The 10 Best Languages for Business

When targeting foreign markets, your translation ROI is going to depend significantly on how much demand a language’s speakers will have for your product.

But ease of market entry is equally essential in translation strategy and is greatly influenced by the cultural, geographical, and diplomatic facets of the countries where those languages are spoken.

Dr. Chan calculates language influence not only by their number of speakers but also by geography, economy, communication, knowledge, and diplomacy—significant influencers of the usefulness of a language.

He puts it this way:
“To understand the efficacy of language (and by extension culture), consider the doors (“opportunities”) opened by it. Broadly speaking, there are five opportunities provided by language.”

1. Geography: The ability to travel
2. Economy: The ability to participate in an economy
3. Communication: The ability to engage in dialogue
4. Knowledge and media: The ability to consume knowledge and media
5. Diplomacy: The ability to engage in international relations

In the context of business, these five factors correlate directly with language profitability or translation ROI.

Dr. Chan says:

“For business leaders, the PLI gives clues as to the most important languages to implement for a global audience. For instance, what tongues should be prioritized when setting up hotlines, creating websites and translating business materials?”

We’ve expounded upon the PLI index below, using updated populations from Ethnologue. The PLI assigns scores to each language as well as a global ranking for each category.