Bài 1 - English at work

What do these people have in common - a banker in Mexico City, a waiter in a five-star hotel in Moscow, and a worker in the Hitachi electronics factory in Tokyo? They all speak English at work. Today, English is the common language in multinationals companies in countries from France to Singapore.

Jean-Paul Piat works for an IT company in Paris. Everyday he has meetings with other managers in English. He also reads documents and writes emails in English, and speaks on the phone in English to offices in other countries.

"We're a multinational company with offices all over the world", says Jean-Paul. "We're also have some people in our Paris office who aren't French. We need a common language to communicate, and that language is English. I think it is a good idea, but some people don't like speaking English in a meeting when nearly everybody is French".