The Financial Times – Michael Skapinker 
The British Council survey attempts to address a looming post-Brexit problem. An end to EU freedom of movement may mean UK companies losing easy access to the Italians, Spaniards and Germans and many others who helped staff their European sales and marketing departments, not to mention many other parts of their businesses. And while English is now the world’s lingua franca, poor UK foreign language skills risk damaging the country’s future, the British Council says. It is not just that much direct-to-consumer business still has to be done in the customer’s language. It is also that being a monoglot blinds you to the rest of the world’s richness and complexity. Britons are going to have to become more culturally adept as the UK tries to establish new trading relationships, and keep up its existing ones. (more)