Happier Holidays For Multilingual Businesses

During the holiday season many retailers, both at the store-level and online, find that communicating with customers in their native language to be a challenge. Selecting which languages communicate in for both employees and website retailers, should reflect your product’s market opportunities and long-term goals. Using backend technologies like geolocation or tracking of billing addresses help identify the origin of your consumer and determine their language preferences.

For merchants seeking to penetrate new international online markets, there are 13 languages that can unlock nearly 90% of online business opportunities. They include English, Chinese, Japanese, Spanish, German, French, Korean, Portuguese, Italian, Russian, Dutch, Arabic and Swedish.
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Create a Positive Customer Experience in Any Language

As the American population continues to diversify and businesses expand operations around the world, multilingual employees provide a valuable resource. Their words often generate a customer’s first impression of your company and determine his or her willingness to engage in the future. Determining that your multilingual employees are proficient will ensure that they will provide excellent service in all their interactions and is an investment in your company’s future success. As the recognized industry leader in language proficiency assessment, Language Testing International (LTI) provides consistent and defensible testing that helps companies make that investment wisely.

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Will the US Become a Bilingual Country?

In the U.S., speaking more than one language fluently is not very common – except in Los Angeles, California.The city has one of the largest populations in the U.S. of young people between the ages of 18 and 34. This generation is often called millennials. More than half of millennials in Los Angeles are bilingual, which means they speak more than one language.

Maria Elena Burgos is cooking a Mexican breakfast. She says making Mexican food is just one of the many traditions in her home. Another is speaking Spanish to her children.

“We want them to be bilingual. We want to keep the Spanish somewhere in their learning too, not only at home.” When Ms. Burgos first came to the United States from Mexico, she learned English. She knew her children would learn English quickly. So she wanted them to speak Spanish at home and study the language at school.
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Measuring English Proficiency in Real-World Situations

Note: This post has been updated on April 2, 2024 to reflect the updates to the ACTFL Proficiency Guidelines.

Trust — but verify. We trust that English language learners are gaining something through their studies, but how do we verify what they actually can do with their language skills? We may believe that a job candidate has the language ability to take a certain position, but where is the proof?

The answer comes through evaluation of language proficiency using a common measuring stick, such as the proficiency guidelines published by the American Council on the Teaching of Foreign Languages (ACTFL). These evaluators describe “what individuals can do with language in terms of speaking, writing, listening and reading in real-world situations in a spontaneous and non-rehearsed context.”
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Using Languages in National Security

The largest employer for language professionals in this country is the U.S. Department of Defense—a fact that might surprise many people. In fact, national security is a fast-growing and exciting career area for those with strong foreign language skills, offering a wide variety of opportunities that stretch beyond translation and interpretation. The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and National Security Agency (NSA) all hire hundreds of foreign language professionals each year to work as agents, linguists, and language analysts.

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Groundbreaking Study from ACTFL Measures Listening and Reading

Fifty years ago, John B. Carroll undertook a landmark study analyzing the oral proficiency of students in language programs in the United States. The often-cited article on his research, “Foreign Language Proficiency Levels Attained by Language Majors Near Graduation from College,” appeared in Foreign Language Annals in 1967—the first year of the journal’s publication. The impact on the language education profession was widespread and has been key to our knowledge of second language acquisition over the past half-century.

Now a new study from ACTFL promises to be the next major milestone in our professional understanding of how students acquire language—this time focusing on interpretive listening and reading.
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The Digital Language Divide

The internet, much like space, is infinite. This opens people up to a limitless way to communicate and thus, language plays an important role in how information is displayed and translated.

The first language used on the internet was almost certainly English. By the mid-1990s it was estimated that English made up nearly 80% of online content.

However dominating it once was, English now represents only one language in an online linguistic elite. English’s cyberspace share has dwindled down to approximately 30%. Languages such as Chinese, Spanish, German and French are all in the top ten online languages. For example, Mandarin grew over 1,000% between the years 2000 and 2010. Out of a roughly 6,000 languages in use today, this top 10 makes up 82% of the total of the content on the internet. Take note of these trends, because, they affect just about all industries and how they do business with the rest of the world. “Any business looking to maximize its reach in the US and abroad should be looking at reaching customers in languages other than English”, said Helen Hamlyn, Vice President of Language Testing International.
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How Can HR Ensure All Employees Have the Right Level of Business English Skills?

Developing and implementing a language assessment strategy is an effective way for HR to measure the language ability of new appointments and existing staff. When assessing the business English skills for new employees, the first thing to consider is how much English language they need to know in order to carry out their roles effectively. This will allow you to set minimum benchmarks of language proficiency that all new staff must meet, in line with internationally recognised standards. The Council of Europe’s Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) is a good place to start as it’s one of the most commonly used systems to describe different levels of language ability.
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Ethnic Marketing? Turning Obstacles into Opportunities

In the past, appealing to minorities was not a major concern to marketers in most industries.  Ethnic groups in America were expected to assimilate into the mainstream over time, making it a case of Mohammed coming to the mountain.

But time has proven this reasoning faulty.  As a result of many economic and social factors, people are beginning to discover that America is no longer the melting pot it once was.  Instead of looking to assimilate, certain ethnic groups such as African-Americans, Asians and Hispanics have fought to maintain their own cultural integrity.

“The most recent census made it clear that the United States is fast becoming more ethnically diverse,” says Wendy Liebmann, principal of WSL Marketing, a New York-based consultancy.  “The melting pot concept that has typified American society for the last century is rapidly being displaced by a multiethnic mosaic.”
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Matchmaker, Matchmaker, Find Me a Job

It’s no coincidence that Sanjeev Agrawal, the co-founder and chief executive of Collegefeed, compares finding a job with dating. Finding The One (or at least The One That’s Good Enough) in both jobs and love is difficult under the best of circumstances, and it’s even harder if you don’t know where or how to start your search.

Collegefeed, a one-year-old start-up in Mountain View, Calif., is applying science and a bit of human matchmaking to the process of helping college students and recent graduates connect with employers looking for their particular skills. This week, the company plans to announce a broader rollout of its products for employers and is promoting the addition of prominent companies like eBay and Cisco Systems to its roster.

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