Re:locate magazine, summer 2006

Learning the lingo

On a posting abroad, few things are more valuable – both for communication and assimilation – than a working knowledge of the national language. We look at how best to acquire it.

When it comes to relocating employees abroad, it pays to ensure that they and their families have at least a passing knowledge of the language of the country they’re moving to. According to Germaine Broadbent of Brighton-based language trainers Cactus, language training is vital as a means of building cultural awareness: “Those who know at least a little of the language prior to arriving in the new country are less likely to experience culture shock and of course will be able to establish new contacts that much more quickly. More than anything else, though, a familiarity with the new language means you’re less likely to feel like an outsider in your new environment. Language skills can prove a vital part of helping employees to settle in.”

Vital for business

In addition to their important psychological benefits, there is strong evidence to suggest that language skills are an essential part of successful business dealing. CILT, the National Centre for Languages, exists to promote a greater capacity for languages within the UK as a whole.

In 2005, the organisation commissioned Talking World Class, a report that revealed a strong link between those languages Britons speak fluently – ie, English – and those they’re most successful at doing business with. When English is the language of British companies’ customers (ie, when dealing with American, Australian, Republic of Ireland and Indian businesses) the value of British exports to these countries exceeds British imports from them. However, countries that don’t have English as their first language - Germany, France, the Netherlands, Belgium, Spain and Italy, for example – manage to sell more to the UK than the UK does to them. It would seem that the British also actively try to avoid doing business with countries with whom we’re less likely to be able to communicate. For instance, British trade with the whole of Central and Latin America – population 390m – is equal to our trade with Denmark – of whom 79% of its 5m people speak English. CILT also reports that only 20% of British export managers can work competently in a language other than English.

Given the all-round benefits of language training, then, it’s small wonder that savvy employers are recognising language training as a vital part of any relocation package.

Says Jeff Toms, director of marketing and client services at Farnham Castle in Surrey, which for the past fifteen years has offered small, bespoke classes or one-to-one tuition to employees from blue-chip companies including Unilever, Siemens and Exxon Mobil, “As our clients realise, it really is no longer acceptable for a native English speaker to assume that those he or she deals with abroad will necessarily be either prepared or able to speak English.”

Logistics of learning

How and when an employee will choose to learn a language will vary from situation to situation. When William Douglas was relocated from the UK to the Netherlands with his wife Polly by an international publishing company, the couple were advised against the idea of signing up for Dutch lessons the moment they arrived in the country. Explains Polly: “the Dutch language is made up of sounds that are, on first hearing, completely alien to the English-speaking ear – to us, it literally sounded like goobledegook and we couldn’t even discern individual words. Thus the common consensus among Dutch experts is that there’s little point in trying to learn the language until the ear has familiarised itself with these new sounds – something that takes around six months of actually being in the new country. Only then did we start using the training allowance that we’d received as part of our relocation package to pay for Dutch lessons. And, by then, we were sufficiently relaxed in our new surroundings to be prepared to try out what we were learning at work, in social situations and when we were out, say, shopping.”

With other languages – Latin-based ones, for instance – it may be relatively easy to familiarise yourself with the language, even prior to the relocation. Says Jeff Toms, “Our aim is to get the client up-to-speed with the new language as quickly and effectively as possible, basically via the immersion method, by which each student speaks – and is spoken to – only in the language that he or she is trying to learn.”

The politics of learning

While the ‘hard work’ aspect of the course is unlikely to deter high-flying executives, Jeff Toms concedes that many students do find coping with learning from scratch a challenge. “Most of our clients are used to excelling, so they can find returning to an environment in which they’re not top of the tree particularly trying. Tutors not only have to take a diplomatic approach, but we’re also careful when it comes to planning group tutorials. We don’t mix senior with junior executives for instance, as it may be politically awkward if the latter finds it easier to learn. Similarly, we try to dissuade couples from learning together – if one finds it easier than the other, some sort of friction may occur.”

Home and away

Brighton-based Cactus Language Training offers courses that usually begin in the UK with a native speaker and can then be continued, through Cactus’s contacts abroad, once the student has actually been posted and has had a chance to settle in. Says the company’s Germaine Broadbent, “The teacher will of course work at the student’s pace and will accommodate his or her learning style so that the course feels relevant to the areas in which he or she plan to use the language in the future.”

Those who haven’t looked at learning the language prior to departure and who don’t feel under any particular pressure from their employees to learn it – perhaps if they’ve been posted to, say, a Scandinavian country or to the Netherlands, where the vast majority of inhabitants speak excellent English – may find they have no problems at first. Says Polly Douglas, “I could conduct conversations at any level in English – in shops or when meeting Dutch people socially. But I realised I’d never really fit in unless I spoke the language. It was only when I started to do so that I started to make genuine friendships and to experience a new degree of belonging to – and respect from within – my local community. Plus I’ve gained a real sense of achievement by learning a language that’s acknowledged as being notoriously difficult to get to grips with.”