That's not entirely correct. I've experienced several cases of inadequate language skills leading to misunderstandings that took months to clear up and that ha

That's not entirely correct. I've experienced several cases of inadequate language skills leading to misunderstandings that took months to clear up and that had real consequences. On a day to day basis, bad language skills also introduces friction and frustration. Learning whatever language you use for work properly and being able to make yourself understood is immensely important. I work for a company that has a pretty extensive global footprint. Just in the office I work we have around 15 nationalities, and it isn't even a big office. Just about the only hard requirement I have for people being hired on my team is that they can make themselves clearly understood in english over a dodgy phone connection. Despite the fact that we are a norwegian company, I don't care if people know any norwegian at all. But english they must know. And yes, I have passed on norwegian candidates that could not make themselves understood in english. And to underline how important people being able to communicate is for me: despite almost exclusively hiring people that are multidisciplinary (just being a software developer isn't enough, you need at least one other skill) I don't care about what education people have and I don't look at their grades. If you are a developer, the most important language isn't any programming language: it is english.