Despite the fact that the UK is no longer part of Europe, its language continues to enjoy huge popularity on the continent. In many domains English is the dominant language, including academia, business, IT, finance, marketing and entertainment.

German and French, but also Polish for example, are considered much more difficult languages to master than English. I sometimes think of it like the difference between learning to ski and learning to snowboard, the former taking a minimum of 5 years to become an expert, the latter only a season or two.

There is the never-ending refrain by teachers and other guardians of the language, both in France and in Germany, but also in Switzerland, about the unstoppable decline and bastardization of their respective mother tongues. Only last week the Sunday edition of the NZZ (Neue Zürcher Zeitung) carried an article “Studierende können nicht mehr richtig Deutsch” (Students no longer master proper German). A professor of law at Zurich university was expressing his distress at “numerous elementary orthographical, grammatical and comma mistakes”; and not just that, the syntax was often wrong or clumsy as well. And apparently, this deficiency is not only widely spread among law students. Scientists, the article says, are unable to explain in proper German the content of their research and their findings. Most worryingly or baffling, even those studying German have severe deficits in their writing skills.

Swiss universities are now starting to offer crash courses for advanced German for various faculties, and similar developments seem to be happening in France.

Issue 61/5 of The Linguist (published by the Chartered Institute of Linguists) has an article by Beatrice Murail, “Le mot juste in business”, bringing to our attention the fact that employers in France worry about their staff’s (lack of) ability to write good French. The author tells us that firms in France are concerned with applicants‘ (and, presumably, their employees‘) French skills. She reports that many native speakers make mistakes in all aspects of the language and that this is detrimental to the companies‘ credibility and reputation.

I can wholeheartedly confirm these worries regarding the deterioration of native language skills. Over the past 15 years we have tested several hundred applicants across European languages, with a big majority failing the first translation test. While they are mostly able to demonstrate reasonably good comprehension of the English source, where they fall down is the ability to express themselves fluently and idiomatically, and without grammar mistakes in their native tongue. Taking into account that candidates we invite for our tests all have a degree in translation, this is clearly a strange state of affairs.

Ms Murail continues to say that “there have even been reports of managers emailing staff in English to avoid making mistakes in French”. I am sure that these reports are well-founded, and would add that this happens all the time in Switzerland and Germany as well.

Asked why, I would say: many are forced to write in English because they work in an international environment where some of their colleagues or recipients do not read German well enough. But quite apart from that, I would maintain that many business people and academics simply feel more confident – or should I say, less embarrassed – because they are aware of their shortcomings in their own language (even if they might be finding it difficult to admit to it). They may also have had little exposure or little reason to read and write in their subject area in anything but English. Or their particular area might be totally dominated by English.

If you are writing in a second or third language, you can use that fact as an obvious justification for any mistakes or for somewhat unidiomatic phrases. And of course, you are much less critical or able to assess the perhaps less-than-perfect quality of your English – and you can expect your audience, your colleagues or your manager to be less critical, or less able to judge the quality of your output in English. Thus you are much less likely to make a fool of yourself.

Needless to say that this leads to a vicious circle, as most people forego their opportunities to write in their own language by opting for English. So, as time goes on, with any luck, their English improves, while sadly, their own language is on a downhill slope (great if you are on skis or on a snowboard … but not in the language context).