The Prague Daily Moniter has written an article about the decline of English learning amongst young Czechs. Although the article suggests that ‘almost all young Czechs know some English now compared with the early 1990s’, it suggests that knowledge of more than one foreign language increases young Czechs career prospects. The foreign languages being chosen by young Czechs appear to be dependent upon ‘business trends that now put emphasis on Spanish, Russian and Chinese’. Orientalist Sarka Litvinova told the paper that ‘Czechs choose mainly Spanish and Russian as a second foreign language according to her statistics.’

It is not just Litvinova’s statistics that indicate that learning English is being surpassed by other languages, the trends are also partially confirmed by the data of the Education Ministry.

Russian is now studied by almost 30,000 children compared with about 11,000 in 2004, according to the ministry.

The number of students interested in Spanish more than doubled in the same period. It rose from 11,000 in 2004 to 24,000 now, the ministerial data show.

The article suggests that these increases are the result of Czechs wanting to do business with Russia and South America. Interest in Chinese is also growing within the country due to China’s ever increasing economy and presence on the global stage.

[via PDM]