Trainer speaks up for vital Asian language skills

CONSIDER this: in the six years to 2012, China invested almost $US50 billion into Australia’s economy.

Just under a third of this has found a home in Western Australia, largely driven by major deals in the state’s mining and oil and gas industries.

Yet, for a nation with so much to gain from Asian investment and trade, Australia remains for the most part stubbornly monolingual.

A CPA Australia survey last year found that Australian business leaders generally placed a relatively low level of importance on access to bilingual staff.

Overseas respondents considered Australia to be disengaged with Asia and its depth of Asian literacy and knowledge to be generally poor.

Without a fundamental change in mindset, CPA warned, Australia would remain a “peripheral player in the Asian century”.

Enter Rosetta Stone, an American-based provider of virtual language training programs whose presence has expanded rapidly across the world.

The company recently launched a partnership with Canberra-based consulting firm Yellow Edge, with hopes of expanding its Australian corporate customer base.

Speaking in between meetings with business executives in Perth, Rosetta Stone president global institutions Judy Verses told WA Business News the rise of emerging economies in Asia meant language skills were vital for local companies.

“We look at Perth as an incredible opportunity in Australia,” Ms Verses said.

“You look at the growth going on in Western Australia, specifically looking at industries like mining and the trade going on with South-East Asia and you add all that stuff together ... it automatically leads to the importance of language as a key part of success in doing that.” Ms Verses said a recent visit to Seoul and Tokyo served as a personal reminder of how the nuance of business negotiations could be lost in translation when both parties relied on an interpreter to get their points across.

“Trying to cultivate a relationship through translation is very difficult because you can’t engage in casual conversation, which is critically important,” she said.

“There are a lot of things that really aren’t translatable. In business it’s so important to understand what people are saying and the agreements and expectations and, if you’re doing that just through translation, it’s very difficult.”

Central to the philosophy behind Rosetta Stone’s software is the concept of dynamic immersion; the notion that the most effective way of learning a language is through connecting text with sounds and images in much the same way as a child learns.

In advocating this method, the company has sought to present its software as an alternative to traditional classroom-based methods of learning.

The education sector represents Rosetta Stone’s biggest global market and Ms Verses said the company saw “tremendous opportunity” in Australian schools.

However, it’s in the corporate sector that the company sees the greatest potential within Australia. Rosetta Stone director channel partners Carlo Bezoari told WA Business News many companies did not realise the ‘efficiency dividends’ that could be made until they systematically evaluated their language needs.

“It could be companies which are merging with other companies and you find out it’s actually the IT staff who need to integrate systems but you’ve got staff speaking Spanish here and English there and they are the ones who need to learn languages,” Mr Bezoari said.

“That’s the interesting aspect for us. We go in to see companies and uncover all these things that you don’t really think about. It’s not just the executives, it’s the entire workforce.”

The benefits of learning a second language have long been recognised by the corporate sector but the high cost and time commitment of traditional classroom-based training has acted as an effective deterrent.

With the launch of an iPad app to accompany its cloud-based software, Rosetta Stone has sought to remove some of these obstacles for companies.

A Washington native and self-described “corporate dink”, Ms Verses said her experiences in the United States led her to believe the most successful companies were those flexible enough to adapt to changes in global dynamics.

“Australia is a lot like the US because people think if they speak English, it’s the lingua franca - you’ll be able to get by anywhere,” she said.

“The truth is no, you can’t get by anywhere and especially if you start thinking from a corporation perspective, you’re much more successful if you’re working with other countries if you can speak in that native language.

“It could make a huge difference. In a highly competitive marketplace, if you can differentiate yourself that is a really good thing.”