Are British business relying on the English language too much?

Business technology reviewer Techbyte caused a rumpus when he gave the latest Ectaco iTravl electronic translator a thumbs-up last week.

By Richard Tyler
Published: 6:45PM BST 12 Oct 2009

The review made clear that while the device was useful, it was not a panacea. "Translators don't magically turn your spoken word into faultless French, German or Cantonese. You're thinking of Star Trek," noted Techbyte.

But Mike Hunter, chief executive of Betterlanguages Limited, questioned the tone of the review. "There is a world of difference between the example given of ordering bruschetta in a restaurant, and conducting complex business negotiations, or translating technical documents," he wrote.

"Taking a machine into a business meeting expecting it to solve language problems will potentially make you look ridiculous. Given the cost and time involved in conducting business overseas, a couple of hours' interpreting is by no means the largest expense. For small companies, another possible approach is to use the web, and conduct meetings by web conference or VOIP [voice-over-the-internet-protocol], possibly with a telephone interpreter."

Mr Hunter's comments introduce one of the main barriers to international trade: neither party can understand the other.

English may be the leading international business language and UK companies may still have a head start in the 53 Commonwealth countries where English is spoken, but the National Centre for Languages says that three-quarters of the world's population speak no English and 94pc of English speakers do so only as their second language. Chinese is the most widely-spoken language, followed by Spanish and then English.

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