Many people think foreign trade helps big business. Trade will also help workers and small and medium businesses if they can communicate with foreigners.
Hotels
Workers can earn money at hotels, even with limited foreign language skills, which are taught in a basic lesson for hotels.
Sales to Travelers
Street sellers and stores can sell to business travelers and tourists if the sellers learn numbers and a few other words for sales.
Foreign Trade
Many trades can be arranged through emails and web pages, which are easy to translate (Google, or Bing).
Phone Calls and Visits
Sometimes a visit or phone call will help, if you share a language with anyone at the other company. You may need to talk to a receptionist first.
Top businesses and hotels hire receptionists who speak many languages. Any business wanting to trade with foreigners needs to teach its receptionists a short list of words in all likely languages. Bosses and travelers need these same words for telephone calls so they can speak to receptionists at other companies.
"Pronunciator" teaches words for numbers, time, cities, countries, geography, government, etc., which are useful for business and news. The purely audio proposal on this site at Wordlist recommends words in those same topics which can be taught orally. "Eurotalk" has intermediate lessons for business in many languages. "FSI" teaches a few words for phone calls in a few languages, fairly late in the course. "Busuu" and "Teach Yourself Business" serve the need in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish for people who already know the language well.
Scales and standard tests for language reinforce a bias for social, rather than business vocabulary.
Hotels
Workers can earn money at hotels, even with limited foreign language skills, which are taught in a basic lesson for hotels.
Sales to Travelers
Street sellers and stores can sell to business travelers and tourists if the sellers learn numbers and a few other words for sales.
Foreign Trade
Many trades can be arranged through emails and web pages, which are easy to translate (Google, or Bing).
Phone Calls and Visits
Sometimes a visit or phone call will help, if you share a language with anyone at the other company. You may need to talk to a receptionist first.
Top businesses and hotels hire receptionists who speak many languages. Any business wanting to trade with foreigners needs to teach its receptionists a short list of words in all likely languages. Bosses and travelers need these same words for telephone calls so they can speak to receptionists at other companies.
"Pronunciator" teaches words for numbers, time, cities, countries, geography, government, etc., which are useful for business and news. The purely audio proposal on this site at Wordlist recommends words in those same topics which can be taught orally. "Eurotalk" has intermediate lessons for business in many languages. "FSI" teaches a few words for phone calls in a few languages, fairly late in the course. "Busuu" and "Teach Yourself Business" serve the need in English, French, Japanese, Mandarin and Spanish for people who already know the language well.
Scales and standard tests for language reinforce a bias for social, rather than business vocabulary.
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