Hankook & Company Group recently distributed 'global language principle' guidelines to its employees worldwide, asking them to communicate in English during important meetings involving executives.

Damn, that would make things so much easier. In Sweden at my company we always had written language English but once we hired a bunch of foreigners suddenly without even coordinating it we all switched to verbal English communication too. There was always someone in the group who didn’t speak Swedish.

Here in Korea, it’s tough no matter if it’s a small company like mine or a big one. When I worked at a customer, a big automotive supplier, the German guy who was high up in the company told me that he would hire me but the company is just not ready to hire people who don’t speak Korean. He himself didn’t speak it but he had a personal translator/assistant who would translate all his written and verbal communication.