Language Lives

Modern Foreign Languages has long been subject to falling numbers at both GCSE and A level, with low motivation widely being perceived as a key factor. Researchers from the universities of Oxford and Reading have conducted a survey with over 600 teachers from some 470 schools across England to find out what they believe the curriculum and exam content should focus on. 

Being raised in south Louisiana, the French language was always around, squeezed in, but strangely elusive. My baby-sitter would say that I had a tête dur, my grandmother would cook pain perdu, and I remember my great-grand parents bickering in French with each other when I spent the summers. But they, like many parents, didn’t share their native tongue. It was for them, something they guarded from their children in hopes they would thrive in their English-speaking environment.

Growing up I had only ever been around English; the only taste of a foreign language I got was ordering “frites” on family holidays to France. In primary school I attended the school’s Italian club where we sang a song about the alphabet, but I have no other memories of it whatsoever. 

I grew fond of foreign languages at an early age. I was born in Odessa, Ukraine, a multicultural, Russian-speaking city which was formerly part of the USSR. I attended a school with a Ukrainian syllabus as well as intensive English language tutoring. My parents weren’t afraid of setting me this linguistic challenge, and they weren’t mistaken – I never became confused by studying in a different language from what I spoke at home. 

Like many polyglots, my language-learning path has taken some very unexpected turns; my seven-year-old self would never have imagined the present me. And if we were ever to meet, her jaw would drop, hard.

My language learning ability didn’t get off to a great start. Aged nine I wanted to wish my older cousin a happy new year, and even though I saw her practically every day, the way I felt I could best express my dearest wishes for the start of 1999 was to of course hand-make her a card. In Spanish. Even though she is English. I thought she would probably love this though, because she was studying Spanish in secondary school. So I phoned my uncle, who was about to marry a Venezuelan lady later that year, and Aunty Carolina reliably informed me that ‘Feliz año nuevo’ was the way to go.

In our latest Language Lives video, Imogen Stead, a student of Classics, explains why her favourite word is the Latin 'squamiger' and why playing trumpet in a jazz setting has helped her understand the rhythms of Ancient Greek poetry.

I was born in England and have essentially lived all my life in England, but my family is originally from India. My family is very multilingual, as most Indian families are. In India it is not uncommon for children to be able to speak Hindi, the national language, then their local language, then English, the medium of instruction at many schools, and also Sanskrit, the ancient Indian language, which is ever present in religious rituals and yoga, which are part of every day life for most Indians.