19 March 2015 - QA 4

I run a small software company in Japan and also in India. My problem is that I have about 15 people in Japan and about 30 people in India, and the communication between the Japanese and Indians is a big problem. I'm trying to fill the gap by teaching Japanese to the Indian guys, but it is not happening at this stage. How can we help the Japanese people learn more English from childhood so that they can have better international education.

Sri Sri Ravi Shankar:

You know, language is not an issue at all, at least not in this age. People all over the world don't really speak one language. You may say that English is the international language, but when you go to South America, they don't speak English! A lot of the people in Europe don't speak English. You go to Russia, who speaks English there? Same with India, except for few pockets in India, people don't speak English so much. So, first of all, see that the language is not the barrier. People can learn to communicate even without knowing a particular language. Of course, it will take a little longer time for people to communicate, and we should allow that atmosphere to happen.
If you see our setup in Bangalore, there are people who speak Malayalam, Tamil and Kannada. The local laborers speak only Kannada and the management don't speak Kannada. Most of them speak Hindi. And there are people who don't know English. So you just come and visit us, stay for 3-4 days and you will understand how things work very smoothly when there is a single commitment among all people.