Least/most linguistic professions?

JustinTimberlake   Mon May 19, 2008 10:12 am GMT
Which educated people (ie, which profession) tend to be most likely to speak languages other than their native languages, especially in the EU, non English speaking countries. Thank you for your cooperation
JustinTimberlake   Mon May 19, 2008 10:13 am GMT
Also least likely , in case it is not clear.
Guest   Mon May 19, 2008 10:14 am GMT
I suppose foreign language teachers, travel guides, interpreters, hospitality workers, etc.
Guest   Mon May 19, 2008 10:16 am GMT
Least likely: Perhaps technical workers (like engineers) in the U.S.
Berlusconi   Mon May 19, 2008 10:34 am GMT
There was a link sometime before in one of the troll attack thread which showed the percent of academics in Germany in a given field who used English on a daily basis. I remember the highest was physicists (98%) and the lowest was law (around 10%) if I remember correctly. I think most social sciences were around 50% and other natural sciences were in the 80% range.

Good Dawn.
PARISIEN   Mon May 19, 2008 11:00 am GMT
<< Which educated people (ie, which profession) tend to be most likely to speak languages other than their native languages, especially in the EU, non English speaking countries. >>

-- Attendants aboard the Thalys trains (Paris-Brussels-Amsterdam-Cologne). Nearly all of them are from Antwerp BTW.
Guest   Wed May 21, 2008 7:14 am GMT
What about prostitutes?
Guest   Wed May 21, 2008 9:06 am GMT
In places like Amsterdam I think they probably are very multilingual in order to deal with the sex tourists. Also they're probably good at English in the Asian sex tourism hotspots, like Thailand and Vietnam.
Guest   Wed May 21, 2008 11:02 pm GMT
Healthcare, social services and immigration.
Guest   Wed May 21, 2008 11:16 pm GMT
"Healthcare, social services and immigration..."

... et gardiens de prison.
Guest   Wed May 21, 2008 11:25 pm GMT
"gardiens..."

Yes, but I doubt that they are multilingual.
Guest   Thu May 22, 2008 12:59 am GMT
Are there any linguistic requirements for police officers in any countries?
Guest   Sat May 24, 2008 8:43 am GMT
Some officers are specially trained to gather information about ethnic crime rings (Chinese, Italian, Arabic, Russian, Jewish, Colombian maffias...)

In the military, members of special forces operating under cover in highly sensitive areas like Pakistan have to master a lot of local dialects.
Skippy   Sat May 24, 2008 4:47 pm GMT
Many in the US do not view a need to learn foreign languages due to their personal lack of exposure... Furthermore, foreign language speakers are not typically in high demand because we have so many immigrants from everywhere (not just Mexico) that if a company or the government needs translation service they can usually find a native speaker.

Anyway, back to the topic at hand, I'd assume the professions with the highest percentages of multi or bilinguals (excluding linguists, translators, etc.) may be in multinational corporations.
Curiosus   Sat May 24, 2008 7:02 pm GMT
"I'd assume the professions with the highest percentages of multi or bilinguals (excluding linguists, translators, etc.) may be in multinational corporations."

I've met a lot of American executives in large companies (like General Electric or DuPont) who held various leading positions in European subsidiaries. They were amazingly fluent in German, French, British English, Spanish. Even in Dutch sometimes, go figure.