Atlantis wrote:You ever asked yourself why the US and the UK have such a big trade deficit? If their language is the language of business, the Brits and Americans should have an advantage, right?
That's because you are wrong, the language of business is not English, it is always the language of the customer. I have done business in Japan, and I can tell you that you won't sell if you don't serve your customers the Japanese way in Japanese.
It is estimated that the UK loses each year billions worth of trade because British businessmen expect their customers to speak English.
It is generally accepted in the world of business that English is the language of trade(business), you are talking about a singular country & it's own particular business culture, of which the English are more than familiar with.
In business, the customer isn't just at the retail end,but is also at the trading end, which is where English comes in.
It's nonsensical to equate trade deficits with supposed 'advantages', all they indicate is simple imbalances in the trading position over a period,connecting that to the English language is ridiculous,I don't know where you get your figures from either,but there you go.
English is the lingua franca of international language, anyone who has travelled,has,at some point used it abroad,it's used by some 2 billion people worldwide,more than half of which is practised daily & is a second language being learnt or used by the rest
English has the widest vocabulary of any language,so it makes perfect sense to use it wherever it is, for whatever purpose,whether academic,business,science,medicine,social networking,politics, in any sphere of life, there's a place for the language in which to communicate effectively & with equality.
British companies, like any other, do not expect to use native language when negotiating deals abroad, this is 21 century,but again, I have to tell you that Britain is one of the oldest global players in the market of international trading.
It is what the empire was built upon, for example, in India,China,North America,Africa, Argentina etc, wherever trade was to be done, GB was there.