In the case of high-level business negotiations with non-native English speakers, knowing English gives the executives on the other side of the table a leg up.

Beatty International plant manger Brian Beatty knows the routine when negotiating contracts with Japanese companies for the huge steel milling machines his company manufactures.

An interpreter will put Beatty's words into Japanese for the executives on the other side of the table and then put their words into English for him.

"But I know darn well they know what I say when I say it," Beatty said. "They use the interpreter to buy thinking time."