I will reiterate, I don't believe there is anything wrong in expecting people that are fluent in English in the UK to speak in English while in my company. To change to another language, I consider as rude as someone whispering. Those that are less fluent, of course you make exceptions. Those who speak no English should learn and at the very least should know two basic words, please and thank you.
I can’t say I’m that bothered by people speaking their own language amongst themselves as long as it’s not used as a way of having conversations they otherwise wouldn’t have in English e.g. talking about a co-worker in front of them I do however strongly believe if you are going to live in another country you should do your best to learn the language. It should be a standard part of getting a visa to show a willingness to learn the language, allowing the person to integrate properly. It’s infuriating in Spain when English people who have lived there for years don’t speak any Spanish. I don’t know why someone wouldn’t want to be able to communicate with people! Even as a tourist I try to learn a few basic words (much harder in some countries than others!) out of politeness.
Obviously in a group it’s only right to speak the language everyone is most able to jointly converse in but if two Spaniards at work want to chat in Spanish and others happen to be around but not in the conversation then I don’t see the issue. When I did Erasmus there we’d often end up speaking English in a multinational group even though we were in Spain and all spoke decent Spanish. Sometimes given the people there it made more sense to all speak Spanish. End of the day, no one is hurt by other people having a private conversation.
I don’t think you’re paranoid. Maybe just a little unusual in this opinion. It’s pretty much impossible not to hear foreign languages on the underground or pottering around London and I like that tbh. Also vaguely related I really hate how little importance our education system puts on languages.
Problem is what language to you teach. I did French as school and I never use it, Spanish would be better as is spoken by quite a few people from around the world
Firstly it doesn’t really matter. Spanish is useful. Mandarin is sought after but obviously difficult to recruit enough people to teach it widely and must be very hard to make it to a decent level without living there for a long time. Learning languages teaches you a lot more than words. Secondly, it’s important to master your own language too.
Agree completely with that last bit in particular. But we need to be teaching useful languages. Usually everyone gets some basic french and then there are options like German and Italian which really aren’t that useful in the grand scheme of things. We need a more modern approach offering languages like Spanish and Chinese.
