Beat a Chinaman enough and he will speak Tibetan.
Proverb (Tibetan)

As language teachers realize, but rarely admit in print, students are just plain lazy.

The students would genuinely like to know the language. If you could somehow inject them with it, they would pay a large sum for the shot. But when they embarked on the wonderful adventure of learning in the classroom, they did not fully realize how slow, boring, repetitive and arduous it would be.

Language schools try to sweeten the pill a bit with games, videos, computer lessons and so on. Some plausible justification is provided for these, but everyone knows they are mainly to keep the students entertained.

If you intend to become a doctor, you have to learn thousands of facts about anatomy, symptoms, drugs, etc. Computer geeks have to memorize those fat tomes that nowadays swamp every bookshop. To join an orchestra, you have to play a few bars again and again and again until the neighbours break down your door with axes.

Languages are no less difficult. A few lucky people pick them up, but the rest of us have to sweat over them for years. And we do not usually think it is worth it.

We make decisions (often subconsciously) through a cost-benefit analysis. Should I get my hair cut, thereby increasing my sexual attractiveness, before going to the pub tonight? No, the place will only be full of English teachers. Should I do that management course? Yes, if in the end it means I can drive a big car with white leather upholstery. Should I invest all that time, money and effort in learning a language? Well...

I have noticed from the television that foreign politicians often speak English fluently. Presumably this is because they are not lazy. After all, they willingly go to hundreds of boring meetings, listen to tiresome complaints, read long reports, trudge the streets, and so on. While most people are prepared to expend only x joules of energy to achieve y result (getting elected or seducing the intern), politicians will expend 2x or 3x on the same goal. They clearly apply the same diligence to learning languages. The rest of us do not.

Language learning is essentially a history of failure. In twenty years’ time everyone will carry electronic speech translators. English teachers will be seen at street corners, begging for change, or under bridges, fighting over newspapers and bits of cardboard. I have already got my eye on a dry spot by the dustbins.