It is important to note that languages can actually boost the economy by creating jobs. An economist at Cardiff Business School, James Foreman Peck, has studied the role of languages in determining patterns of world trade. Alarmingly, his research has shown that the UK is underperforming in its trade with non-English speaking countries. Not sharing a language is a barrier to trade for countries the world over, but for the UK the effect is nearly double the world average. Peck calculated that by improving language skills we could add £21 million a year to GDP. The report concluded that we are under-investing in language skills.

Click here to read the report (pdf, 269KB from Cardiff University website)