Tongue-tied.

The buzz word of the week is NEET, yet another social stereotype which depicts a collection of the country’s youngsters who, according to the Government, have no interest in, well anything really.

But aside from this, an equally shocking statistic has come to light. As highlighted in The Guardian on Monday, the number of teenagers choosing to take a GCSE in a Modern Foreign Language has dropped from 80% to a frightening 48% since Labour came to power.

Is anyone surprised by this? Surely not. What would you rather do, painstakingly chant your way through the verb “to be” in a terrible German accent or create your own music video, set up a company selling nipple piercings or roll around the school hall simulating murder whilst lit by a strobe? The creation of the “studies” and “ologies” is leading people down the garden path and away from “old school” subjects such as the classics and modern languages.

Now I am neither condoning nor criticising this genre of “new” subjects. Far from it. At school, I had a ball dressing up in a catsuit, face painted half white, half black, rocking back and forth moaning on the floor in yet another play about teenage angst. What I’m saying is that I also made damn sure I could order more than a luke warm cerveza in a Spanish karaoke bar and a kilo de tomates in a quaint French grocery store.

There are few things that make my half-Spanish, half-Welsh blood boil more than a lobster-hued English tourist vociferously demanding “Egg ‘n chips love” across Europe. Perhaps one of the few things that can top it is the oft repeated mantra of an ignorant happy-clappy holiday-maker, “Well who needs to learn a foreign language when everyone else in the world speaks English.”

Firstly, this wildly presumptuous claim is utterly erroneous. Secondly, even if this totally egotistical statement were true, why does that mean that we shouldn’t make the effort to converse in Portuguese or Polish, French or Finnish? As a nation we have become shamelessly slothful when it comes to giving our brains a little linguistic workout. And businesses across the land are desperate for languages. Fact. Not only is learning a foreign language an excellent form of mental gymnastics, but also opens up a wealth of golden opportunities, studying and working abroad included.

In fact, it may just be that part of the reason that there have been no developments in the disappearance of Madeleine McCann are precisely because none of the British reporters on scene even speak Portuguese. Journalists frequently rely on slap-dash translations and are prevented from developing possible leaks and forging their own precious contacts due to linguistic ignorance.

But of course encouraging students to study languages is not made any easier by the frustrating scenario faced by many a Brit, sitting pretty in a delightful little French creperie excited about their super-sized galette, when the waiter hands them an English menu (inevitably hysterically translated) and insists on taking notes in a pidgin version of your mother tongue.

The truth is that we have stolen so many words from our foreign friends that barely a sentence goes by without a spattering of exotic words to liven our otherwise banal parlance. Imagine the scenario. After being plagued by an extraordinary sense of déjà-vu, Sally sets up a rendez-vous and subsequently engages in an über-intense tête à tête with her closest friend about how she dreamt her husband had a rather small wiener. In order to calm her nerves, her friend offers her a ham baguette and a cappuccino and suggests she has a little siesta. Touché. She has almost overcome her sense of shock when she realises she is peckish, the oven is kaput and so dashes out for a quick buffet of tapas. Well, c’est la vie.

By studying the language of another country, we learn about their culture, their history and inevitably become far more open-minded and welcoming of other peoples across the globe. Not only that, but whack a couple of delicate French phrases into your otherwise rather flat sentences and suddenly you appear wonderfully sophisticated and frightfully erudite. Mais oui.

People may feel complete bumbling along in their Anglo-Saxon sphere, listening to British pop music, drinking British lager, cursing British government and lauding British weather. But for inquiring minds and an unquenched thirst for knowledge, why not break free of this safe, and let’s face it, rather unappetising mould and hop across the Channel to cultures new and quash those all-too true accusations of English linguistic impotence.