Investment executive Anthony Cooper discovered at a recent business meeting in Mexico just how vital his Spanish lessons are.
"I didn't know if the client spoke English, so spent an hour and a half talking to him in Spanish," recounts the Toronto-based vice-president at RBC Dominion Securities Inc. "At the end of the meeting, the client got up and said, in perfect English, 'Thank you very much for making that effort. . . . And I intend to show you my appreciation.' We went on to do business."
Mr. Cooper and thousands of like-minded Canadian professionals are taking advantage of new opportunities to learn Spanish without leaving the country. And while it may be pleasurable, the name of the game is business.
Mr. Cooper has been juggling his work schedule to accommodate Spanish lessons for the past 14 years. He recently completed a week-long, live-in immersion program outside Toronto, run by The Spanish Institute of Language and Culture at Seneca College.
Established two years ago, specifically for professionals, the school's client list has grown to include Bank of Nova Scotia, Barrick Gold Corp., Bombardier Aerospace and Nortel Networks Corp.
Seneca president Stephen Quinlan says he became convinced of the need for such an institute after going on two Canadian trade missions to Latin America in the 1990s.
"The opportunity for Canada to do business in Latin America has significant potential over the next decade," he explains. "The population base is there. The economies are there. But, if Canadian business interests are to be successful . . . we have to have a better appreciation of the culture and some facility with the language."
Language matters a lot in business, according to Keith Head, professor of international trade at the University of British Columbia's faculty of commerce and business administration.
Other things being equal, average trade between countries is twice as much if a common language is spoken. "It's been shown in dozens of studies," Prof. Head says.
Other Canadian professionals realize that too. Enrolment at The Spanish Centre in Toronto, one of the largest private Spanish schools in the country, has grown from about 500 when it first started in 1995 to about 3,200 this year. And an increasing number of students are there because of their jobs, school director Javier Aizersztein says.
At the beginning of the year, clothing manufacturer Levi Strauss & Co. (Canada) Inc. started offering Spanish training to some employees on-site at its offices in Richmond Hill, Ont.
"We saw that business volume was increasing in Latin America," says Mark D'Sa, head of sourcing for Canada.
Mr. D'Sa, who travels to Mexico six times a year, is one of 14 employees who have just completed a 15-week introductory Spanish course given by a Seneca teacher.
He says knowing even a basic level of Spanish enhances his negotiating power, gives him better insight into the workplace culture and provides an understanding of the political situations in the countries where he's doing business. "You miss a lot of these things in translation," he says.
Canadians who have worked extensively in Latin America are convinced it's crucial to learn more than just the language.
The business etiquette is different there, according to Penny Caceres, director of Seneca's Spanish Institute.
"Canadians tend to be very direct. They want to get right into business," she says. "It's the reverse in Latin America, where you have to build relationships before they decide if they want to do business with you. You can ruin the chances of getting a deal if you don't do that."
Alison Lacy agrees. A lawyer in the Toronto office of Torys, she spends 25 per cent of her work time travelling to countries such as Bolivia, Cuba, Argentina, and Colombia on behalf of Canadian companies investing there.
"A lot of business is done around meals," she says. "They have different time schedules there. They don't eat at their desks or standing up."
Ms. Lacy co-chairs the eight lawyers in the Latin America practice group at Torys, and says they must be fluent enough to sit down and negotiate complex deals in Spanish. Many of them keep up their vocabulary through regular lessons with Hilda Ortega, an instructor from Toronto's Humber College who comes to the downtown offices around 7:30 a.m.
Like many Latin American natives now teaching Spanish in Canada, Ms. Ortega is amply qualified. She was a lawyer for 10 years in her native Peru, has a PhD in education from Peru and an MA in Spanish language and literature from the University of Toronto.
Ms. Lacy admits it can be difficult finding senior lawyers in Canada with enough proficiency in Spanish. But she adds, "There are more [Spanish-speaking graduates]coming out of law school now. We're bringing them up through the ranks."