According to an article I found today in The Independent, “Everyone in Britain should learn 1,000 words of another language, a new campaign is urging, amid concerns that people lose out on jobs abroad because of poor language skills.” The 1,000 Words Challenge is apparently designed to do something about the UK’s reputation for being poor at foreign languages, and to try to ensure that British tourists “appear less arrogant and better able to put forward our ideas on the international stage”.
Apparently if you learn 1,000 words in a foreign language you will be able to conduct a basic conversation. There is no mention, I can find, of how you go about learning the words, or how just learning that many words will enable you to speak a language – what about grammar? If it was 1,000, or however many, phrases, then you could have a conversation, but words on their own would not be enough. Or maybe they would, if you used them creatively. What do you think?
