Over 7,700 languages are spoken across the world. While the internet has theoretically made it much easier for businesses to communicate across international borders, its growth – and shifts in economic power across the world – have meant that companies with bilingual staff are often at a competitive advantage.
In particular, the demand has increased for Mandarin and English speakers who can act as ‘bridges’ between China and English-speaking countries. The BBC recently reported that even companies in China, who often prefer to communicate in Chinese, are looking for managers who speak both Mandarin and English if they want to expand abroad.
Meanwhile, many British business people are learning Mandarin Chinese and on the other side of the world, Singapore is subsidising English lessons to give its citizens a competitive advantage.
At SilverDoor we have numerous bilingual employees including our Mandarin, Cantonese and English speaker Matthew He, who helps us communicate with our property partners and clients in China and the Far East.
We’ve also recently translated our property partner system into four languages: French, Spanish, German and Mandarin Chinese. This should make it easier for our international property partners to understand and update the property data that’s featured on our website, and should ultimately increase the accuracy and depth of the information we provide for our clients. To access our property partner system please click here.
