There are myriad reasons to learn a new language. One of the most persuasive is the lure of earning more money as a result. This is why business language courses are among the most popular offered by language schools in the United Kingdom. The UK is famous around the world for being a business-minded place and the uptake of business language courses is a good indicator of this. Here are a selection of the most popular courses:

Courses to learn business Mandarin have shown the steepest increase in uptake in recent years. As China becomes one of the world's dominant economies, more and more Western businesses are looking to forge stronger relationships with Eastern partners. For decades one of the world's leading producers and exporters of electrical goods, China is now expanding successfully into new markets. Courses to learn business Japanese are also popular among those who work in the import and export of electrical goods. The language itself is complex to master but extremely rewarding once attained.

Workers in the oil industry can learn business Arabic to ease the culture shock when working in the Middle East. The majority of the world's known oil is in the region and, with the leftward shift of many South and Central American countries continuing apace, it seems as though the Middle East is more important to British businesses than ever before.

Germany and Spain are two of Britain's great European trading partners. One advantage of choosing to learn business Spanish or learn business German is that, unlike Mandarin, Japanese and Arabic, the European languages share roughly the same character set as English. This is little surprise as the English language is a mix of Germanic, Latin and Saxon roots (with some more thrown in for good measure). The great advantage of learning Spanish is that huge parts of the world (including some of the largest exporting nations) have Spanish as a first language, thus opening many doors.

People in import/export can benefit from taking classes to learn business Italian as the country is one of Europe's major producing nations. This is in contrast to the UK, where the economy is based on importing goods and exporting services.

Studies have shown that people with more than one language have a far wider range of jobs available to them and are generally more attractive to employers. It is also hugely rewarding to speak another language, as people from almost every other European country with comparable wealth to Great Britain can tell you.