When Isabelle Allen joined KPMG in 1991, she says, the professional services group valued, promoted and rewarded those people who had deep expertise.

伊莎贝尔阿朗(Isabelle Allen) 1991年加入了毕马威(KPMG)，她表示，当时这家专业服务集团看重那些拥有高超专业知识技能的人，给予他们晋升和奖励。

“We were looking for people who were master of a task and getting better at doing the same task year on year,” says the French executive, who is now global head of sales and markets at KPMG.

“那时我们想要的是精通一项工作的人，并能通过年复一年从事同样的工作越做越好，” 这名法国籍高管表示。她现在是毕马威全球销售和市场主管。

These days, the company is looking for breadth as well as depth, seeking staff “who thrive on change, people who are comfortable with ambiguity — solvers of problems that didn’t even exist two years ago”.

如今毕马威既想要通才又想要专才，他们希望员工“面对变化如鱼得水，能自如地应对模棱两可的事务——能够解决那些两年前甚至都不存在的问题”。

Having studied the latest research into the cognitive benefits of Ms Allen wonders whether knowledge of foreign languages may be one hidden signpost pointing towards those future stars.

了解了掌握多门外语的认知优势的最新研究以后，阿朗想知道掌握外语是否可能是那些未来之星的一个隐藏属性。

“The multilingual brain might actually be better at doing business than the monolingual brain,” says Antonella Sorace, professor of developmental linguistics at the University of Edinburgh.

“比起只会一种语言的人，会多种语言的人事实上或许更擅长处理商务活动，” 爱丁堡大学(University of Edinburgh)发展语言学教授安东内拉∠拉切(Antonella Sorace)表示。

Multinational companies have long recognised the functional benefits of multilingualism as a bridge between business cultures. Not speaking other languages may even be a block to promotion these days, according to early findings from the British Academy’s Born Global research into language policy in the UK.

跨国公司很早就认识到多语能力作为不同商业文化间桥梁的实用好处。根据英国社会科学院(British Academy)“生为国际人”(Born Global)项目对英国语言政策的研究，如今不会一门外语甚至可能阻碍晋升。

“We are being told that there’s a ‘glass ceiling’ developing for monoglots within global businesses,” says Richard Hardie, who chairs UBS in London and heads the Born Global steering committee. Staff will not get into “the more rarefied atmosphere” of the senior ranks unless they have had “overseas experience, cultural awareness and probably have [another] language”.

“我们被告知，在跨国企业中，针对只会一种语言的人的‘玻璃天花板’正在形成，”瑞银(UBS)伦敦业务主管、“生为国际人”项目指导委员会主席理查德哈迪(Richard Hardie)表示。除非员工有“海外经历和文化认知，并很可能掌握（另一种）语言，否则他们很难进入最高层的‘小圈子’”。

Increasingly, though, there are other ways to achieve operational efficiency in foreign languages. Google Translate and other machine applications seem to be eroding one justification for learning languages, by performing — adequately, if not perfectly — some of the basic functions of translation. Native English speakers can simply take advantage of the rest of the world’s desire to learn the lingua franca of international business. Even non-English speakers can avoid the wearying long route to fluency in English and take a short-cut to Globish, a system that teaches a basic working vocabulary of 1,500 words.

尽管如此，也有越来越多的实用方法能够有效地跨越语言障碍。Google翻译和其他机器程序在翻译一些基本用语时的表现，就算不够完美，也足够好了，这似乎削弱了人们学习外语的一个理由。英语是国际商务活动中的通用语言，非英语国家的人们都想要学习这门语言，母语为英语的人们可以直接利用这一点。即使是母语非英语的人，也可以避开精通英语要走的漫长而艰苦的学习之路，走捷径学习全球语(Globish)——这是一门由1500个基本常用单词组成的语言。

If they do so, however, they may potentially miss out on the cognitive advantages of learning and speaking other languages, according to much recent scientific research.

不过，根据最新的科学研究，如果他们这么做，他们很可能会错失学习和使用外语带来的认知优势。

Researchers at Barcelona’s Pompeu Fabra University found, for instance, that people seem to make more rational decisions in their second language — possibly because it distances them from the decision. Other benefits could include a greater ability to negotiate — because multilingual people can see others’ perspectives more easily — improved capacity to switch between tasks, and a greater focus and ability to set priorities.

比如，巴塞罗那泊普法布拉大学(Universitat Pompeu Fabra)的研究者们发现，人们在使用第二语言的时候似乎能够做出更多理性的决策——这可能是因为外语让人们与决策之间拉开了距离。其他优势还包括谈判能力更强（因为会外语的人更容易理解别人的想法），任务间切换能力更好，更专注、更会按照轻重缓急安排事情。

It makes no difference whether the second language is widely spoken, such as English or Hindi, or a less common language such as Gaelic, says Italian-born Prof Sorace, who is also founder of Bilingualism Matters, set up to spread science-based information about languages and language-learning.

出生于意大利的索拉切教授表示，不论第二种语言是像英语或者印地语那样广泛使用的语言，还是像盖尔语这样的小语种，其效果都一样。她还是语言中心“双语很重要”(Bilingualism Matters)的创始人，该中心的设立宗旨是传播有关语言和语言学习的有科学依据的信息。

Languages acquired later in life can have the same effect. As well as hiring more multilinguals, companies should devote more time to training language skills, work with universities to promote the research, and support the workforce in raising multilingual families, says Prof Sorace.

索拉切教授表示，成年后学习语言也可能收到一样的效果。在雇佣更多掌握多门语言员工的同时，公司应该投入更多时间来培训员工的语言技能，和高校合作推进研究，并且为组建多语家庭的员工提供支持。

Sending English-speakers to foreign postings, she points out, “is a wonderful opportunity for the children to learn languages, rather than being protected in an English-only environment”.

她指出，把说英语的人派驻到海外，“提供了一个极好的机会让小孩学习语言，而不是自在地待在没有语言学习压力的纯英语环境中”。

It still takes time, though, to get fluent enough in a language to find it useful in business — and linguistic ability is not a catch-all way of overcoming cultural differences in business.

即使如此，人们依然需要花费时间才能将一门语言说得足够流利，能够在商务活动中派上用场，语言能力也不是克服商务往来中文化差异的万金油。

When Jo Dawson, who studied German and Swedish at Cambridge university, went to work in financial services, friends said, “You’re not using your languages — you’ve given up. Why did you bother studying?” Now an executive coach with The Alexander Partnership, she notices that senior managers with English as a second language still cannot “read” a room of native English-speakers or uncover others’ hidden agendas. They do not know “what people are really saying”, she says.

乔匠森(Jo Dawson)在剑桥大学(University of Cambridge)学习了德语和瑞典语，当她在金融服务业就业时，朋友们说，“你以后不会用你学的语言了——你放弃了。你当初是为什么要学它们呢？” 现在她是The Alexander Partnership的一名高管教练，她注意到以英语为第二语言的高管们依然不能“解读”一屋子英语母语人士的所思所想，也不能发现其他人未明说的意图。她说，他们不明白“人们到底在说什么”。

Cultural blindness such as this may not have much to do with whether executives speak another language, says KPMG’s Ms Allen: “I’ve met a lot of people who are totally monolingual and can’t read a room.”

毕马威的阿朗表示，这样的文化失明症可能与高管们会不会另一种语言没多大关系，“我见过很多不能解读一屋子人的情绪的纯单语人士”。

A more serious concern is that time spent learning a language could be better spent acquiring other skills, some of which — such as learning to play a musical instrument — also offer proven benefits for the brain.

一个更严重的问题是，把学习语言花费的时间花在掌握其他技能上可能更好，已经证实学习另一些技能也对大脑有好处——比如学习弹奏一种乐器。

Bill Anderson, a senior vice-president at Pearson English, which recently hosted, with the Financial Times, a discussion on bilingualism’s challenges and opportunities, warns that tight annual operating budgets do not allow for long-term language-learning goals. Make a “short-term commitment [to language courses] and you will get very short-term benefits”, he says.

培生英语(Pearson English)最近和英国《金融时报》举办了一次有关双语的挑战和机会的讨论会。培生英语高级副总裁比尔褠德森(Bill Anderson)警告称，每年紧张的运营预算无法支持语言学习方面的长远目标。“短期参与（语言课程），你也只能获得非常短期的收益”，他说。