‘Translation and connection are different things’: why languages remain useful at work

Brandishing a rolling pin during a messy session making fettuccine, tiramisu and Aperol spritzes at a culinary school in Rome, Frédéric Armandon explains why he has signed up for an immersive language tuition course. The French manager, who works in Paris for Italian eyewear group EssilorLuxottica, is uncomfortable about his inability to speak his employer’s native language.

“I have the feeling of playing for the same team but not wearing the jersey that would open promotions.” Learning Italian, he adds, sends “a strong message” about his commitment to the company and its culture.

Armandon is surrounded by executives, retirees and professionals looking to change careers, who have gathered from Europe, the US and beyond at a zero-English course run by Zurich-based language company Education First (EF).

EF has evolved beyond its student-travel roots to operate language schools in more than 50 locations and through an AI learning platform. Participants typically pay €1,000-€1,500 for a week of language learning in Rome, a little more in cities such as New York and London.

But in an era when ChatGPT, Google Translate and other AI-powered tools can teach and translate languages, in-person courses seem a relic of the past. With so much technology at their disposal — including new developments in live voice translation — why would workers bother learning a language at all?

Employers, educators and even the technology companies building teaching tools argue that AI can handle the mechanics of translation, enabling people to order lunch, understand a report or follow a presentation — but local language skills are needed to build trust and connection.

“Speaking another language still builds access, trust and credibility, but AI now handles much of the literal translation,” says Laura Weis, human-AI strategy lead at advertising group WPP. “That makes cultural understanding, influence and relationship-building even more important.”

Within many multinational companies such as WPP, important conversations still happen outside the official language. People have to judge “how a message will land, what a community will trust and how a global idea should be adapted without becoming generic”, explains Weis.

Daniel Harris, managing director for the UK and Ireland at recruitment firm Robert Walters, says employers are looking for “cultural intelligence”, the kind best developed through living, working or studying abroad rather than language proficiency alone.

“AI is changing the value of foreign language skills by automating their routine elements,” he adds. Employers are looking for candidates who can “operate above simple translation” — those who can build relationships, understand cultural nuances, local expectations and work effectively across international markets.

Weis says experiences such as learning another language or living abroad are valuable because they teach people that “their own assumptions about trust, hierarchy, directness and professionalism are not universal”.

Minna Paunova, associate professor of management at ESCP Business School, argues that learning a language develops personal capabilities that organisations increasingly value. Learners must tolerate uncertainty, misunderstandings and occasional embarrassment, and resist the temptation to retreat into what they already know. “It means spending a long time being incompetent,” she says.

Paunova believes multilingual employees frequently act as cultural brokers, helping colleagues navigate differences in expectations, behaviour and communication styles.

Josh Crossick, chief product officer at Preply, the $1.2bn language-learning platform that uses AI and human tutors, says technology is changing how people learn languages rather than why they learn them.

Google recently launched Gemini-powered experiments that generate situational phrase packs, slang-heavy conversations and vocabulary based on photographs taken by learners. The British Council has introduced an AI-powered speaking coach that provides personalised feedback on fluency and pronunciation. Yet these tools are positioned as supplements to human interaction rather than replacements for it.

“Translation and connection are different things,” says Crossick. When he lived in Spain, he says translation tools helped him navigate daily life but did not help him make friends, for example.

Valeria Murgich Lopez, a project manager in Spain, says improving her English has helped her develop workplace skills such as executive presentations and communicating more confidently with colleagues and clients. “These last weeks I’ve been learning double,” she says. “Not just English, but also improving professionally according to my goals.” She says personalised coaching through language apps has made the biggest difference.

Back in Rome, as the group laughs at each other’s misshapen strips of pasta and stumbles through conversations in tentative Italian, it is clear the “exercise of learning together and making mistakes together creates good feelings”, says EssilorLuxottica’s Armandon. None of the participants has come simply to learn how to order an espresso. We are here for something that remains harder to translate.