Speaka de Ingleesh?
The European Commission is facing a severe shortage of native English speaking interpreters and translators. Officials in Brussels say the situation is becoming so serious, that they will have to resort to using more interpreters from other countries or reduce the number of meetings they can hold every day.
They point to the drop off in students taking languages at GCSE since it was made optional in 2004 and the fact that English-speakers have little interest in learning another language.
Yvonne Murray will report for us from Brussels. She sends these words and photos too:
"Brian Fox, Director in Interpreters, at the Commission. He says he's also noticed a slide in the standard of English among new recruits. They have difficulty adapting their speech to the context i.e. moving from slang into a more formal register.
Marco Benedetti, in the second picture, is Director General for Interpretation. He says the situation is becoming so severe that the Commission might have to reduce the number of meetings it can hold every day and/or use staff from other countries to provide the English interpretation.
And Ian Anderson, the head of the Communications Unit, shows me a map of Europe inside the Berlaymont Building. At least I think it's Europe."
Listen to PM
© MMIX~RS~q~RS~~RS~z~RS~46~RS~)
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Cor blimey guv, what a Hat and Scarf, that’s a bit Tom Thumb.
I better don me old Ones and Twos, nip down to the bank for some Nelson Eddies, go for a bit of a Sol Campbell down to Dover and catch the Nanny Goat to France and giv’ ‘em Park Benches a lesson in the old Queens English!
The Decoder!
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I seem to rememberseeing, hearing or reading that the EU spend about a million Euro a day on translators so this is a good news story then....
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Now leesten verry caerphili, I zhall zay zis only once...
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.....zee Madonna whiz zee big adda Boobies iz..
Oh, such happy times!
DiY:-)
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Perish the thought!Complain about this comment
Well like er fats like cool init an' like I fink its like 'stenders.
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But the last I heard was that as a result of NuLab throwing money at education, our school-leavers were leaving school with more and better qualifications than ever before, and that standards were definitely not slipping.
Presumably the EU is responsible for the fact that it is unable to recruit our excellent graduates.
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Nigel_N - better qualifications, possibly - but not better education, and not in European languages.
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There are plenty of language graduates coming out of the Universities every year. It doesn't necessarily follow that they all want to work as interpreters.
As for: "They point to the drop off in students taking languages at GCSE since it was made optional in 2004."
Well, that is pretty quick isn't it? Three years from the change in those starting their GCSE courses and they are already noticing a drop-off in interpreter applications. I thought they recruited graduates.
And I'm not sure that those pupils who opt out would make a significant contribution to the EC translation service if they stuggle with a language for another couple of years.
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Speaking English and translating are two different things. If you can't translate English to another language it doesn't matter how well you speak it.
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Why has someone nailed Ian Andersons hand to that painting?
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Part of the problem may relate to the complexity of getting into the system. From what I recall (when I was considering, as a linguist, the options open to me) getting into the EU as a translator was very complicated. Perhaps Yvonne will be able to clarify this. The whole system of competitions for EU posts seems to favour countries where this approach is more usual in the job market.
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I can just see the Sun headline now: "Why dun't they all talk proppa English, like wot we does?"
Having travelled a bit on the continent, on several occasions I have been rather ashamed of my lack of language skills. Not to mention the generally very good English a lot of (especially Northern) Europeans speak. I studied French to A-Level standard, these days through lack of use I would describe my level of knowledge as being "conversational" at best. The problem is they want to practice their English with a native speaker! I usually pick up "please" and "thank you", "hello" and "goodbye", but that's about it. Oh yes, that and "two beers please"! ;o)
I'm just not sure what the solution is.
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mygloriousleader (11) more importantly, wotz he doing with his right hand?
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DI_W 14, If that is a weather map, you could say he is feeling a little under the weather.
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Just checking on the EC website to see if the situation has changed substantially since I looked into 'translation' as a career with them.
As remembered, the posts are subject to competitions, and, as the website states, they consist of :
"computer-based selection tests, written tests and an oral test. The whole procedure takes between eight and ten months on average".
Now, how many young Britons would want to wait that long to find out if they will have a career in the EU?
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Why does the BBC invite ex education minister Estelle Morris to comment? After all she is a failed minister, by her own admission, not to mention the fact that this afternoon she used the word 'historic' instead of 'historical'
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Everybody knows that it is the duty of foreigners to learn English. The sooner they do, the sooner we will have no need of interpreters!!
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Wanted to agree with Big Sister - the process is very off-putting. I'm also a linguist by degree and considered working as an interpreter during my final year at university. Having spent four years at college, one of my priorities was to start earning some money pretty rapidly to pay off my debts. It may seem short-term-ist with hindsight, but the idea of having to temp in a pointless job for months while I tried to negotiate the complicated competition system really put me off. In the end I went into an entirely different career, and rarely use my languages now.
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In most parts of the world most people operate in more than one language every day. That includes quite a lot of people in Wales, Scotland and Ireland and their numbers are growing. Why is it that so many English people seem peculiarly proud of being monolingual, perhaps even more than they feel it's okay to say they're no good at maths.
The world is becoming more and more inter-connected and the ability to operate in three languages (your own, English, and a neighbouring language) pays off for everyone, especially those in business.
Monolingualism can be cured - learn a language and drop the attitude!
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It is not easy to become a translator or interpreter, even with a good langauges degree. You also need a very high level of English language i.e. to be able to understand and translate nuances and to create unambiguous and accurate [bioth semantically and grammatically] translations. That is not enough - the postgraduate courses are competitive to get on to and there is little opportunity for funding - my daughter's recent MA course in Translation cost £4500 in fees. She had a placement at the EU and was told that jobs there are subject to rigorous testing [not surprisingly] incl a test on the EU institutions. They like to employ people who have some experience elsewhere but that is difficult to get....all in all very hard financially.
I am personally involved in the dvpt of primary languages, which is a GOOD thing but taking them away from KS4 has devalued lang as an academic subject.
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It is another clear indication in the failure of our youth to engage with anything difficult, we can not blame the teachers they only do what the children tell them they want to do. "Nothing to hard please" well may be not the please.
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I didn't mean my earlier comment to sound cynical. The issues, as I know as a linguist and as others have highlighted, are complex.
Firstly, we have the standard (though not universal) British resistance to learning languages, something which has been commented upon by myself and others in earlier threads of this Blog. As an ex language teacher, I am very familiar with this, but equally I am familiar with the enthusiasm of many students for the learning of other languages. It is quite true that we do not, as a nation, prize the acquisition of another language sufficiently highly. Some years ago, when working in tourism, I became accustomed to Brits complimenting me on my ability to speak other languages (I speak three, for the record, in addition of course to English). My response was invariable: I knew many other colleagues, mainly from other countries, who had a solid knowledge of six or more languages, and therefore considered my own skills to be relatively modest.
In general (and it is only 'in general') European countries are much more advanced about the value of languages in their curriculum, hence it is commonplace to meet teenagers from France, Germany, the Netherlands and elsewhere who have a good command of English. There are those who might argue that this is in part due to the influence of American culture, and I'd be surprised if indeed that didn't play a part. However, the big distinction between England (and I do mean England!) and many European countries is that foreign languages, until quite recently, were rarely introduced into the curriculum until Key Stage 3, i.e. when children enter secondary school. It was always noticeable for me, while teaching at this level, that pupils entering KS3 had an enormous enthusiasm for learning a language, regardless of whether or not they had been exposed to foreign languages pre secondary or not, and I think this is largely down to the relative lack of inhibition that younger children feel about these things. By the time we reached Year 9 and rampant adolescence, that enthusiasm declined in the face of increasing feelings of selfconsciousness. Now, I would argue that with languages being introduced into the curriculum at primary level, children will, by Year 9, have increased their proficiency to a level that these issues of self confidence may well be less of an issue. But I'd go a stage further: I was also trained in drama, and used this a great deal in my language teaching strategy. It is interesting that the lack of self confidence experienced by adolescents is less evident in drama lessons, and I would strongly advocate that future language strategy should build upon this by making more of role playing, etc., within lessons in a way in which pupils can find the experience more fun.
I remember with affection one group I taught - a large class of over thirty pupils who I taught in Years 9 and 10, many of whom were statemented and all of whom had either learning or behavioural problems. They were an enormous challenge, particularly because I had no support staff to assist me, but I managed to engage them through a combination of project work and role play. They loved their language classes and, I hope, left school with a positive experience of speaking a foreign language.
Secondly, and again this is linked to differences between continental Europe and the UK, the way the EC recruits does need to be looked at if they want to attract more English speakers into their translation services. With graduates leaving University burdened by student loans, there is an imperative for them to enter paid work sooner rather than later. When I considered the EC route, I felt it was akin to entering a lottery, but where you were expected to put up a high stake if you were to have any chance of winning. I'm not quite sure how we can get around this one as the EC rightly expects a high standard from its translators and interpreters. Perhaps there needs to be an 'academy', offering a bursary sufficient to cover expenses, where applicants can undergo the necessary training for these posts and which would give the EC a chance to weed out those who are unsuited for the work. The unlucky applicants would, at the very least, leave having acquired some skills which they then might be able to use in commercial employment.
Any other ideas, anyone?
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I think the academy is a great idea and I'd like to say that there are languages being taught by good teachers in the comprehensive system. My son managed to get an A in German GCSE this year at the age of 15 but he did not have to use it much when we went on holiday where all the German kids were speaking excellent English and obligingly offered to help him over the internet with his coursework if he studied any further. They were interested to hear that he had only been learning the language for 4 years whilst they had been doing languages in primary school from an early age.
I trained and taught as a specialist teacher of French in primary and middle education but there was little enthusiasm from colleagues who felt that we should be concentrating instead on the 3 'Rs'.
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"The European Commission is facing a severe shortage of native English"
From what I can tell, so is Britain :-)
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Every so often various Government ministers hold forth about compulsorarily adding something suitably populist into the school curriculum but without ever making reference as to when or how.
With only a maximum of six teaching hours in a school day, of which the national curriculum used to insist that two hours were uncompromisinglg assigned to Mathematics and English, any parent assisting their child in their option choices, with all the timetable conflicts, will appreciated the advantages of more flexibility and the need to drop less appropriate subjects.
It could even come down to a choice between French or Mathematics.
I wonder which of these would be the Governments preferred option.
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On the other hand,far away from Britain,in India we have fluent English speakers.Many of us can work as very good translators.We have to accept that English is a world language.
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AM 27, Are those the people who answer the phone when I call help lines?
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what is going to take place, to get more speakers as translators to work for the european union....
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