The Language Barrier
Description:
Despite the economical power of the European Union it still has a major disadvantage: It lacks a common language. While the rest of the world seems to have adopted English as the global standard for business, this is not the case in all of Europe. Large languages like German and Spanish are used by many people, thus limiting their companies in their ventures abroad. The primary example of course remains French, which is deemed of similar importance as English by themselves.
The barriers created by the difference in languages must be abolished in order to be able to fully take advantage of the possibilities offered by the European market. Enabling companies to deal with partners all across Europe without facing problems communicating will greatly affect the future workspace.
Because it seems to be rather unlikely that consensus over a single European business language will be achieved we aim at the possibilities technology can offer us. Using future translation software video and audio conferencing can become a more effective way of doing business in the future, which is likely to decrease certain parts of the work-related travelling.
Enablers:
- The government and institutions of the European Union
- Investments from private parties
- Technological possibilities
- The future business environment
- Integration of the European markets
- Language education
- The will of employees and companies to use such systems
Inhibitors:
- Nationalistic feelings in Europe (e.g. France)
- EU developments (direction, influence, etcetera)
- Technological limitations
- Expensive and not so effective
- The will of employees and companies to use such systems
Paradigms:
Breaching the language barrier will be a harsh task. Despite the fact that most companies and employees use English as their second language, next to their native language, there are still many Europeans who can not even use English on a conversational level, let alone on a business level. Enabling those parties to communicate with each other without the language forming a limitation will bring great benefits to the prosperity of the European Union.
Experts:
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Timing:
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Web Resources:
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