Irish SMEs lose millions for bad language skills

SMALL and medium-sized Irish businesses could each make an additional €100,000 a year in exports if they had foreign languages.

But instead Irish exporters are guilty of “Anglophone complacency” and expect all their customers to use English, according to a new report Effects on the European Economy of Shortages of Foreign Language Skills in Enterprise.

There is enormous potential for small businesses in the EU to increase total exports if they invested in languages, the research for the European Commission says. Britain’s National Centre for Languages that carried out the study said many more companies do not even try to win export orders because of limited language ability.