Burkhard Schwenker is finding life fairly tough. Roland Berger - the Munich-based strategy consultancy of which he is chief executive - has been expanding faster outside its home country than within it, partly as a consequence of a sluggish local economy.

While Mr Schwenker says things are picking up in the world's third largest economy, he bemoans a negative perception in Germany about what the country's businesses are capable of. "There is too much talk of weaknesses, and not enough about strengths," he says. At least some of the reasons for this, he says, can be laid at the door of what might seem an unusual culprit - the German language.