E-grāmata: Conducting Business Across Borders: Effective Communication in English with Non-Native Speakers

In an early edition of a best-selling book on how to give presentations, the US author, Thomas Leech wrote: Have you ever been to an international conference where speakers from different nationalities were giving talks in foreign languages? Do you remember a presentation where it was only half way through that you realised it was actually in English? I certainly do. What Leech failed to mention, is that it is equally true that many native speakers of English are also particularly difficult to understand. In a pre-Brexit survey (2013) of more than 4,500 UK businesses, 62% of non-exporters that were considering trading internationally in the future saw lack of proficiency in foreign languages (and thus only being able to resort to English) as a barrier to success. Despite Brexit, English is likely to continue to be one of the official languages of the European Union. However, it is also likely that business people and politicians in the EU are going to have less tolerance than before the referendum for the monolingual Brits whose spoken English is often extremely difficult to decipher. This frustration extends to the rest of the English speaking world and its business partners globally. For every native speaker of English, there are five non-native speakers. Although supposedly speaking the same language - English - the non-native speakers frequently cannot understand the native speakers, and vice versa. The media is now rife with articles on this topic, such as the Guardian's "Why native English speakers fail to be understood in English – and lose out in global business" *. However, to the best of my knowledge there are no books on the market that outline ways to address this problem. This book will give the reader the concepts, tools, and exercises necessary to be able to speak business English in a more clear effective manner.