Here is the first episode of the British sitcom, Mind Your Language, a show about a class full of non-native speakers learning English. The show is divided into three clips.

This episode is called “The First Lesson.” By today’s standards the show is politically incorrect, insofar as it uses some gender and a lot of national stereotypes to make its points. The students are Greek, German, Japanese, Italian, Pakistani, Indian, Spanish, French, and Chinese. Because this episode first aired on Dec. 30, 1977, I am prepared to cut it some slack and simply enjoy the comedy in it. I invite you to do the same. Nonetheless, it is also interesting to reflect on how far multicultural Western societies have come since the 1970s, when such issues were first making their appearance in mainstream sitcoms. On the other hand, the one bad joke about unemployment benefits is still a nasty stereotype among those who would blame immigrants for all of society’s ills.

The show gets at least one stereotype completely wrong. It has the Chinese student mixing up her Rs with her Ls, which is a common enough mistake among native Japanese and Thai speakers, but not something I have heard any Mandarin speaker do. Most of the language and pronunciation jokes are still funny. In one of the early ones, Ali says to Miss Courtney, “Squeeze me, please.” Of course, he meant, “Excuse me please.” It is also funny to see the native English speakers unwittingly adopting some of these mistakes.

I have taught English to non-native speakers, and I have learned German as a foreign language, so I can sympathize with both sides of the story, and each is funny. Imagine the mixups that Japanese can have when “pray” becomes “play” or when someone from Brazil wants to know where the “beach” is, but says this word with a short I, that is, “bitch.” Of course, I’ve had my fair share of gaffes in German, one time saying “küssen” (to kiss) when I meant “wechseln” (to give change for [money] or to exchange [foreign currency]). And these two verbs don’t even look or sound alike!

So have a look and enjoy. Perhaps afterwards you might share some of your own experiences in a comment below.

Hat tip: I never would have known about this series, were it not for Frank, a British comedy enthusiast on YouTube.