I have always been a language lover; I was all the way through school and now in university. But mine and others’ relationship with a language degree is a complex one. From budget cuts to dwindling numbers, the future of Modern Foreign Languages (MFL) is looking uncertain. This is a deep dive into languages at university, and the future of it.
As a second year German and History student, I seem to spend an inordinate amount of time in 50 George Square, even when I am not doing my German work. That is the nature of the subject; most people I speak to agree that the MFL part of their degree take up a lot more time than their other subject, if they have one.
Learning a language is time consuming—the University of Cambridge found that it takes around 100-200 hours to progress from one CEFR (Common European Framework of Reference for Languages) level to the next one. Hours of dedication and practice have to go into perfecting translation, speaking, and grammar. This explains why students have to take so much time over it, and also potentially why the numbers of MFL students are falling. The number of students nationwide studying a language degree sat at just 75,145 in 2019, and it is the same in schools; only 2.97 per cent of A-Levels taken in 2024 were for languages. The uptake of languages is worryingly low, but it’s not just the time it takes up that’s the problem—the whole MFL education system needs redesigning.
Language learning is, for many, inaccessible. Many schools offer only one, maybe two languages, and it is not engaging for young students. Far from real-world application, students are left to struggle through broken conversations about what is in their pencil case or what they thought of the film at the cinema last weekend. This uninteresting foundation for language learning leaves students unsatisfied and viewing languages as unimportant. These attitudes to foreign languages in schools is a huge reason that numbers are depleting rapidly. According to a survey, the majority of students in school believed that learning another language would not be important for their future. This shows an innate flaw in the system; languages are not treated as a priority in the same way as other subjects are.
Although this is at a school level, this of course carries through into universities. Whilst there are some students who start a language from scratch at university, this is a very difficult and intense route to take. The experience isn’t necessarily easier for experienced learners. The difficulties in learning a language combined with general attitudes towards that is not an easy thing to manage. When I tell people I study German, I am often met with surprise, or told it is “unusual.” Unusual it certainly is, but I often get the impression people think I am wasting my time with an MFL degree. Language students are not always given the support they need in order to achieve what is expected of them.
The lack of support can be seen from the budget cuts and how they’ve affected the language degrees. Many of my own German professors have been made redundant, and some literature courses were cut due to lack of staff. This is a problem that goes beyond languages being difficult to learn; students are not given the resources they need to overcome these challenges and feel fully confident in their language learning.
However, despite general attitudes towards MFL, they are, and will continue to be, critical for future career prospects. Speaking to another second-year German student, she emphasised how languages were essential for communication and critical thinking skills.
“Being able to speak multiple languages is crucial for establishing and also maintaining connections with people from other countries on a more intimate level,” she said. “It’s about being able to effectively communicate with other work partners, or brands, who are not English speakers. It means you can create more meaningful connections which can be so important for your place of work.”
Whilst the news for MFL degrees often seems dire, it is important to keep encouraging people to learn other languages and advocate for a change to the system. This alone can change overall attitudes, and only then will languages be prioritised in the way they should be.
Illustration by Berenika Murray for The Student