People who speak more than one language earn more money and have a wider choice of work, and are also more likely to be more successful with the opposite sex, a new survey shows.
Polyglots - people who speak more than one language - earn an extra £3,000 a year - a total of £145,000 over their lifetime, according to a survey of 2,700 employers.
The research reveals that companies are prepared to pay workers earning the national average of £25,818 as much as 12% more for a second language.
For higher earners, the numbers are even more startling. Those earning £45,000 could see a potential cash boost of 20%, amounting to an extra £9,000 a year or £423,000 over a lifetime. The most common languages used in UK businesses are French, German, Spanish and Italian.
In the second part of the study, Richard Beresford, the compiler of the Sunday Times Rich List, polled dating agency bosses. He found that 97% of the 270 agencies polled said they asked new clients about their language skills because foreign language speakers were perceived by daters as more intelligent and sexier than monolinguists.
Because of the widespread perception that multilingual people are sexier and more intelligent, Mr Beresford concluded that learning a second language could improve your self-esteem.
The report was commissioned by the Michel Thomas Language Centre, which is run in the UK and America. Michel Thomas became famous for teaching much of Hollywood's 'A' list how to speak a foreign language. Movie stars such as Woody Allen, Barbra Streisand and Emma Thompson have paid up to £18,000 each for face-to-face lessons.