Why You Need a Foreign Language & How to Learn One

Chapter 6 (Excerpt)

Languages and the Business World

"Buy from the world in your language, sell to them in theirs…"

-German government official

Most business organizations in the English-speaking world are only beginning to wake up to the realities described in the preceding chapters. In the corporate environment, the embrace of imprecise globalized English has been preceded by declining standards of the language used among English-speakers themselves. Articulate language has given way to bullet points and vague buzzwords like proactive, re-purpose, and actionable. The unclear "management-speak" described by author Don Watson in Death Sentences : How Cliches, Weasel Words and Management-Speak Are Strangling Public Language (Gotham, 2005) is arguably one step removed from the stripped down, globalized versions of English that one frequently encounters in international business situations.

I once attended a seminar on international business negotiations. Noting that the instructor had completely ignored the topic, I asked him what he thought about the role of language skills. Should an English-speaker always insist on using English? He laughed and asked me what language I would prefer: should business negotiations take place in Indonesian?

My answer—as explained in this chapter and the next one --is that yes, there are definitely times when you should conduct your business in Indonesian!

But don’t take my word for it. One English-speaking CEO recognized the need to do business in a language that very few of us in the Western world have mastered: Korean...............

(End of Chapter Excerpt)

Copyright © 2005 Beechmont Crest Publishing