Not So Smug Britons

One of the first signs, to me at least, of a degree of anti-Americanism in a person is when they attack Yanks for not knowing that Ulam Bator is the capital of Mongolia, or that the River Keer runs through Carnforth, England. I then usually point out that the U.S.A. is the size of Europe so we are not comparing like with like. This survey, for National Geography Week, shows that there are plenty of dense Britons too.

The other thing that really riles me is when Britons self-flagellate over our perceived lack of foreign language skills. The answer to that is that we are just as skilled as any other people but which language do we learn? Dutch? German? Mandarin maybe or French? Then how often do we get to practice and use it? The problem, if there is one, is that English, like it or not, is a universal language. If German was the universal language we would be fluent in German as others are now in English, from necessity.

In Paraguay in 1991 we met a girl who worked at the airport who was learning English. She decided to be different at college and learned French because all the others were learning English. It was a mistake, she never got to use French as the world seemed to all speak English, she was then catching up.