‘Clearly the coolest language in the world’: Britain’s The Guardian newspaper campaigns for children to learn Spanish instead of French in schools

SPANISH, not French, should be the main foreign language taught in UK schools.

That’s the verdict of a journalist from The Guardian, who argues that the lingo is more globally relevant – and much cooler than its neighbour across the Pyrenees.

Musical artists are putting the Spanish language on youngsters’ radar with the huge successes of Bad Bunny, KAROL G, and Rosalia coinciding with a shift in British students’ language preferences. 

The Guardian notes that last year Spanish became the top language pick for GCSE students in England with over 136,000 entries. 

It overtook French for the first time, which had just under 133,000 entries. 

After Mandarin, Spanish, with 486 million native speakers, is the most-spoken native language in the world, making it far more relevant to aspiring linguists than French, which has only 74 million native speakers. 

Spanish, writes Gary Nunn, will open more doors for Brits both in terms of employability, post-Brexit travel and an undeniable ‘cool factor’. 

Nunn attributes this ‘coolness’ to Hispanic musicians, including Bad Bunny. 

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Born Benito Antonio Martinez Ocasio, Puerto Rican musician Bad Bunny has put Spanish in the cultural zeitgeist and made learning the language appealing to teens, he explains. 

Bad Bunny won the Grammy for Best Album in January marking the first time an exclusively Spanish record achieved the accolade. 

He also made history at the Super Bowl halftime show last week as the first solo artist to headline the event and perform almost entirely in Spanish. 

During an appearance on Saturday Night Live (SNL) ahead of the Super Bowl performance he told fans they had ‘four months to learn’ the language prompting Duolingo to launch a ‘Bad Bunny 101’ course. 

Young fans shared videos learning the language on TikTok and Instagram which went viral. 

Despite its global and cultural relevance, the British education system lags behind the trend with French still taught more widely. 

The Guardian reports that as of 2025, French was taught in around 70% of primary schools in England, compared with just 26% offering Spanish. 

French also remains the most widely taught language at Key Stage 3 in England and Wales, and at S1 and S2 level in Scotland (ages 11–14).

At GCSE level in England, French continues to dominate: last year, 90% of schools offered French, compared with 76% offering Spanish.

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In Wales, the figures were 79% for French and 54% for Spanish.

In Scotland, however, French and Spanish are offered in roughly equal measure at National 5 level (the Scottish GCSE equivalent).

Uptake for languages is declining in UK schools and universities. 

In 2024, only 2.94% of A-levels were taken in modern languages, and undergraduate university admissions in Spanish, German, Portuguese and French have dropped by 30% between 2019 and 2024. 

Nunn thinks the cool factor of Spanish could get notoriously reluctant British teens into learning a language. 

Although French still dominates on paper, Spanish is fast becoming the language students actually want to learn, he explains. 

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