Are tech-savvy teens taking up Spanish to thrive in Silicon Valley?

Brits don’t have a great reputation when it comes to learning languages, but is that about to change?

This year, Spanish was the only one of the three traditional languages to see an increase in entries, with German and French both dropping.

But they did not cancel out a 16.9% rise across the board in language entries last year.

(David Davies/PA)

AQA chief executive Andrew Hall, whose background is in engineering, suggested the increase in pupils taking Spanish, against a fall in French and German, was being driven by “savvy” students who realised how important it might be to their future employment.

He said: “It is one of the most widely spoken languages in the world. If you go to places like California… I went to factories in California where people had to have Spanish as a fluent second language.

“I think students recognise that it is a very important language to have.”