I was rather startled yesterday, doing my regular language study, to discover that I was being taught the Italian for “Fuck off!” I was surprised for several reasons. Having studied Italian for seventeen years, although I had encountered the word, I have never seen it the vocabulary for a course. I have never felt the need for it when travelling in Italy. I am slightly puzzled trying to think of situations when, as a traveler, I might find it indispensable.
I fell to thinking, while working in the garden today, about the ways in which language teaching seems to have changed. Some time ago, when I was still working at the University, I tried to brush up my French in preparation for membership of an academic committee in which the working language was French. My very old introduction to French carried such phrases as, “the solders are marching towards the king’s castle”. Come to think about it, I never found much use for that phrase either. Even so, language teaching does appear to have changed.