Speaka de Ingleesh?
The European Commission is facing a severe shortage of native English speaking interpreters and translators. Officials in Brussels say the situation is becoming so serious, that they will have to resort to using more interpreters from other countries or reduce the number of meetings they can hold every day.
They point to the drop off in students taking languages at GCSE since it was made optional in 2004 and the fact that English-speakers have little interest in learning another language.
Yvonne Murray will report for us from Brussels. She sends these words and photos too:
"Brian Fox, Director in Interpreters, at the Commission. He says he's also noticed a slide in the standard of English among new recruits. They have difficulty adapting their speech to the context i.e. moving from slang into a more formal register.
Marco Benedetti, in the second picture, is Director General for Interpretation. He says the situation is becoming so severe that the Commission might have to reduce the number of meetings it can hold every day and/or use staff from other countries to provide the English interpretation.
And Ian Anderson, the head of the Communications Unit, shows me a map of Europe inside the Berlaymont Building. At least I think it's Europe."
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