According to a wine expert speaking on BBC Radio 4, sales of Malbec wines keep rising quickly in the UK, much quicker than any other wine.

I can see you questioning why am I interested in such news, enough to write an article on it? Well, the wine expert went on explaining that one of the main reasons Malbec was becoming so popular among the British was that its name is easy to pronounce, before even mentioning its quality or its value! Apparently, the reason why an excellent white grape called Viognier is not so popular in the UK is that people have not a clue how to pronounce its name (by the way, it is vee-o-nyay) and they don’t want to feel embarrassed when ordering it in a public place.

Well, we are left with two options then: either all brands and appellations get to name their product thinking about how easy a person of every country could pronounce it (that might appear to be tricky, considering the millions of different sounds used in languages around the world), or people are educated into respecting and understanding that not all languages use the same sounds and they make an effort to learn them. Actually, there is also another matter to take into consideration: that people accept that they might not be right when speaking a foreign language, but it doesn’t matter so long as they try, as they can only improve.

Who would have thought that just a discussion about Malbec would contain the real issue about learning a foreign language: that no one should feel embarrassed to speak in a foreign language and instead should take any opportunity to get better and start a conversation! Get me thinking that maybe I should include names of wines or other drinks into my French and Italian list of words to pronounce when teaching adults?