You simply cannot learn another language unless you have a basis in your own grammar. It's as plain as that. In my opinion this is a fundamental reason why grammar has slipped so far down the list of priorities of governments' education priorities - if people know other languages, they might watch TV from other countries which might mean they'll hear about events which concern them but might lead to them Knowing Too Much...
TV news in the UK is parochial. Protection of English in popular music in the UK is the equivalent of certain countries protecting their wines and cheeses through heavily subsidising their own and taxing imports. Speaking a foreign language in the UK is as exotic as a Japanese girl playing the bagpipes (and I really DID see one of them three weeks ago at the Leuven Easter Festival). Even French, the most taught foreign language in Britain.
You see, if British people are to take their place in the EU and forget about their suspicions, they have to know what's going on in the outside world. But even on BBC news, you will rarely see a foreign news report from outside the Middle East or the US unless there's something really important, and then only limited so as not to force people into thinking there's a world beyond Westminster or the White House. So I was pleasantly surprised to find the French election got top billing recently. Highly unusual.
Anyway, back to my main point. Why do I link grammar with learning a foreign language? If you don't understand how your own language works, you're not going to understand another language. Can you drive a car just because you can navigate a boat? Can you make a soufflé just because you can fry an omelette? Nope, and you wouldn't be expected to. Grammar is not hard to learn, nor is it hard to teach. It just looks it, especially if you have an excruciatingly boring teacher. The fact of the matter is it's just the way it's communicated to the student.
Another problem for English speakers learning foreign languages is that English is so simple, apart from its spelling. So simple, in fact, that it's almost too difficult. It's therefore hard for learners to grasp small or larger differences in their languages, for example infinitives - in almost all languages, the infinitive is one word, but in English it's two:
English
To read
French
Lire
Dutch
Lezen
Russian
Chitat'
If you make it difficult for people to grasp their own language, thus making them uncaring about its spelling, pronunciation, word order and grammar, you create a barrier to learning. Some of the emails I get from people, sometimes adults, is shocking. They don't know when to use an apostrophe (to reduce words like "not" and "is" to make them sound like they are spoken and as possessives, e.g. Ronald's book, Microsoft's headquarters); they don't know where to place full stops; they don't know how to spell and where to put capitals. It is all the more shocking when you see whole sentences and texts with these mistakes.
But this is all good news for governments who want to keep their population in the dark. It means they can manipulate the news, make people disinterested in other countries and cultures but most of all it means people have to learn their language to make any progress. Why has English become so big? Well, not only through what I have just mentioned. Normally if you want to sell to the world, you need to learn the language of your clients. Not so for English: they've set it up so nicely, that they've persuaded their clients over the whole planet to learn it. How remarkable. This can be achieved in two easy steps:
1) You sell expensive-to-make, over-priced (because expensive is good quality, don't forget) films and music, marketed so heavily that they become irresistible. People want to learn the lyrics of the song and they want to hear the actors speaking in the o.v. Furthermore, a great amount of software and Internet info is exclusively in English, so to operate it, it is advisable to know that language. Of course, foreign music in the UK and US is total rubbish. Foreign films are for intellectuals and people who can read subtitles fast. Another nail in the coffin of the foreign import. The fact of the matter is that French films, Belgian films, Italian films, Chinese films, Argentinian films and Moroccan films can be so much more spiritually uplifting than the moralising, message-in-the-story American movie, but hey, it's not in English!
Spanish music, Italian music, Serbian, Polish, Russian music, Portuguese, Brazilian music, African music, and many other kinds of music can be so much more melodious, meaningful and passionate even if you don't understand the words, but that's not the point. It's not in English, stupid! How many songs does the average British person listen to in foreign languages? Probably only those they hear on holiday in Torremolinos or Corfu each summer. I mean, what's the difference between a song without lyrics and one in a foreign language? Does it really make a difference?
It's also about marketing though - I'm sure Maná, Herbert Grönemeyer, Ich Troje or Zucchero could become huge stars in the Anglophonic world if only they'd sing in English. Because to the average Anglophone, foreign languages are no-go zones. Places of risk, and they'd look far too intelligent having that kind of stuff lying around where everyone can see. If you make intelligence uncool, that also helps limit the amount of foreign languages people want to know.
2) You make your own people stupid, or at least not as intelligent as their brain capabilities are. When I was at university, there was a group of Russian students in the economics department, the same age and year as the British ones. I remember them well, because they used to help the lecturer to stop them getting bored. They told us that what the economics students were doing then, in the second year of university, they had done at 15 in school.
A further point on this is that having seen first hand the real lack of ambition in the average British child in the area where I was raised, it just shows you what the scenario must be UK-wide, bearing in mind I was raised in quite a well-to-do area. Most kids prefer to leave school at 16 and work so they can buy their own trainers, cars, clothes, iPods and music. They can afford their own social lives and the rest is immaterial. They don't want to see the Kremlin in Moscow, or the Coliseum in Rome. They just want their own limited, handlable little worlds. Some people I grew up with now work in the supermarket in the village. Another is the local area manager of McDonalds. And further one is the clubhouse assistant at the municipal golf course.
It's not their fault, of course, they've just been made to think they're going nowhere firstly by their peers who they wouldn't like to offend, by going on to further their lives and secondly by a government education policy which does more bad than good, although admittedly it does encourage students into vocational study once a talent has been uncovered.
Where does grammar fit in here? Well can you imagine, that in about 10 years from now, the English language will be more comfortably and better spoken by non-native speakers? I can. I have seen it first-hand. It is time to put good grammar and punctuation at the top of the agenda again, and let foreign languages take on more importance. Failing that, the Anglophone world will remain longer in the dark, its speakers alienated from the wider international discussion and still fearing foreigners. Its language will be better spoken in Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Far East and the Commonwealth. It will take a whole generation to recover the ground lost, but it is worth doing. More on this subject soon, but remember, lack of language knowledge can be key to ignorance and fear.
