The European Union is facing a severe shortage of professionals qualified to translate from other European languages into English. But the British aren’t coming to the fore to meet the need.
The European Union is facing such a severe shortage of qualified language professionals that meetings are being cancelled and planned language translations are being postponed. Translators and interpreters who can translate to English are especially in demand – and those professionals should be native speakers of English.
So where are the British who, along with the Irish, would be the most natural candidates for these plum European Union language jobs? Not in foreign language classroom, unfortunately.
A September 21st article from The Observer points out that Britons are missing out on plenty of jobs requiring foreign languages, including European Union posts, because of their poor foreign language skills. “Leonard Orban, the EU commissioner for multilingualism, says that small-to-medium-sized companies in the UK are increasingly turning to foreign nationals to fill jobs that call for more than one language,” reports Liz Lightfoot in her article “Learn languages or lose out on a job.”
The article also emphasizes the negative effect of a 2004 policy allowing pupils to drop the study of a foreign language at 14, which hasn’t helped a country which already lacks language prowess compared to its European Union counterparts.
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Betty Carlson
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