Bilingual abilities at all levels of business organizations are becoming more the norm than the exception. Just as having bilingual abilities can be a tremendous personal advantage for individuals, many companies will also benefit by hiring employees that speak a language in addition to English.
How many foreign languages do executives speak? We came across the following survey results and thought they were interesting. Korn/Ferry International asked visitors to its web site the following question: “How many languages do you speak?” Of the 12,562 responses they received, the answeres were:
- One language (36 percent)
- Two languages (31 percent)
- Three languages (20 percent)
- Four languages (9 percent)
- More than five languages (4 percent)
