French is not a 'useless' language

THE UK'S former Europe Minister, Chris Bryant, described French as a "useless" language and questioned whether it should still be taught in British schools.

Meanwhile, a study here in France found some top firms were unable to deal with phone calls in English.

We asked Connexion newsletter readers for their thoughts...

Complaining about lack of English is discourteous

I took the time to read the readers' comments about banking in France. One comment incensed me - it is a common comment among English people living in France and I believe, totally unjustified.

The criticism was that at the reader's local branch of the HSBC, which, as he comments, is a bank with international connections, no one speaks English.

Why should they?

We chose to live in France. Would we expect an employee in a bank branch in England to speak French when dealing with French customers?

Would we find such an employee? It is possible to learn another language and if you choose to live in another country, I think it is downright discourteous to expect the residents of that country to speak your language.

The solution is simple. Learn their language.

Anne Maclennan

I enjoyed your article "Firms lack English language skills", rather admonishing as it was, but would like to ask how many UK firms or organisations telephoned could answer in French, not to mention recognise that they are being spoken to in French, or have ever heard the word "French".

Bob Schedler, Gard

Should UK schools keep teaching French?

I was brought up in the English system and I believe that in the first instance all children should have lessons in French and Spanish - think of the countries that speak these languages.

Think of the make-up of our words - and while we are about it bring back to all schools Latin then we really will have more linguistic scholars.

If a child shows a real flair for languages which often happens then they could go on to Mandarin and Arabic.

I feel Chris Bryant had it badly wrong when he said French was a useless language.

When at school we were taught to read and write French - way before we moved to conversation, .completely the wrong way round.

Gill Lodder

Of course French is important

How can a former Europe Minister come out with such utter nonsense?

I am an English woman, married to a French man and living, at the moment, in Tunisia. I'm so glad I'm fluent in French, as many countries are Francophone, as is the case here.

I previously lived in Senegal, also French-speaking. Many very educated people worldwide have no knowledge of English.

The French grammatical structure makes it a lot easier to learn other European languages. I am happy that my own adult children are not only bilingual French/English, but also fluent in Italian & Spanish. My daughter used Italian as the language of communication at a Greek wedding recently.

Finally, it's worth remembering that Chinese, or indeed business people in general, can communicate in several languages, wherever necessary.

I feel dismayed that many English people are left feeling so isolated precisely because of this attitude. French is definitely NOT useless.

Yvonne Guillotel

There are in excess of 15,000 French words in the English language. Often it is only the pronounciation that has changed. After all, the official language of the UK for about 400 years was Norman French.

My understanding is that there are only 184 Anglo-Saxon words in the English language.

William-Glyn Thomas