A few nights ago, I had dinner with a dozen people I'd never met before. All were either at university, or completing post-graduate or post-doc work. We hailed from 10 different countries.

In addition to politics, sport and other religions, the conversation wandered to what each person was studying. The young-un's (and myself) could simply state which course we did, but the challenge came for those in research. Particularly, they had to explain their topic, why they chose it and how it was relevant and practical in the real world within a minute.

Additionally, the conversation (and explanation) was in English, the mother-tongue of only two people at dinner. The topics ranged from applying spin theory to neural association networks, to the solar treatment of waste water.

As a pharmacy student, I remember my frustration with a PhD student not being able to explain clearly the principles of Pharmacokinetics. This wasn't because they had savant-like intelligence (which I'm sure happens for some), but because English was not their first language. And seriously, some ideas require a very fine handle on a language, both to explain and to understand.

Unfortunately, I was the sole-monolinguist present at dinner. Whilst this didn't hinder the students' explanation, I was humbled. Clearly, one of my goals whilst en Suisse is to develop a functional level of French.