsackspieler bin, sondern weil ich eine große Leidenschaft für Fremdsprachen habe. Als Schüler habe ich Englisch, Deutsch und Französisch bis zum A-Level gelernt, an der Universität Französisch und Deutsch und in meiner Freizeit ein bisschen Niederländisch.
Heutzutage spreche ich nur noch einen Satz auf Niederländisch. … “Ik heb te veel op mijn doedelzak gespeeld” … “Ich habe zu viel meinen Dudelsack gespielt,’ was ich oft gesagt habe, als ich in meinen Zwanzigern Straßenmusikant war. Ja, Ehrlich.
Mein Französisch habe ich nie verloren, denn in meiner Arbeit, als Journalist und dann in der Politik und der Diplomatie, fand ich, dass die Franzosen bevorzugen, auf französisch zu sprechen. In Deutschland hingegen fand ich, dass, sobald ich versuchte, Deutsch zu sprechen, sie sagten: „Ah, Sie sind ein Engländer“, und sie antworteten auf Englisch, und dann antwortete ich, auch auf Englisch: „Das bin ich nicht. Ich bin Brite und Schotte.“
Dank des selbstverschuldeten Schadens des Brexit sage ich jetzt: “Ich bin Brite, Schotte und ein sich erholender Europäer.” Und ich muss sagen, wenn die Bundesregierung meinen Beitrag zu dieser Kampagne mit einem deutschen Reisepass für mich und meine Familie belohnen würde, wäre ich dankbar. Bisher haben mir die Franzosen nur ”la carte de Sejour” gegeben.
Oh, ich habe noch eine Bitte. Ich hoffe, dass Angela Merkel einem Interview im britischen Podcast Nr. 1 zustimmt, wenn sie hier für ihr Buch wirbt. Vielleicht könnte der Botschafter im Interesse guter Beziehungen zwischen Großbritannien und Deutschland dabei helfen. Danke.
Im Gegensatz zum Verlust meiner Deutschkenntnisse habe ich mein Französisch immer beibehalten. Als Familie verbringen wir seit der Geburt unseres ersten Sohnes, der mittlerweile 37 Jahre alt ist, unsere Sommerferien in Frankreich und haben vor 13 Jahren ein Haus in der Provence gekauft. Wenn ich ein Buch schreibe – und ich habe bereits einundzwanzig geschrieben –, dann gehe ich dorthin.
Aber nach und nach wurde mein Deutsch immer weniger fließend. Als Gerhard Schröder Bundeskanzler war, habe ich versucht, mit ihm und seinem Team immer auf Deutsch zu sprechen, aber ich erinnere mich an einen Moment, als mir beim Deutschsprechen – oder besser gesagt beim Versuch, es zu sagen – der Gedanke an Französisch fiel. Es war ein trauriger Moment für mich, als ich die berühmte Dolmetscherin Dorothee Kaltenbach um Hilfe bitten musste.
Ich bewundere das Talent eines guten Dolmetschers so sehr. Dorothee gehörte zu den Besten, zusammen mit einem Mann namens Tony Bishop, der von Stalin bis Putin unser Russisch-Dolmetscher war. Wenn wir in Treffen mit Helmut Kohl oder Gerhard Schröder waren, übersetzte Dorothee nicht nur die Worte, sondern auch die Stimmung, die Körpersprache ... und ja, die Körper von Kohl und Schröder waren sehr unterschiedlich.
Ich habe nur einmal als Deutschdolmetscher für Tony Blair gearbeitet. Deutschland hatte die rotierende Präsidentschaft der Europäischen Union. Es gab ein Gipfel in Berlin, Schröder im Vorsitz. Strukturfonds das große Argument. Wir wollten mehr für die schottischen Highlands und Cornwall. Wir haben es geschafft, einfacher als erwartet. Also versuchte Tony, mehr zu bekommen. Wir haben um ein Treffen mit dem Kanzler gebeten. Drei Uhr morgens, Schröder erschöpft. Tony bittet um mehr.
„Um Himmels willen, Tony, sagt Schröder, das reicht, bitte… jetzt hau ab.”
“What did he say?” he asked Dorothee.
Aber ich habe erstens gesprochen.
“He told you to fuck off,” I said
“Oh. Ah well, we’ve done pretty well here.” Tony never took things personally.
Nun, dann kommt Covid und meine Partnerin Fiona, die mich besser kennt als jeder andere, wusste, dass ich den Lockdown nicht angenehm finden würde. Als Geburtstagsgeschenk kaufte sie für mich einen Kurs des Goethe-Instituts. Drei Monate. Online, mit einer Tutorin, Andrea in Leipzig. Fiona weiß, dass ich ein Besessener bin, und dieser Kurs und ein zweiter danach wurden zu meiner Obsession für die Corona-Zeit.
Als Podcaster werde ich oft gefragt, welche Podcasts ich sonst noch höre. Sie sind alle Deutsch. … Acht Milliarden, der Auslandspodcast des Spiegel, mit Olof Häuser, jetzt Juan Moreno … wo ist Olof? Auf den Punkt, von der Süddeutschen Zeitung, Reif Ist Live und Phrasenmäher, Fußball-Podcasts der Bild-Zeitung, und da Vincent Kompany der Ex-Trainer meiner Mannschaft Burnley ist, jetzt auch Bayern Insider.
Ich höre jeden Morgen „der Tag am Morgen“ und lese jeden Morgen online „Die SZ“ und „Die Presse“.
Ich kann die Lieder von Helene Fischer, Kirstin Ott, und Elif mitsingen. Ich habe auch die Autorin Charlotte Link entdeckt, deren Bücher ich sehr gerne lese, vor allem diejenigen, in denen die Handlung in England spielt.
Which brings me to English, and perhaps some of the people who have been at the Symposium, who do not speak German, but who support this campaign to get more Brits doing so.
You will very rarely find me criticising the Labour government I worked for. Plenty of others do enough of that without me. But I am critical of our decision to downgrade language teaching in schools. The consequences are all too clear. Just 2,431 pupils taking German for their A-levels and only 35,913 pupils are taking German for their GSCEs across the UK. [I later learned only 38 children in Wales were doing A-Level German]
English may be the closest thing we have to a universal language, but that is as much to do with it being America’s language as it is to do with Shakespeare or Dickens and the Beatles, let alone with us being the great Global Britain the Brexit brigade promised to build.
Learning languages is a good thing per se. But at a time when we are needing to build stronger relations with the rest of Europe, a little more humility and a little less arrogance on the language front would not be a bad idea.
So I am very happy to support the “Making the Case for German” campaign, and the alliance of over 35 umbrella organisations and partners which back it. It can only be a good thing that we show to Germany, which despite your current political and other problems remains Europe’s strongest economy and such an important economic and cultural hub, the respect that comes from showing an interest in the culture and language of others. And it is good for us too, if our children grow up knowing the pleasure of learning languages, and the additional opportunities that brings to their lives.
I am far from being a polyglot – we had Professor Tim Snyder on the podcast last week, who speaks five languages and understands ten – but I know my life has been considerably enriched by a love of language, and a love of languages. A love of music has been enriched by it too. Jacques Brel is beyond doubt my favourite singer. And now, thanks to the Goethe Institut allowing me to pick up where I left off a few decades ago, I can as I said earlier sing along to the top German singers too.
On social media yesterday, one of the few things which went viral which did not involve Donald Trump, was an interview that Amazon Prime footballer presenter Alex Aljoe did with Liverpool’s Colombian player Luis Diaz, who had just scored three goals against Bayer Leverkusen. The reason the footage went viral was nothing to do with anything Diaz said himself – footballers rarely say much interesting in these after match media hits - but Aljoe’s ability to conduct the interview while simultaneously translating English questions to Spanish and Spanish answers to English. It was impressive. She is clearly bilingual. But judging from the reaction of public and media – most of our papers covered the story today – you would have thought she had just found a cure for the common cold. In most of Europe, the commentators who could NOT switch between languages would be the exception, not the one who can.
For years now we have seen footballers and managers from around the world who speak English as well as we do. Take Germany. The Jurgens, Klopp and Klinsmann. Now the young manager at Brighton, Fabien Hürzeler, who is younger than my children. The Austrian Oliver Glasner at Crystal Palace. Dieter Hamann with his slight Scouse accent. And of course we had Berti Vogts in Scotland who ended up with a slight Scottish tinge to his voice.
Now England have Thomas Tuchel as head coach, and Nigel Farage and Co are outraged: “Why can’t we have an Englishman as manager?”
“Vielleicht weil die deutsche Trainer besser English sprechen, Nigel.”
Mertesacker, Lehmann, Ballack, Sane, Özil, Gundogan … we have been blessed with their football skills. But with their commitment to our language and culture too. We should take a lesson from that.
Harry, bitte lerne ein wenig Deutsch. Jude Bellingham hat es versucht, als er mit Dortmund spielte, und vielleicht hat es ihm geholfen, Spanisch zu lernen, das er jetzt mit Real Madrid fast fließend spricht.
But enough complaining. Let’s celebrate the fact that some of you are taking this on, because you know it matters. And I for one will keep on proseltysing for languages in general and, provided you get me that EU passport, for German in particular.
Vielen Dank für die Ehre, Ihr Gastredner sein zu dürfen, und viel Glück bei dieser wichtigen Kampagne.
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Totally agree. Learning languages, and speaking three of them fluently, has had an enormous effect on my life, not only because it’s helped me in my work but because it has helped me understand different cultures, be more accepted in that culture and, probably more than anything else, for what I have learned about myself as a result.
Couldn’t agree more! As a former language teacher I find it sad that language leaning in this country has been so downgraded. Although I am a fervent Labour supporter I too was disappointed by Labour’s decision to downgrade language teaching.
Since I have retired I have been learning Italian and German (the languages I taught were French and Spanish) and it is difficult to exaggerate the benefits of continuing to learn languages, so thank you, Alastair, for reminding us of this. I agree that German is demanding but definitely worth it and Italian is a really fun language to learn.
I really appreciate Alaistairs efforts of promoting language teaching in Britain. The creation of a truly European public is defintely not a one way street but unthinkable without the language of Shakespeare.
Regards
Thomas Seidel, Jena
A modern foreign languages program for primary schools was ready to launch in 2010. Unfortunately the incoming Conservative Government scrapped it.
Alastair, we are just about contemporary. I’m 1956, Primary- educated in Scotland, flown the flag for language learning and a few years back, John le Carré awarded me a lifetime achievement award for my services to the German language- at the German embassy. Last year, at my secondary school, Queen’s Chester, I delivered the prizes and spoke about the Importance of being earnest about languages.
For me, it all began in Scotland, with the necessity for me, a 6 year old from the Wirral, to adopt a Scottish accent and thus be accepted in the playground. I’ve been good at accents ever since.And have flown multiple flags.I write and speak about German film these days. I’ve spoken about 150 Grman films since a Goethe course in Berlin in 2008. If ever you need a recommendation.
I think we have much in common.
Espionage is all too topsy turvy as you mostly only read about spies who got caught out! If Kim Philby had never been challenged there would never have been a stamp or monument in his name even if he was Monty’s cousin. If only he had read the epic spy novel Beyond Enkription in #TheBurlingtonFiles series. Little wonder Beyond Enkription is mandatory reading on some countries’ intelligence induction programs and has been heralded by one US critic as “being up there with My Silent War by Kim Philby and No Other Choice by George Blake”. See https://theburlingtonfiles.org/news_2022.10.31.php.
This is such a helpful article. I am currently Head of German at a school in Shrewsbury and am continuing to fight for its survival. We were recently told MFL will now become optional at GCSE. A downgrading which totally undermines the school’s academic reputation in my opinion. I have taught French and German for over thirteen years and have never seen MFL in such a state of disrepair in schools. So many students find them too hard and quickly drop them to free up time to study for their others. There seems to be quite a flakey approach amongst younger people with regards to the value of learning a language. Any more publicity we can get from high profile figures like yourself is always appreciated. Thank you! Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer!
Thank you so much for this. I am currently Head of German in a school in Shropshire. We were recently told that modern languages will become optional at GCSE as of September 2025. I really feel it completely undermines the academic profile of the school. I am now in my 13th year of teaching languages and it so sad and frustrating to see German in such a state of disrepair. It is so good to hear from high profile people like yourself to the benefits of having gone through learning languages at school. We need to stop this flakey attitude of the government and of schools towards languages in this country and push our younger generation to be learning them from a younger age and more frequently. Vorwärts immer, rückwärts nimmer !
Like you Alistair I have in recent years neglected my MFL, only using them on holiday. I wish I’d had a Fiona to encourage me during lockdown. Learning French to O-level and German to A-level allowed me the opportunity to live and work in Luxembourg, and to become a European. Thanks to my employer I took a course in Business Italian (helped by my Latin O-level) and learned to appreciate the culture and food of another of our neighbours. Reader, on that sad day in 2016, I wept.
Fantastic piece and couldn’t agree more. Living and working in Germany and learning the language remains one of the seminal experiences of my life and reinforced my love, not only for Germany, but for travel and experiencing other countires more generally. I always find it sad when I see how little foreign language is taught in British schools these days.
I was heartened to see recently that beloved (German) children’s illustrator Axel Scheffler is also leading a campaign to get more German learnt in British primary schools (perhaps something you two could collaborate on :))
https://www.theguardian.com/education/2024/nov/15/the-gruffalo-illustrator-launches-book-to-help-uk-pupils-learn-german
I also recently wrote about this very topic in my most recent Substack and tried to get my daughter’s primary school to sign up
post https://open.substack.com/pub/matthewdorkings/p/the-importance-of-learning-german?r=49eikl&utm_campaign=post&utm_medium=web
Absolutely. Language teaching has taken a back seat and for me, the first in my family to learn / speak a second language ,it changed my life. I am so sorry that the present generation of this country are missing out.
Mein Diplom, bei Imperial College, war «Physik mit einem Jahr in Deutschland». 1996 studierte ich 9 Monate lang in Hamburg, wo ich nur Deutsch sprach. Leider, wahrscheinlich in diesem Text gesehen, bin ich jetzt ganz außer Übung.
An der Schule meiner Kinder in Twickenham, wird nur Spanisch als Fremdsprache unterrichtet. Nur wenige Kinder machen es für das GCSE, kaum 5 Studenten für das A’level.
Wenn ich als Physikerin meine Kollegen in Europa treffen. Die meisten könnten das Meeting in drei Sprachen abhalten, und dazu noch das Abendessen in drei verschiedenen Sprachen abstellen…
Wir haben etwas besonderes, etwas wichtiges verloren …
Sehr geehrter Mr Campbell,
Lieber Alastair,
Ach wie schön endlich einen Dudelsackspieler, der dem eigenen Eingestehen nach heutzutage vorerst Schotte und dann erst Brite ist – genau in der Reihenfolge und nicht anders herum – kennenzulernen.
Worthaché? Mitten im Satz die Sprache zu wechseln, ohne dass man es selbst merkt, bis andere einen verständnislos anstarren. Den Satz zu wiederholen und nicht verstanden zu werden.
Sounds all too familiar. Perhaps not.
Mine is a different story. A story of caution. Although I am German born, bred and educated, I have been for 43 odd years a nationalised Brit based in North West London.
The British quite understandably do not naturally take to Germans two World Wars, The Great War and the Second World War, down the line.
I myself learned English, French and Russian at School and ‘dabbled’ with Arabic/Arabistic in year three at university while at the same time trying to aquire the necessary knowledge for the “Kleine Latinum” while reading Musicology and English Literature at the Freie Universität Berlin, before switching to History of Art and German Literatur. Needless to say, I never graduated and instead got married – not a good move in my case.
Where was I – languages, writing, communicating, exchanging thoughts, beliefs, stories all for the better – note: not the worse – of mankind. Language, the spoken and the written word, connects, disects, liberates, does many a thing, it ‘classes’ and ‘de-classes’ at the same time.
When I was young, newly married. a young mother, I was in love with all things British, all things English. all things Irish, all things Welsh and Gaelic and all things Scottish. Mine was a romantic view of wild windswept landscapes, wind in my hair, wide far away horizons and everchanging Turner skies, with low hanging clouds giving way to bright blue skies.
Good language sings, makes the heart sing while bad language grates, annoys and drives one literally around the bent.
Being German born has been – how shall I put it – somewhat of a ‘hindrance’. I had people giving me the Hitler salute with one hand while holding their respective index and middle fingers to their upperlip by way of mock moustache on my entering the premises. I was told that only a dead German was a good German. I was reassured that although I was foreign at least I was not black. I was told by one of my own brothers-in-law that being German was bad luck but at least I was not Jewish….
Needless to say, I did take offence inwardly screaming although I did not say much at the time. What could I have possibly said without causing offence in turn. So non-u, don’t you think so, too?
Now all of this did happen in the early 1980s and surprisingly not now.
Xenophobia, an inherent fear of all things ‘new’, an instinctive dislike of all things unknown or foreign which still lets them scream “stranger, stranger” while fingerpointing, finger stabbing running either towards their perceived enemy in full frontal attack or ducking and diving for cover while proverbially mud slingling seems to be inherent in the British populace. Middle-England is no longer what it used to be and Tony Blair’s classless society has become sheer utopia nearly 30 years on.
As you know one cannot compare Goethe and Schiller with Shakespeare and Marlowe because all four came from totally different backgrounds, wrote from different vantage points, had different takes on life. Intellectuals and academics versus vagabonds, thespians, loose folk, whores, drunkards and debauchery. Anyone for Chaucer, lest we forget him?
When an Italian-American friend of mine who had lived and worked for more than a decade in what was then West Berlin moved back to the United States, she urged me to join the Goethe Institute in London but I somehow I never got around to it, as I had never sought out German compatriots before thinking at the time that as I was now living in England I must only have British friends… naive woman that I was.
You are right foreign languages -both the spoken and written word – should be taught much earlier at primary school level in years 5 and 6 and offered more widely across the curriculum of British schools. When one is young one learns so much more easily.
The British still believe that everybody else should be speaking their language rather than they learning to speak another country’s language. My late husband was the same. He refused to learn German saying there was no point in doing so as he was ‘tone deaf’. I said try saying after me “Charlottenburger Schloss” and he just could not, would not. He was hopeless. Whereas all three of his older brothers could make themselves understood in German if need be. He sang loud but hopelessly out of tune when in the bath when happy and his upper class voice boomed in deepest barritone easily regogniseable for all at a distance long before he entered a room. Well so much for musicality and the ability to speak another language.
Enough. Genug. Busy men must not be unnecessarily bored.
Thank you, for sharing with us, the public, your German talk, die kleine Ansprache, die – unlike my meandering musings – fast faultless war. You see, Wortsalat! Schon wieder!
Ich habe mich sehr gefreut mal etwas anderes zu lesen was mir Spass machte.
Mit freundlichen Grüßen,
Kai Moldenschardt-Bird (Mrs)
Hello! Hallihallo! Is there anyone out there? Anyone reading what ‘we’, the public – see above – wrote in response to Alastair Campbell’s post of 09 November 2024? Oder ist das schon wieder eine solche Situation, in der jeder einfach seinen eigenen ‘Senf’ dazu gibt, seine eigenen Gedanken zum Thema ‘Fremdsprachen’ und ‘the British National Curriculum’ on-line festhält, ohne dass ein Gedankenaustausch statt findet.
Ich fand die obigen, vorhergehenden Kommentare, Beiträge und Gedanken zum Thema ‘Fremdsprachen’ anregend und ermutigend, weil es wirklich Zeit ist, dass sich endlich etwas drastisch ändert in diesem Land.