France: a Shortage of Foreign Languages Impacting on International Business

France: a shortage in foreign languages skills that impacts on international business

MG 01/12/2011

In the international business world, it is essential to have an understanding of cultural differences, whether it is in the way businesses are run or in the manner people interact with one another. In order to gain this intercultural understanding, we must start from with the basics: languages. It seems to me that, no matter how many courses one can take on cross-cultural management, speaking the language of the country or the person you are doing business with takes the trading relationship to a new level. In France today, even though there has been an improvement over the last 15 years, we have to question the level of proficiency in foreign languages. Indeed, when researching the matter, French people, compared to other European countries, are badly ranked: when asked “which languages do you speak well enough in order to be able to have a conversation, excluding your mother tongue?”, the figures are astonishing: 49% of French people said they weren’t able to speak one single other language than their mother tongue. Although more than half (51%) of the French survey poll considered that they could have a conversation in one other language, it is surprising to notice that all the French figures are under the European average. With 56% of Europeans being able to speak at least one language other than their mother tongue and 44% stating they didn’t know another language than their own, France ranks 19. The shortage of foreign languages skills in businesses affects commerce. When looking at the European Commission statistics on European enterprise, we see that an estimated 11% of exporting SMEs, representing about 945,000 companies, are losing business because of communication barriers. According to these figures, the average loss per business over a three year period is 325,000€. Knowing that 46% of businesses across Europe plan to enter new export markets in the...