This is a guest post by Mr. Hari Joshi – Director, Foreign Languages Institute (Bangalore). They offer courses in Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, Dutch, German and Chinese. In this post, Hari talks about the benefits of learning a foreign language – especially for managers who are and want to be a part of organizations with a global workforce.
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As the world becomes flatter, back-end processes from countries all over the world are being moved to India. Latin America, Europe and Far east countries are now as important as the United States to the Indian economy. If we wish to seize this opportunity, Indian managers must step out of their comfort zone and familiarize themselves (you don’t have to be an expert) with foreign languages like Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French and German.

If you are a manager and working for an multinational, chances are that you will come in contact with foreign clients or language specialists working for foreign clients. In such a scenario, knowing the basics of a foreign language will stand you in good stead, both with the clients as well as with your language team.

Traditionally, French and German have been the two most popular foreign languages amongst Indians, the bigger opportunities lie in geographies where the language of business is Japanese, Portuguese and Spanish.

Japanese: Given it’s strength technology and innovation, Japan is the second largest consumer of Indian software services. And anybody, in the Business Development or Technolgy function of an IT firm, with a moderate knowhow of Japanese stands to gain fantastic international exposure in Japan. Most of these stints are longer term, given that the language is used only mainly in Japan. Interestingly, a recent survey has revealed that savings made by professionals working in Japan are higher than those made by their counterparts in United States and Europe.

Portuguese: Portuguese is spoken in Brazil, Portugal, Angola, Mozambique and Macau. The most noteworthy of these is Brazil (2.5 times the size of India) which has eneterd into several bi-lateral business agreements with India. Evidently, those who know Portuguese, get to work at some of the most exotic locations. Well, you can even flaunt it on your trip to Goa which was earlier colonized by the Portuguese.

Spanish: Spanish is the world’s third most spoken language, and more than 50 crore people worldwide speak Spanish. This includes the whole of Latin America (apart from Brazil) and Spain. Also, those who know Spanish would find it easy to converse across most of Europe.

So, fellow workosaurs, I would like to end this article by appealing to all of you to pick up a foreign language. Along with the language, will come better business development opportunities and the chance to know more about the cultures prevailing in different geographies.
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Note:
Those of you interested in learning Japanese, Spanish, Portuguese, French, Italian, Russian, Dutch, German or Chinese, can contact the author at +91.9886373048.