There’s an interesting article in the Washington Post today entitled “Schools Try Elementary Approach To Teaching Foreign Languages” ( You’ll need to register to see the article, but it’s free and easy). One of the first paragraphs is:

Educators say that the youngest brains have the greatest aptitude for absorbing language and that someone who is bilingual at a young age will have an easier time learning a third or fourth language later on. Compared with adults or even high school students, young children are better able to learn German with near-native pronunciation or mimic the subtle tones of Mandarin.

And then they go on to how the “country needs more bilingual speakers to stay competitive and even to fight terrorism“. Well, that’s a new incentive to make people learn!

It’s a good article to read, and the States is a very interesting place for languages. Although many people have the image that most Americans are unilingual, in fact the majority of the very sizable immigrant population is multilingual. It’s a similar story in the UK, for example according to the official school inspectorate, a quarter of the kids in my old high school are bilingual, and half of the junior school kids are!