Although we live in the age of the ever-shrinking global village, a survey of UK businesses has found that - when it comes to learning languages - few people look beyond our near neighbours in western Europe.

The finding comes as the government embarks on a "renaissance" in languages in schools.

An independent survey commissioned by Language is Everything, an interpreting and translation company, asked business people across the UK to say which language was the most useful to learn.

The top two languages, which were chosen by three-quarters of respondents, were French and Spanish. The third-placed language was Welsh.

Language is Everything commissioned the survey to mark the launch of its half-year report, which includes a special feature entitled 'Which is the most useful language to learn?'

"Although our survey was done on a fairly limited scale, we believe the results are important for the ongoing national debate about language learning," says Carolyn Burgess, the chief executive of Language is Everything.

"The government has recently announced a 'renaissance' in language learning, making it compulsory for all 7-year-old children - this is an excellent measure, and we strongly support it.

"However, we believe there needs to be an informed debate about which languages are the most useful to learn.

"Looking ahead to the next fifty years and beyond, which languages are going to be the most important for our children?

"The results of our survey suggest that not enough people are looking beyond our close neighbours in western Europe.

"We're not saying that French, Spanish, German, Italian or Welsh are the wrong languages to learn - obviously, there are many, many compelling reasons to learn these languages.

"But, in the age of the ever-shrinking global village, there are also powerful economic, political and cultural reasons for people to learn Chinese, Arabic, Hindi, Turkish, Polish or Swahili - to give just six examples.

"We are calling for an informed, national debate about which languages we should be learning - we'd like to see people's horizons broadened beyond western Europe."

Further information

Click here for our previous annual and half-year reports.

Click here for Lord Dearing's report on the government's languages policy (March 2007), which recommended that languages become a compulsory part of the curriculum from 7 to 14. (We are not responsible for the content of external web sites.)

The survey of UK businesses was carried out by Blue Warthog Marketing; the survey targeted 100 businesses across the UK.