Each year, thousands of European companies lose business and miss out on contracts as a result of their lack of language skills, according to a study carried out for the European Commission during 2006 by CILT, the UK National Centre for Languages, published today. The findings suggest that there is enormous potential for small businesses in Europe to increase their total exports if they invest more in languages and develop coherent language strategies. Recent research shows that companies that enhance their language skills can exploit better the business opportunities in the EU’s internal market, which, with nearly half a billion people, is the world’s largest.

“Far from being an unwelcome cost to doing business", European Commissioner for Multilingualism, Leonard Orban, said, "investing in language skills can dramatically improve a company’s business opportunities. I plan to place multilingualism at the heart of the Lisbon strategy for more growth and jobs.”

for more you can visit: http://ec.europa.eu/education/policies/lang/key/studies_en.html

oh well, people from bilingual countries have a greater advantage, esp. if those two languages are from different language families/groups, for instance, one of my mother tongues is a slavic and another is turkic. i find it easier to learn more similar languages, except chinese, which i'm trying to learn now

What AllTooHuman is getting as is as individuals they are monolingual, in general, not as a nation.. The UK has many different languages spoken too, but normally only one language per person!! I know French, Spanish and Italian as well as Egnlish but I would never claim that I can speak them, until I am fluent and can be clearly understood in those countries.

Regardless of if it is individual or a nation. The fact remains the same, the US cannot say that it has 1 official language. The citizenship of the US includes 50-60 million Spanish speaking population. There is a projected 57% growth rate of this population in the next 20 years. Some states today have as many as 45% of its population speaking Spanish as the primary language in the home. Indeed, Spanish cannot even be considered a "foreign" language here. There is no move by these Spanish speakers to give up their language. The 3rd and 4th generation are continuing to speak Spanish and pass it along to their children. While the typical image of an "American" is one of English only...this is not an updated image of an American today. Therefore we cannot consider the US or its citizens monolingual. We are not. The american latino population easily destroys this myth!

I have to add. The Spanish speaking populations is learning English at the same vigorous rate as other immigrants groups to the U.S. But unlike other immigrants, they desire to maintain their own language. Many complain that they do not learn English, data does not support that.

Thanks Capoeira. I found what you wrote above interesting and informative. In Turkey, there are also few other languages spoken by considerably people; but the official language and its number remains the same: one and Turkish. I think this case, as far as I understand from your post, applies to the USA as well.

Here are a few names just to get you started! You just didn't realize that they are United State Citizens some born in other countries, immigrating here,others born here and they speak Spanish.

1. Jennifer Lopez - actress, singer
2. Cesar Chavez- founder of the United Farm Workers Association
3. Carlos Santana - Musician
4. Geraldo Rivera - Journalist
5. Cristina Aguilera - Singer
6. Selena- Singer
7. Henry Cisneros-politician
8. James Olmos -actor
9. Dolores Huerta- Now serves as board of Regents U.C. Berkeley
10. Desi Arnez -Actor
11. Antonio Villaraigosa- Mayor of Los Angeles
12. Antonia Novello - Former U.S. Attorney General

I could name many more...and the United States of America is the perfect name...'give me your tired and poor, your hungered masses waiting to be free!' We are and will always be an immigrant nation no matter how many people object!

Dear Capoeira,

I was not referring to offering translators at courts, which is still the very evidence that only one language, English, is official. Saddam, for example, was also presented a translator, but we even don't have a doubt of whether Arabic is spoken widely in the USA. Well.. Maybe Elisa or someone from Canada would enlighten me, but I guess in Belgium, for example, you would be able to defend yourself in Dutch or French, depending on your mood at the time, without need a translator, since the judges as well as the Belgium people are bilingual.

I think I get your point, and find you quite right; but I also think Spanish has no chance, sorry, to be regarded as equal (or whatever you wish it to be) with English, particularly while English is spoken world wide. This is not a matter of the amount of Spanish-speaking people, of wishing or demanding it to be accepted as official, or whatever we prefer to name, of whether Spanish is as good and rich as English, but a matter purely of economy. In what language the world economy as well as the USA economy is controlled and leaded, that language is the official language of both the USA and the world- namely not even the British or Canadian English, but American English. You may be given, and in fact you have, freedom to use in the USA all the languages on the earth, but the official, or dominant, or whatever we call, language remains and will always remain the same: American English, unless you market and sell your terrible culture (Hollywood, McDonalds), your so-called technology (Microsoft), law system ('America is the country of freedoms') merchandises (Coca Cola, Apache Helicopters and all other weapons), to the whole world in any other language than American English.

I won't mention here the English language itself is a huge industry, namely money!

You missed the part of my post that stated that there are courts where you can argue a case in Spanish...

Regardless...you claimed that the U.S. is a monolingual geography. It is not. Yes, English continues to be the dominant language. I never claimed it wasn't. Which is fine, as this is the U.S. But, your previous post stated that it is a monolingual country NOT that English is dominant. If our presidential candidates when campaining for office speak Spanish to try to woo Spanish speaking voters, if our schools provide bilingual education, Spanish & English, if our courts reder verdicts in Spanish, if you are spoken to in Spanish before you hear English in our major cities, if the majority of all documents have two sides..one in English and the other in Spanish then you must recognize that Spanish is NOT a foreign language here and we are NOT a monolingual society as you claim.

Capoeira- 50 million or so people, I guess, constitue/form approximately %20 of the whole population in the USA, which is sadly not enough to make/render the English language "dominant", nor is the USA "poly-lingual". Perhaps what I regard as "official", you regard as "dominant", I can't know. Whatever!

And I still back up my former remark- the USA and the UK will remain monolingual, for the very language of their own will sooner or later be, if not by now, virtually the second language of all other countries. This is what I have observed from the way things are going; I may, needles to say, be wrong. But at least this is what I intended to refer to.

Elisa- when and where did German join in and thus spoil the play? Whereas, nicely I was supporting my argument with only Dutch and French! Now I clearly see the situation there is indeed very complicated. So, let's forget the example Belgium! Thank you for the info anyway.

Well... another one wanted!... this time from Canada!... who will be able tell us in both English and French at this court!

I have to agree with you AllTooHuman (shall we both note this in our diaries?).

I can only speak for the English, but I agree that unless multi linguistic skills are forced upon the English (i.e. imigrants learning to speak English as well as their native language) the English are notoriously lazy with learning other languages.

From my experience abroad, I would say that the majority of English believe that if they speak English slightly slower and very LOUDLY (and sometimes with a "foreign" accent) they believe they can be understood anywhere!!

This laziness is due to the influence of the USA in Europe (media, films etc.) and the fact that most other countries learn English as their second language in schools. We are too lazy and there is no denying it!!

I defy any English people to disagree

The key word is not "laziness", but "needless", aenigma! To learn any language as a second language is getting day by day "needless", just like the paragraph below, for you, for your own language is getting day by day spoken by more and more people all over the world.

Period!

(Or, am I supposed to say "Full stop!" )

Is there anybody on here learning a foreign language, for s/he thinks it is a labour of love? Do you think it is worth spending your time, money and making a concerted effort?

Quote Robyn.... wish languages were taught earlier in english school.they are not even started until secondary(high school) age ...


not so, I was taught french from the age of 5...

Ok, you're right. Maybe "laziness" was not the best word to describe it (although we all are lazy creatures and do only what is necessary), but I'm glad you got the point .

I grew up in an area where they didn't teach languages until high school either and when I moved and went to high school most of my new friends were taught french from a young age becuase they were from an area that taught it at a young age.

Half of my high school was taught German and Spanish and the other half (me included) was taught German and French. I wasn't very good at French, ecpecially with my friends already ahead of me. Thankfully I made up for it in German, with the help of my German nanny
I still wish I was taught Spanish instead of French because spending a long period of time out in Spain (Costa Del Sol) when I was younger (couple of years before I started high school) helped me to be ahead of most people in that but I wasn't picked to do it but now I am making up for it by studying it now.

Having half my family being Turkish I used to speak a little when I was around 5/6 to my favourite uncle (who I have lost contact with now) as he used to teach me and loved it, and laughed when I couldn't pronounce some words right .

Anyway I grew out of it and spoke to him in English all the time after and forgotten what I learnt which is a shame and then I went to Turkey last year and I just wanted to learn it again for the sake of it but ended up giving up ....well, slowly giving up

At the moment I am concentrating mostly on Spanish and hope to become fluent in it as I hope to do a college course in it. Also, better because I have my own private tutor
Then I hope to learn Arabic, though it will be a long shot because of its difficulty, so I know that will take a lot of studying to do. A friend of mine has also offered to help with Arabic when I begin learning which is helpful.

At the college I will be attending to this year they teach soooooo many languages....chinese, japanese, russian, sign language (I know a little of due to a deaf friend), spanish, french, German, Polish etc but the two languages I wanted to go into (Arabic and Turksih) they didn't teach and the closest school they did teach it was in the central of London and 2 hours away. I am tempted but wont apply until I finish my other courses. So a couple of years at least yet

from what i know, there is a difference between sign languages.

american sign language (asl) is different from british sign language (bsl). these are also different to australia sign language (auslan). and also japanese sign language (jsl).

however, auslan and bsl are very very similar.

i don't know all the differences, but some sign languages mostly use the fingers, others make use of mouthing along with the fingers.

asl uses finger spelling alot in forming it's words, whilst jsl doesn't.

asl uses one hand in spelling out the alphabet, whilst auslan/bsl uses two hands.

check out this website for the asl, bsl, and auslan alphabets: http://www.dictionaryofsign.com/main.php

there is also turkish sign language:
http://turkisaretdili.ku.edu.tr/