Foreign Language Needs in Today's Business World

With the ever-growing American appearance in foreign business, it would stand to benefit businesses to hire those that can communicate well in foreign markets. Recent studies still show that businesses see multilingualism as secondary importance in hiring and promoting. With the English language becoming more prevalent in other countries, companies feel that the need to communicate in any other foreign language just isn't necessary.

Large companies are also filling management positions abroad, not with American-English speaking candidates, but with local nationals which have been taught and trained in the U.S. This is becoming the standard for large companies for a many reasons:

1) A global company has to respond to local needs that can only be truly understood by local nationals

2) Since many of these local nationals are schooled in the U.S., they are deeply familiar with the American culture

3) The local nationals are bilingual and able to communicate with U.S. managers and subordinates alike

4) Hiring locals is much more cost effective, since it is cheaper to hire the foreign locals than pay an American worker

The major reasoning for this practice is the sheer lack of foreign language skills of highly educated MBA holders in America. Big corporations are just reaping the benefits of the growing English training being taught in other countries. Accepting the failure of foreign language education in this country is hurting some companies, as someone is going to have to oversee the local national managers.

Although English is widely used in European business, it is still not seen a totally international language. In France and Germany, for example, it is necessary to use French and German. In a survey of leading executives in European countries, only thirty-one percent reported using English for professional purposes. Increasingly, English alone cannot be used to penetrate the non-English speaking markets.

Japan proves to be a major example of this pattern. Japanese society invests heavily in English-language education. Six years of English are required before high school graduation. Japanese corporations provide tuition for English-language classes. Yet the difficulty in doing business in Japan lies in their insistence that business be dealt with in Japanese. It's as if the Japanese see their language as a prized capital which ensures much more self-control.

Until American public and schools see this as a problem, and push for more foreign language programs, U.S. companies will have to keep hiring abroad or trying to use English in markets where it is just not beneficial. This is a sad state for the strongest and most competitive economy in the world. It's time for the government to step up and acknowledge this sad fact.