Recognising the Value of Language Learning
Maclin is a specialist hygiene & chemical product company, sourcing to the distributer trade & retail sector.Although currently only about 2.5% of its sales go overseas, it sees a huge potential in the Spanish market in particular and is already selling into Belarus.
Adrian Lindfield, Managing Director of Maclin has been learning Spanish now for four years.He believes that “you must have a realistic view of what you can achieve by attending a two-hour class every week”.Adrian took a general Spanish class at the local college for two years, which was taught by an excellent native Spanish speaker. However, the teacher changed and a few students decided to club together and hire their original teacher privately at a cost of £40 per two-hour lesson for a group of three.
Another method for accelerating language learning is residential learning.Adrian believes that residential courses are excellent for kick-starting your language skills. He has already spent one week in Spain during the Spring and plans to go for another week, then a month next year. At a cost of 235 euros per week, for 4 hours of group training, plus a one hour individual class per day, this is excellent value for money.He admits that because the lessons are taught purely in Spanish, on the first day he struggled.However, “by the end of the week I understood about 30% of spoken Spanish”.It was not just the oral practice that was helpful:“What was invaluable was the grammar that was taught, it helped brilliantly, but you really do need to practice when you get back”.
When I got back from my residential course, I asked our teacher to teach us in Spanish.Now 75% of the lesson is done in Spanish and this helps enormously.”
“Through a combination of regular classes, the odd visit to Spain and residential courses, my confidence has improved dramatically.The nice thing is to be able to go into someone’s business and do the usual greetings in Spanish, even if negotiations themselves are not held in Spanish. Another advantage is that you pick up snippets of conversation taking place in the background. I would recommend language training to other businesses new to export, but keep your expectations realistic.”