Stephen Weatherseed believeslanguage is the key to feeling comfortable anywhere in the world.The Managing Director at Mazars and  Institute member can order food, give taxi directions and find his way around most of Europe and parts of China.

Weatherseed is fluent in his native English, has passable French and conversational Russian, “and bits of many other languages including Spanish, Italian, German and Mandarin.” His modern language study began at the age of eight at grammar school in the United Kingdom, where learning French was the norm. Five years later, he was offered the choice of German or Russian, but due to the over popularity of the former, Weatherseed found himself volunteering to switch to Russian. “Everyone thinks Russian is difficult because of the foreign alphabet, but you can actually learn it in a few weeks,” he shares. “I studied it to the highest degree I could in secondary school and considered taking up modern languages in university. If I had my time again, I would have.”

To read the full article, please click here  (page 41).

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Credits: Tigger Chaturabul for A+ Magazine, August 2015 issue