Bilingual abilities at all levels of business organizations are becoming more the norm than the exception. Just as having bilingual abilities can be a tremendous personal advantage for individuals, many companies also benefit by hiring employees that speak a language in addition to English.

How many foreign languages do executives speak? We came across the following survey results and thought they were worth noting. Well-known executive search firm Korn/Ferry International asked visitors to its web site the following question: “How many languages do you speak?” Of the 12,562 responses they received, the answeres were:

• One language (36 percent)
• Two languages (31 percent)
• Three languages (20 percent)
• Four languages (9 percent)
• More than five languages (4 percent)

What’s interesting about the percentage distribution? For one thing it seems there were almost as many bilingual respondents as there were those who speak only a single language. Other observations?

See also: English-Spanish bilingual employee recruiting services.