It Pays To Learn Languages

In the USA, our biggest trading partner in the world, people speak English as a native language; in Europe, our closest and biggest marketplace as a whole, many people learn English as a foreign language.

Bearing these facts in mind then, does the knowledge of other languages matter for British people, and if so, how and why?

It is a common misapprehension that English is understood wherever you go. Whilst almost every fourth person in the EU speaks German as their mother tongue, only 16% of the EU population are native English speakers. Even when taking English as a foreign language into account, still no more than 40% of Germans know English well enough to take part in a conversation, let alone a business meeting. And Germany, after all, is our second biggest trading partner in the world and Britain’s biggest partner within Europe.

From this it becomes clear that you can’t automatically assume that your business partner is confident enough to conduct all their business negotiations in your language. As a matter of fact, the motto of every export-minded company should actually be: "Anybody can buy goods in their own language, but to sell goods, there’s only one language, the language of the customer!“ This philosophy really works because a) it shows commitment if you take the trouble to learn and understand your business partner’s language; b) the better you are able to communicate with them, the more you can avoid misunderstandings; c) learning the language and business protocol of the respective country shows courtesy and makes good business sense.

This is also proven by a survey undertaken by the ESCP-EAP European School of Management, in which 150 English-speaking businesses took part, showing that “British businesses would be able to compete more successfully in the international arena if they had staff that could speak foreign languages and understood other business cultures”.

So what can you as a company or as an individual do? Go on a language course; buy CDs with language learning programmes; watch satellite TV in Italian or Spanish or any other available European language. Put up posters on your premises about languages, so that all staff will see them. Create an atmosphere in which languages are seen as a normal part of every business. Have a television in your firm’s entrance hall, let’s say, showing satellite TV, switching from Italian one week into French the next week and then into German the following one, for example.

These are all just a few ideas and suggestions. The main thing is to understand the importance of languages for businesses, to see the change languages can make for the success and profits of a company, and – to act accordingly!

Table 1: Most widely known languages in the EU

LANGUAGE	Spoken as mother tongue	Spoken as first foreign language	Total
English	16%	31%	47%
German	24%	8%	32%
French	16%	12%	38%
Italian	16%	2%	18%
Spanish	11%	4%	15%

Table 2: The 3 most useful languages to know: English, French and German

Languages (to be learned as first foreign language)	Percentage of people who find it useful
English	69%
French	37%
German	26%