Mind Your Language

Mind Your Language was a British comedy series shown on ITV, between 1977 and 1979. Produced by LWT, it was set in a language school in London, with the late Barry Evans as the English language teacher.

The series was known for its outrageous national and racial stereotypes: the German woman was dour and humourless; the French woman was romantic; the Swedish woman was liberated and sex-mad; while the Sikh and Pakistani men were always threatening to kill each other, and the Spaniard and Italian were macho. The stereotyping also extended to speech patterns and the students' 'hilarious' mispronunciations of English.

It was cancelled in 1979 by Michael Grade, who considered the stereotyping offensive, although it was sold to other countries, including Sri Lanka, Malaysia and Singapore, and was one of the first British TV programmes shown in South Africa after the end of the boycott by British Equity. It was even resurrected, briefly, for the export market by an independent producer, in the late 1980s.