Which language(s) should I choose?

By Sue Orchard

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Of the world’s 7.2 billion inhabitants, only 30 million people speak English as their first language. That amounts to a mere 6% of the total.

Another 950 million people speak English as a non-native language. Only around 13% of the globe therefore speaks English as their first, second, or foreign language. Think how many potential users of your assessments or exams you are missing out on by only offering your tests in one language!

So, you have now made the decision to expand your offering to cover non English-speaking areas. Which languages and countries should you target? Where will you get the greatest “bang for your buck”?

There are many things to be taken into consideration when deciding which countries and languages to look at.

  • How easy is it to do business with a particular country?
  • Is it possible to find potential local partners/distributors with the relevant experience?
  • Will your intellectual property be safe?
  • Are assessments already used widely in the potential target market?
  • What is the potential market size within a particular country/region?
  • Are you ready to be a pioneer in a particular market or would you prefer to enter a market where you know there is an existing demand for your test or assessment?
  • How easy is it for your competitors to become active in a particular market?
  • Are your competitors already active in a particular market and you therefore feel that it is necessary for you to enter that market in order not to fall behind?
  • Are your potential target countries growing?
  • How does market entry into certain countries support your mission and strategic plan?
  • How does this support ancillary revenue opportunities?

In terms of the languages being requested by our clients, translations from other languages into English will always be top of the list for us, as we handle a lot of projects which require back translations into English, once we have carried out the forward translations.

In terms of our top languages so far in 2015, these have been the most requested:

  1. German
  2. French
  3. Spanish
  4. Simplified Chinese
  5. Italian
  6. Russian
  7. Portuguese
  8. Arabic
  9. Polish
  10. Japanese

French will cover French for France, Belgium, Canada, Switzerland and The Congo. Spanish here includes all varieties from the different countries.

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