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I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. Brits are "famously mon

I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. Brits are "famously monolingual" because the country only speaks one language (unlike almost every other European country). I don't know, I haven't tried to talk to any of them in a language that isn't English. Again, your supposition that this must be true is based on what? It must be...you heard this thing about Brits... Right and two of the people you mention have never served in British parliament. Hannan has links to the US...and is the same person advocating heavily for a Swiss deal with EU...that couldn't be right though? You said he had "links". He wasn't the Brexit Trade Minister (that is a fictional position). Truss and Kwarteng didn't look "strongly" to the US...I have no idea where this is coming from. Do you just not like the US so you think this other group of people you don't like must be allied to them? Truss was Trade Minister and did deals with the Commonwealth, there was no real focus on the US at all (because of Biden). Britannia Unchained is famous in the UK for being particularly adulatory towards East Asia, not the US.

klelatti 4y ago
Language skills: UK bottom of the pack in Europe. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Foreign_language_skills_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Just because you're not an MP doesn't mean you can't have huge influence - Farage obviously being the most prominent example. Brexit Trade Minister - my typo should have been Post Brexit Trade Minister - but he was clearly in Govt in 2019 contrary to your claim.
hermitcrab 4y ago
>I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. I live in the UK and I am struggling to think of more than 1 or 2 British born people I know personally that speak anything other than English with any fluency.
- notahacker 4y ago
  There are quite a few, it's just that none of them learned it from two hours a week between the ages of 11 and 16. (Mostly they learned it because their parents and many members of their local community speak Welsh or Punjabi or Urdu...)
  - skippyboxedhero 4y ago
    Two hours a week between 11 and 16? I love this place. People speak with total authority about stuff they clearly do not understand.
    - notahacker 4y ago
      > I love this place. People speak with total authority about stuff they clearly do not understand. Well if I lack the authority to comment on my own education, please feel free to share your greater understanding of the years and hours my classmates and I devoted to learning a second language. Perhaps you can even convince me my A* GCSE made me fluent and not utterly incompetent in it!
    - hermitcrab 4y ago
      >Two hours a week between 11 and 16? That pretty much describes my foreign language education (learning French in England, 1970s/1980s).
- dfawcus 4y ago
  From the 2011 census, around 30% of Scots are fluent in a second language. https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glance/languages/ https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glanc... (We don't yet have the results for the 2022 census)
  - hermitcrab 4y ago
    I don't see a 30% figure on that page. Also the figures on that page include people born abroad. I know a few people who can speak 5+ languages. But they weren't born in the UK.

klelatti 4y ago

Language skills: UK bottom of the pack in Europe. https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php?title=Foreign_language_skills_statistics https://ec.europa.eu/eurostat/statistics-explained/index.php... Just because you're not an MP doesn't mean you can't have huge influence - Farage obviously being the most prominent example. Brexit Trade Minister - my typo should have been Post Brexit Trade Minister - but he was clearly in Govt in 2019 contrary to your claim.

hermitcrab 4y ago

>I have no idea how you measure fluency, but most of the population we are concerned with learned a foreign language until the age of 16. I live in the UK and I am struggling to think of more than 1 or 2 British born people I know personally that speak anything other than English with any fluency.

notahacker 4y ago
There are quite a few, it's just that none of them learned it from two hours a week between the ages of 11 and 16. (Mostly they learned it because their parents and many members of their local community speak Welsh or Punjabi or Urdu...)
- skippyboxedhero 4y ago
  Two hours a week between 11 and 16? I love this place. People speak with total authority about stuff they clearly do not understand.
  - notahacker 4y ago
    > I love this place. People speak with total authority about stuff they clearly do not understand. Well if I lack the authority to comment on my own education, please feel free to share your greater understanding of the years and hours my classmates and I devoted to learning a second language. Perhaps you can even convince me my A* GCSE made me fluent and not utterly incompetent in it!
  - hermitcrab 4y ago
    >Two hours a week between 11 and 16? That pretty much describes my foreign language education (learning French in England, 1970s/1980s).
dfawcus 4y ago
From the 2011 census, around 30% of Scots are fluent in a second language. https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glance/languages/ https://www.scotlandscensus.gov.uk/census-results/at-a-glanc... (We don't yet have the results for the 2022 census)
- hermitcrab 4y ago
  I don't see a 30% figure on that page. Also the figures on that page include people born abroad. I know a few people who can speak 5+ languages. But they weren't born in the UK.