English schoolchildren are not utterly monolingual. Comparatively rapid immigration in the past decade means 15% of children attending schools in England speak a different language at home. In central London more than half do.

This helps flatter the language-learning figures. Polish, Portuguese and Arabic are more popular, although their rise has hardly countered the falls in French and German. Some schools enter children for exams in their native tongue without having taught them in it. This boosts the confidence of a newly arrived child—and the school’s ranking in league tables.

Part of the reason for the decline of modern languages is that the rewards of speaking in a second tongue diminish as more people in other countries speak English. Another is simply that learning languages is hard and tends to happen only if schools or the state insist on it. In 2004 the government removed the legal compulsion to teach foreign languages past the age of 14. Just 23% of state schools now ask their pupils to be proficient in a second language at the age of 16, compared with 82% of private schools.

In 2010 the education secretary, Michael Gove, found a ruse to reverse the decline: he published data showing how few pupils passed GCSE exams in traditional subjects, including a language. That appears to have been effective: a recent survey by CfBT, a charity, found that 40% of schools reported a rise in the number of pupils studying languages.

New pressure comes from universities, the pickiest of which like to admit polyglots. They have long demanded minimum entry standards in English and maths; from September University College London will insist that entrants from schools that teach modern languages have learned one, too. Any monoglots will be asked to enroll in language classes once they have arrived. Michael Worton, UCL’s vice-provost, reckons that knowing a foreign language enables people to appreciate different cultures. Perhaps, but many young Britons are unimpressed by such woolly claims. They will learn other languages only if forced.

Foreign languages passed at GCSE level

The Economist, 24 March 2012

Paola from Turin, Italy

Guy Gilpin, Director of Mother Tongue Writers

To read the full article about the stir this name has caused, click here.

They’re also slightly more likely than the overall population to own a mobile phone. The Internet is a prime source of entertainment, and social media are a big part of that, with Hispanics spending more hours a day on social networks than other ethnic groups or races.

For the full article, click here

Fortunately, while we were busy fumbling with hand gestures and illustrations like cavemen, other cultures just made up the perfect words and phrases to encapsulate those little everyday moments filled with … uh … je ne sais quoi.

9. Shemomedjamo (Georgian)

Means:

To eat past the point of being full just because the food tastes good.

8. Kummerspeck (German)

Means:

Excess weight gained from emotional overeating.

7. Hikikomori (Japanese)

Means:

A teenager or 20-something who has withdrawn from social life, often obsessed with TV and video games.
6. Gadrii Nombor Shulen Jongu (Tibetan)

Means:

Giving an answer that is unrelated to the question.

5. Iktsuarpok (Inuit)

Means:

To go outside to check if an expected visitor has arrived, over and over again.
4. Kaelling (Danish)

Means:

An ugly, miserable woman who yells obscenities at her kids.
3. Neidbau (German)

Means:

A building (often of little or no value to the proprietor) constructed with the sole purpose of harassing or inconveniencing his neighbor in some way.

2. Pochemuchka (Russian)

Means:

A person who asks too many questions.
1. Pilkunnussija (Finnish)

Means:

A person who believes it is their destiny to stamp out all spelling and punctuation mistakes at the cost of popularity, self-esteem and mental well-being.

For the full article, click here

By: Cole Gamble

This advert for the Guardian’s open journalism, screened for the first time on 29 February 2012, imagines how we might cover the story of the Three Little Pigs in print and online. Follow the story from the paper’s front page headline, through a social media discussion and finally to an unexpected conclusion

See the original article and video here

Those are quibbles, though, compared with the uproar over the latest mainland invasion: pregnant women flocking here to give birth.

The appeal of Hong Kong, a former British colony that is now a semiautonomous Chinese region, is understandable. Medical care here is far superior to what is found in most of China. Chinese children born here automatically receive the right to permanent residency in Hong Kong, entitling them to 12 years of free education and other benefits that are not available to mainlanders, including visa-free travel to many foreign countries. Some parents also sidestep China’s family-planning rules, which limit most couples to one child, by having their second child born offshore.

Hong Kong residents, though, are outraged that local pregnant women are being shut out of maternity wards because mainlanders have snapped up the beds. Despite official quotas on maternity care for nonresidents, nearly 4 in 10 births in Hong Kong last year were to mainland parents. Residents are demanding a crackdown, and a hard look at the residency rights law.

The controversy epitomizes Hong Kong’s tetchy relationship with the rest of China 15 years after the end of British colonial rule in 1997.

On the one hand, Hong Kong has courted mainland visitors for economic reasons, and has benefited enormously. About 28 million mainlanders came last year, up by two-thirds since 2008, and many of them to shop: sales of electronics, jewelry and other luxury goods in Hong Kong have soared. As recently as a few years ago, city officials saw mainland mothers-to-be as a revenue stream as well, and urged hospitals to accommodate them.

But the seven million residents of Hong Kong increasingly fear that mainlanders are challenging them for services, for property and to some extent for their cultural identity. Many suspect that wealthier mainlanders see Hong Kong as an escape option, for their children if not themselves, should confidence in China’s future fade.

Mainland buyers accounted for nearly one-fifth of the value of Hong Kong residential apartments sold last year, and are one reason that prices are soaring. The number of schoolchildren commuting to Hong Kong schools from Shenzhen, a sprawling mainland urban area just north of the border, has tripled in five years.

“The issue is the capacity of the society to accept so many travelers,” said Ivan Choy, a senior instructor in public administration at the Chinese University of Hong Kong. “The issue of the maternity beds has pushed it past the tipping point.”

Insults are flying. A shouting match erupted last month after one mainland mother allowed her child to eat noodles in a Hong Kong subway car. When a Peking University professor who saw a video of the incident called Hong Kongers “dogs” on an Internet talk show, furious Hong Kong residents demonstrated outside the Chinese government’s liaison office. A liaison official later condemned the professor’s remarks, which by official Chinese standards was an extraordinary apology.

Angry Hong Kongers have taken to calling mainland visitors “locusts.” After some residents bought a full-page newspaper advertisement showing a giant locust looming over Victoria Harbor and declaring that “Hong Kongers have had enough,” mainlanders responded with a mock advertisement urging China to cut off water and power supplies to the city.

Some scholars argue that the friction is essentially a family squabble among compatriots who are actually growing closer. Hong Kong residents “are becoming more, not less, ‘Chinese,’ ” said Michael DeGolyer, director of the Hong Kong Transition Project, a research group that tracks political trends.

By Sharon LaFRANIERE, The New York Times

Published: February 22, 2012

For full article, click here

So lines such as the ones below raised more than a few smiles. Substitute the word “ass” for the letter “Q” and you’ll see what we mean!

“Mon Q.L’intelligence renouvelée.” (“My Q. Renewed intelligence.”)

“Si c’est important pour vous, c’est important pour votre Q.” (“If it’s important to you, it’s important to your Q.”)

Once Motorola became aware of the mistake (the campaign went viral shortly after appearing on the website), it changed it to include the full name (Q9h).

In China, where the market for imported passenger cars dates back only about three decades, an entirely alternate set of stereotypes is taking root — and the stakes have never been higher for foreign carmakers.

Take, for example, Mercedes-Benz, a brand that in much of the world suggests moneyed respectability. In China, many people think Mercedes-Benz is the domain of the retiree.

The Buick, long associated in the United States with drivers who have a soft spot for the early-bird special, is by contrast one of the hottest luxury cars in China.

But no vehicle in China has developed as ironclad a reputation as the Audi A6, the semiofficial choice of Chinese bureaucrats. From the country’s southern reaches to its northern capital, the A6’s slick frame and invariably tinted windows exude an aura of state privilege, authority and, to many ordinary citizens, a whiff of corruption.

“Audi is still the de facto car for government officials,” said Wang Zhi, a Beijing taxi driver who has been plying the capital’s gridlocked streets for 18 years. “It’s always best to yield to an Audi — you never know who you’re messing with, but chances are it’s someone self-important.”

With annual growth hovering above 30 percent in recent years, the Chinese auto market is rapidly surpassing the United States’ as the world’s most lucrative and strategically important. Last year alone, the Chinese bought an estimated 13.8 million passenger vehicles, handily topping the 11.6 million units sold in the United States. Foreign-origin brands, most of which are manufactured in China through joint ventures, accounted for 64 percent of total sales in 2010, according to the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers.

For the full article, click here

By ANDREW JACOBS and ADAM CENTURY (Published: November 14, 2011)