An article in last week’s Education Guardian highlighted a critical shortage of interpreters with English as a native language and a lack of skilled young linguists coming through to fill this role. The Guardian revealed that the average age of interpreters at international organisations such as the United Nations and the European Union is now over 58, with no new generation of young interpreters appearing to take over once the current workforce retires.

‘The biggest demand is for interpreters who have English as their first language and fluency in two others,’ Brian Fox, director of interpretation at the European commission told The Guardian. Dr Svetlana Carsten, director of the interpreting postgraduate programme at Leeds, said there is a particularly urgent need for German and French speakers, with generally higher numbers of Spanish graduates enrolling on the course.

Monday night’s Learning Curve on BBC Radio 4 further investigated this issue and included interviews with Brian Fox, Dr Svetlana Carsten and Heather McGuinness, the Programme Manager of Routes into Languages.

Categories: Careers with languages, Media, Take-up of languages