Wide context

Complete PICLE corpus of essays by Polish advanced EFL students (330,000)

/^t/A study of foriegn languages is one of integral elements of contemporary education. A couple of years ago hardly anybody in Poland could speak a Western language, what is more-nobody seemed particularly concerned with the matter. An explanation of that fact is not far to seek: there was simply no need for foreign languages. The relations between Poland and Western countries were reduced to a minimum, we therefore did not travel much, had no direct contacts with foreigners and our mass-media provided information in no other but Polish language. It is not suprising that at that time we were not eager to bother about languages and thus make our lives more difficult.