We don't need your language lesson

Fond as I am of Germany and Germans, I do think they have an absolutely terrible national trait of telling other people where they are going wrong. Coupled with a very direct way of speaking, this often seems to the rest of the world indistinguishable from shocking rudeness.

It must be very puzzling to be German, all in all; you turn up, you start explaining to an Englishman at a party that it is time his nation stopped talking about the Second World War, that the British Empire was a wicked thing, that Britain ought to adopt the euro. What you get back is usually, "Hmm, yes, you may have a point." You are probably rather baffled when your new friend, alas, can't come to dinner this week or next or the week after because he will be washing his hair. Yes, every night, alas.

The incoming German ambassador, Thomas Matussek, was asking for the same response in an interview with this paper yesterday. The subject of the Ambassador's strictures was an old favourite, the failure of the English to speak foreign languages. This was always a hobby-horse of the outgoing ambassador, von Ploetz, who, for some reason, saw nothing odd about saying that it was disgraceful that the English never learnt German and, in the same breath, announcing the closure of the Manchester Goethe Institute.

Von Ploetz was, at any rate, a well-mannered man who gave the impression of wanting to be helpful. But this one ? cor, crikey. "I know it is more difficult if you live on an island," he said. "It is time to end the attitude that everyone in the world speaks English." I have to say, this is something you could only say if you knew nothing of the history of this country. There was an Arabic school in Oxford in the 17th century; imperial administrators routinely spoke three or four oriental languages and were very often up to swapping poetic pleasantries in classical Persian. One could go on, endlessly. The English have always been great travellers, and have always taken the trouble to acquire the necessary local languages.

Of course, there is the issue that language learning in schools is on the decline, and that is a very worrying development. But on the other hand, if everybody in Germany speaks English, there is no particular reason why everybody in England should learn German, and if Matussek went into an average London pub, he would be very surprised to discover the range of linguistic competence the English quietly possessed, from Urdu to Xhosa. There is absolutely no equivalent for that in Germany. I lived in Berlin for a time, and I never met an ethnic German who could even say "Hello" or "goodbye" in Turkish to their neighbours. Germans can generally speak some English, and occasionally French. And then they have the immortal rind to start going on about Britain being an island.

The point is that it is extremely difficult for an English person to have a conversation with European professionals in any language but English, and in the end you just give up. I speak French, German and Italian to the point where I can read novels in those languages without a dictionary, but make occasional mistakes in conversation and have an obvious English accent. The result is that I only ever get to talk in a foreign language when travelling in the provinces. Anywhere remotely metropolitan, you just don't stand a chance.

Everyone will know exactly what I mean ? I've read Proust from beginning to end in French, and still Parisian waiters take one look at me and give me the menu in English. But the encounter that sticks in my mind happened at a dinner at the German embassy under the previous regime. I was introduced to the wife of a provincial German politician, and made a pleasantry to the effect that the residence must be one of the most handsome houses in London. Alas, I gave the adjective the wrong ending. "So," she said. "Better when we on English stay then you no German speaker is." "Since we are on German soil here," I persevered. "No," she insisted. "It will be better that we on English speak then your German not so good is."

Only good manners prevented me, on this occasion, from saying "Also, verpiss dich," but I think that when Mr Matussek, in his horribly wonderful English, complains that nobody ever seems to speak German to him, he should ask himself whether he ever gives them the chance. Personally, I've met very few Germans who will patiently and forgivingly listen to an Englishman doing his best with their language; in general, at the first mistake, they interrupt, explain that it better is when you with another on English speak, and that is that. I, too, am worried that foreign language learning is on the decline in this country, but it is not entirely our fault for thinking, "Really, why should I bother?" In general, a little civility never does any harm.

(edited) [Philip Hensher, courtesy of The Independent Online]