A recent report has confirmed what many already know. The British are unwilling to learn a foreign language.
The Lords' European Union Committee, an influential group in the House of Lords, warned that the UK is "already falling badly behind in language learning capability". They reported that there has been a dramatic drop in the number of university students going abroad to study, in fact according to statistics (and we all know what they do) the number of undergraduates from the UK spending part of their degree studying in another European country has plummeted from 12,000 in 1994 to 7,538 in 2003.
The committee continued by saying this "deeply disturbing" drop threatens to leave Britain unable to "protect our interests" abroad and to compete economically in Europe. And it added that Britain was set to miss out when the EU launches a €13.6bn programme to expand exchange programmes - particularly for school pupils.
The report also called for the Government to review plans to allow students to drop language learning at 14 arguing that it would add to the "deep-seated British linguistic deficiency".
"We are deeply disturbed ... about the declining capacity for language-learning in this country", the report concluded. "The programmes cannot do much to help redress the balance unless urgent and effective action is taken nationally to invest more at all levels."
The "linguistic deficiency" was also a sign of a wider cultural problem caused by the failure of the British public to appreciate the unique value of studying abroad.
The European Commission spends €3.25bn on educational exchanges for all age groups, but plans a massive expansion to €13.6bn from 2007.
The best known of these is the Erasmus programme for university students. This involves more than 1.2 million students although the number of British participants has dropped.