Stilsicher Englisch sprechen

Global English withJames McCabe 1

In Kooperation mit der

B U S I N E S S H Ö R B U C H

© 2007 Langenscheidt KG, Berlin und MünchenSprecher: James McCabeWortschatzhilfen: Gundula Müller-WallrafTitelbild: Andreas Pohlmann für WirtschaftsWoche

Gesamtlaufzeit: ca. 70 Minuten

www.langenscheidt.de

[1] Introduction S. 3[2] No Politics S. 4[3] Viruses S. 5[4] Out of Office S. 7[5] The Tenses S. 8[6] Voicemail S. 10[7] Working 24/7 S. 12[8] The Gerund S. 13[9] Bodytalk S. 15[10] By Mistake S. 16[11] Like a Joke S. 18

[12] Funny Little Habits S. 19[13] Phrasal Verbs S. 21[14] It’s Old Hat S. 22[15] What If? S. 24[16] Real Mail S. 26[17] Pet Sounds S. 27[18] False Friends S. 29[19] Open Exchange S. 31[20] Question Tags S. 32[21] Test Your Phrasals S. 34[22] A Day in the Life S. 36

appreciate zu schätzen wissen; reliability Zuverlässigkeit; intimacy Vertrautheit

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Introduction

Hi, I’m James. You’d like to speak perfect English, but just don’thave the time to manage it, right? You do business in Englishwith people from other cultures, but don’t always know what’sgoing on. Join the club. Thousands of native German speakersare using English on the job every day, getting by on Leo andwhat they learnt at school. Sometimes they pick up stuff fromnative English guys, but not as much as they would like to.

Well, now’s your chance. I’m going to take you on a personaltour of the world’s number one business medium. As you’veprobably guessed, the world’s a crazy place. Most culturesappreciate German reliability, but misunderstand your kind ofstraight-talk. That’s because business in the Global Jungle is ahighly socialized activity. Work isn’t separate from life.

As you’ll hear, English is pretty good at this kind of thingbecause it’s a classic mix of intimacy and diplomacy. English ispersonalized communication. Don’t try to learn anything here,guys. Just keep listening. Ready?

No Politics

The other day, I was called out of the office. When I returned, mytwo clients were speaking to each other in German. SuddenlyHermann stopped short and apologized, telling me they hadbeen just small-talking. From their conversation I could tell theywere discussing business. Hermann hadn’t been small-talking.What he’d been doing was shop-talking.

Although the word small-talk is used today in the Germanlanguage, there it seems to have lost its real meaning of socialconversation. Small-talk doesn’t mean unimportant talk. It’s big-talk. In the Anglo-American world it’s the starters, not thedessert. We always small-talk before we talk shop. Why? Maybebecause English is a multicultural tongue. That means you’reoften talking to someone with completely different values.Small-talk is the hand we reach out to them across the culturaldivide. So how do you do it? Well, the trick here is to make itpersonal without being private. So politics and religion are non-starters. But be careful, typically German topics such as health

to stop short abrupt aufhören, plötzlich innehalten; starter Vorspeise; divide Kluft

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and family can also be a bit close to the bone. Safer subjects in-clude sport, the weekend, holidays, tips and, of course, theweather. A clever German, however, knows just how significantnational identity remains for the average English speaker. So ifyou want to click first time with your contact, try asking themwhere they’re from. When you hear “Topeka” or “Scunthorpe”avoid answering “Never heard of it”. Act impressed. Keep thesubject going: “Great, what’s the weather like there?” Nowyou’re talking. Welcome to the world’s largest club.

Viruses

I’m often asked by clients what are the most common mistakesGerman speakers make in English. I can only provide anoverview here, but nevertheless for all of you who may beinterested, here are McCabe’s top ten German-English viruses:

One, saying “I have gone” (instead of saying “I went”).Essentially, “have gone” in English is Present Perfect, in otherwords it’s the ‘now past’ or the recent past. If this was yesterdayor last week, you went. Five minutes ago you have gone. Virus

to be a bit close to the bone hart an der Schmerzgrenze sein;essentially im Wesentlichen

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number two, saying “I will go to the mountains at the week-end”. You made the decision before now, so you are going to goto the mountains. Number three, saying “I’m coming fromCologne”. You come from Cologne. “Coming from Cologne”means being on your way from there right now.

Number four, actual prices. The prices are not actual, they’recurrent. Actual (or real) prices have nothing to do with time,and could refer to the Stone Age. Virus five, saying “Thanks,fine” instead of “Fine, thanks”. English syntax is sensitive toreversal, unlike German. Virus number six, “Please send me theinput till Friday”. As we suggested before, this should be “byFriday”, unless you want an actual flood of material. Numberseven, shaking hands and using the surname. Try using the firstname, without shaking an acquaintance’s hand continuously.Virus eight, saying “Please?”, instead of “Sorry?” or “Excuse me?”.Virus nine, talking shop without the expected, preliminarysmall-talk. And virus number ten, being too busy to pick up aphone and say hello from time to time.

actual eigentlich, tatsächlich; current aktuell; to refer to sich beziehen auf; syntax Syntax, Satzbau; sensitive empfindlich; reversal Umstellung; acquaintance Bekannter; preliminary vorbereitend

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Out of Office

I talk a lot about the ins and outs of correct English, aboutphrasal verbs, prepositions and so on. But that’s only one halfof the equation. And it’s not even the most important half. Theother half, of course, is doing your job in English with equalsuccess, winning new customers and big deals, breaking intonew markets. What’s important here are your social skills, noteven so much your personal qualities. Is there a difference? Well,yes. Basically, it’s the difference between know-how and can-do,between competence and willingness.

In the German-speaking business environment, it would be impossible to succeed without being competent, honestand punctual. These personal qualities are simply taken forgranted. If you don’t have them you’ve got a problem. In therest of the Global Village, however, there may equally be expec-tations of your social skills. So you’re not only honest, you’retactful. That’s all very well in theory, but how does it work out in

phrasal verb Verb mit Präposition und/oder Adverb; equationGleichung; willingness Bereitschaft; honest redlich; to takes.th. for granted etw. als selbstverständlich hinnehmen

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practice? Well, for example, it means you don’t tell the guy youcan’t meet him this week because you’re so busy. (Does he reallywant to know that?) You simply offer him the first available freeslot without comment. And you don’t tell him you’ve got adifferent opinion directly. (Does he like the fact he’s beingdisagreed with in front of his boss?) You praise the intelligenceof his viewpoint before you move on to disagree with himpolitely. You don’t tell the guy you’re on holidays (again) nextweek. Out there they don’t have so many. You simply say you’llbe out of the office. Responding to your contact’s expectationsin this way is the first step in your future success.

The Tenses

A couple of minutes ago, I listed some of the classic mistakes theaverage German speaker makes in English. You may havenoticed that my top three viruses all had to do with the systemof English tenses. Talking about time is not only crucial in theGlobal Village, it’s also one of the trickiest things to masterstraight off.

crucial entscheidend, äußerst wichtig; tricky knifflig; straight off gleich, sofort

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Originally, there were only two tenses in English – the Presentand the Past. The Future, of course, is not a pure tense as such.It’s a combination of verb plus auxiliary verb (like “will go”,“willdo”). In turn, these three basic formats are each subdivided intothree further formats – like the Simple, the Continuous and thePerfect – giving us nine tenses to begin with, excluding furthermixed formats. Easy, eh? Frankly, it’s a mess. I mean, while it’sdefinitely extremely subtle and flexible as a system for theworld’s lingua franca, it’s incredibly difficult to master as anoutsider. Unfortunately, in school we learnt all nine formats (oreven more) without any prioritizing, with the result we recog-nize them all but can use none of them with sureness of touch.This is something we are going to talk about again. Going to talkabout again. Notice here I don’t say “we will talk about themagain”. That’s because I’ve planned to do this a long time ago,and I’m not making this column up as I go along. The future, inother words, is where the real business is and it’s where we haveto start. Using the “going to” format instead of saying “will” all

frankly ehrlich gesagt; subtle spitzfindig; lingua franca Verkehrssprache; to prioritize nach Wichtigkeit ordnen

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the time is the first and most important signal here to get right.That way, your contact knows that you too have a plan andyou’re not making your lines up as you go along!

Voicemail

Nothing says as much about ourselves as the sound of our ownrecorded voice. The least we can do for our contacts, therefore,is to leave a personal message on our answering machinesrather than have some female android greet them on the line. If we’re working in a so-called international company thatmessage should be in English, and not in some rapidly garbledSwabian dialect that your Japanese partner has, no doubt,stayed up all night studying. Your answering machine, remem-ber, is where the rest of the world checks in.

Many of us record things on our machines which soundobvious, if not outright silly. For example, is there any need tosay: “You have reached the voicemail of Joe Bloggs”? Chances

android Androide, künstliche Intelligenz; garbled wirr, unver-ständlich; Swabian Schwäbisch; outright rundweg, vollständig

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are, your super-dumb contact will have guessed, yes, it’s yourvoicemail speaking to him alright. And why “reached”? He hasnot, after all, climbed Mount Everest. Again, there’s no need tosay you’re currently unavailable, when that too is patentlyobvious. If you’re clever you could thank him for his call. (Remember he’s not exactly overjoyed at getting through to a box). So anticipate this by saying: “Hello, this is James. Thankyou for this call.” Some clients of mine then continue toarticulate some crazy stuff such as: “I am either on another callor away from my desk right now.” Hey, what is this, hide andseek? All we care about is that you’re not there, so the best thingto say is just: “Please leave a message and I will get back to youas soon as I can.” And don’t bother with “after the tone” or“after the beep”. We’ve had about twenty years of answeringmachines, so we kind of know about the beep, thank you.

super-dumb total dämlich; patently obvious ganz offen-sichtlich; overjoyed überglücklich

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Working 24/7

Would you consult a computer manual from 1949? Hardly. Yetthat was the date I found inside the front page of a client’sdictionary the other day. Estimates of new words coming intoEnglish every year vary, from a conservative British one of 900 toa more unrestrained American figure of 10,000. Even allowingfor a sober estimate, that means there are approximately 50,000new words floating around outside that guy’s little dictionary.

Neologisms, or new words, often begin their lives as humbleslang expressions. Once they survive that apprenticeship, however, they tend to become standard English. That is often incontrast to buzzwords – trendy usages which are hyped to the max and then die a death (the dotcoms have all turned into dotgones). Even a native speaker can have difficultykeeping up with the flood of new words. Today we take ourmoney from a hole-in-the-wall. Yesterday’s couch potato, a hu-man vegetable planted in front of a TV set, is today’s mouse po-tato. Today we’re suffering from technostress, we’re surrounded

manual Handbuch; hardly kaum; estimate Schätzung;unrestrained ungehemmt; humble bescheiden; buzzword Modewort; hole-in-the-wall Geldautomat

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by gizmos and glitches. Now we have bad hair days and dress-down Fridays. We have “touchy-feely” and “happy-clappy” todescribe the newer slicker brand of politicians manufactured inthe late Nineties. “Face time” is the new word in business formeetings. No sooner did some American think up the phrase“quality time” for spare time, than it disappeared into 24/7, ournew round-the-clock work pattern. Well, even the very bestdictionary needs an upgrade every fifty years.

The Gerund

In learning a foreign language the most difficult parts are alwaysthose ones we cannot immediately plug in to our own linguisticframework – the things we can’t translate. Trennbare Verben,therefore, are particularly hasslesome for me as they just don’texist in English. Likewise, phrasal verbs are a pain for nativeGerman speakers that most would prefer to blithely ignore.Another typical linguistic blind spot is the good old Englishgerund, or verbal noun. “Smoking is Forbidden”, we say,

gizmo Ding; glitch Funktionsstörung, Panne; slick glatt; hasslesome mühevoll; blithely unbekümmert;blind spot blinder Fleck

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whereas you say “Not to Smoke”. Knowing when to use theEnglish gerund is one of those high-end skills few Germanspeakers ever perfect.

So what is it, and when do you use it? Well, the gerund issimply the same format as the present participle, the –ing formof the verb. The only difference is that it’s being used here as anoun rather than a verb. Giving the thumbs up or down toproducts and services is a core activity in our business lives, andusing forms such as “worth” and “point in” involves using thegerund, for example: “It’s well worth doing”, “There’s no pointin listening to him”. Another basic activity in business is simplyexpressing your likes and dislikes. These situations regularlynecessitate using the gerund. In particular, the verbs “enjoy” and “dislike” must always take the gerund. The gerund is alsomandatory in all verbs which follow prepositions, for example:“Sorry for keeping you late.” And that means, of course, thatmany phrasal verbs (which use prepositions) also take thegerund. For example: “I look forward to meeting you.” Watchout for this classic error in every second one of your mails.

core activity Hauptbeschäftigung; there’s no point in es hatkeinen Zweck; necessitate erfordern; mandatory obligatorisch

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Bodytalk

Compared with German body language, English body languagecan be a little more challenging to recognize and pick up. Likethe verbal language itself, English body language is essentiallynon-direct. That means pointing your finger at your partner is notreally such a good idea. It also means we don’t automaticallyshake the hand of everyone we bump into.

Handshaking is one of the great body language signals in the German-speaking zone, and it’s a perfectly good gestureexpressing the kind of openness you’re likely to find there.However, shaking hands in English is mainly reserved for firstintroductions, and places your communication on an altogetherhigher level of formality. Continuing to shake the hands of anacquaintance again and again could, therefore, be interpretedas a distancing technique. But perhaps the most telling differ-ence in body languages remains the act of walking in front ofeach other. Letting another person pass in front of you isstandard practice in English, and in no way undermines your

challenging anspruchsvoll; to be likely to do s.th. etw.wahrscheinlich tun; telling aufschlussreich; to undermineschwächen

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role as king of the jungle. But just try holding the front door ofany German supermarket open for another customer. Chancesare, you’ll be left there as dozens of customers rush by withoutso much as a “thank you”, taking advantage of this momentaryloss of sanity on your part. In the larger English-speaking worldthis ‘autobahn principle’ of body movement will, very quickly,earn you a reputation for ignorance rather than alertness.

By Mistake

One of the last things to come right when you’re learning anoth-er language are its prepositions. In German, you’re married withsomeone. In the Russian language you’re married on them (!),while in English we’re married to them. In my dealings with cor-porate Germany, I hear thousands of these prepositions translatedliterally. Walter is not on his desk. If he has a chair at all, he’s at hisdesk. And he doesn’t meet his contact on the airport. That couldbe a bit of a problem! He picks them up at the airport. When you

dozen Dutzend; sanity geistige Gesundheit; reputation(schlechter) Ruf; ignorance Unwissenheit, Mangel an Bildung;alertness Aufgewecktheit; literally (wort)wörtlich

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also consider how prepositions go to make phrasal verbs (forexample “take on”, “lay off”) you can see just how significant theyare in expressing your exact meaning. In fact, prepositions are acentral element in any language’s private property, in its idiom.

In business we do something on purpose, but by mistake. Wego by taxi, but come on foot. We pay by credit card, but in cash.Trains leave on time. New products are released in time forCeBIT. So “on time” means punctually, on the dot; whereas “intime” means early enough, with time to spare. Perhaps the mostcommon of these errors I come across is using “until” or “till”instead of “by”. Both of these terms correspond to the Germanpreposition bis: Bitte ruf mich bis Freitag an, “Please call me byFriday” is therefore the correct format. “Please call me back tillFriday” literally means: “Call me back, and then call me back,and then call me back again and again all the time until Fridayand then please stop it.” Like the distinction between “make”and “do”, “by” and “till” express an exact difference in Englishbetween product and process. Using them properly is one wayof distinguishing yourself from the rest.

to consider sich überlegen; to correspond to s.th. etw.entsprechen; distinction Unterscheidung; to distinguish o.s.sich unterscheiden, sich abheben

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Like a Joke

The English word for Schadenfreude is “schadenfreude”. That’sfunny, isn’t it? Either the feeling doesn’t exist in the culture or(more likely) giving it a foreign name has allowed us to distanceourselves from this rather unpleasant aspect of human nature.Just the other day, I was enjoying the sunshine outside myfavourite café on Max-Straße. All of a sudden, there came aheavy thud as two cars knocked into each other. To a man, theaudience outside the café stopped chatting, turned their headsand laughed loudly. Schadenfreude.

Where I come from, making a mistake does not automaticallyresult in open ridicule. In fact, the culture’s so different, adver-tising our weaknesses is considered charming. We call it self-deprecation. It’s like making a joke at your own expense. To usit’s a sign of real expertise. I’m so confident I’m inviting you tolaugh at me. Tottenham Hotspurs’ favourite example of thisclassic style comes from a German. During his time playing for

thud dumpfes Geräusch; ridicule Spott; self-deprecationSelbstzerfleischung, Herabwürdigung der eigenen Person;expertise Geschick, Können; confident selbstsicher

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Spurs in England, Jürgen Klinsmann was hugely popular. Perhapshis popularity started during his own first meeting with journalistsat Heathrow. Conscious of his somewhat questionable reputationfor falling down while being tackled, Jürgen kicked off the pressconference with a disarming question: “Can anyone give methe address of a good diving club?” So next time you can’t getthat beamer to work, or you accidentally delete your presen-tation, try disarming your audience with a joke at your ownexpense. Better have them laughing with you than at you.

Funny Little Habits

Recently, German troops were involved in an arms collectionoperation in Macedonia which was given the ironic title “EssentialHarvest”. This would lead us to believe that our boys have all goneoff to drive tractors and brown themselves for a while in sunnierclimes. Not so. Describing something distasteful or evendangerous as attractive is – yes, you’ve guessed it – another oneof those funny little habits of the world’s number one language.

to be tackled angegriffen werden; to kick off anstoßen, eröffnen; to disarm entwaffnen; clime Landstrich; distastefulunangenehm

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We call these sweeteners “euphemisms”, that’s Greek for “wellspeaking”. In business, we speak well of practically everything.The workers aren’t fired, they’re just “let go”. It isn’t a recession,it’s a “soft landing”. In this soft-focus world no one goes bank-rupt, they only experience “temporary cash flow problems”. Noone is unemployed, they’re just “between jobs”. Those withjobs don’t get wages, they receive “remuneration packages”.And it’s not the Personnel Department anymore, it’s the “Hu-man Resources Department”. This habit started a long time ago,long before those Pilgrim Fathers reached Turtle Island. In theEighties this was taken to rather ridiculous extremes in thosesame United States in the so-called PC movement. And by theway, that’s not “personal computer”, it’s “political correctness”.You couldn’t describe anybody as stupid anymore, those guyswere “mentally challenged”. Political negotiations weren’tdisastrous, they became “constructive”. We didn’t die, we“passed away”. Over a hundred years ago the great Mark Twainquipped: “Truth is the most valuable commodity we have. Let

remuneration Vergütung; ridiculous lächerlich; negotiation Verhandlung; disastrous katastrophal; to quip witzeln; commodity Gut, Ware

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us be economical with it.” That’s a lesson our modern doctorsof spin have taken to heart.

Phrasal Verbs

“It’s better to be looked over than overlooked.” This little jokefrom Mae West illustrates one of the most essential features of the English language. Whereas German is packed full ofcompound verbs (einsteigen, aussteigen), English is full ofphrasal verbs (put off, call off). What Mae West meant is that it’s better to be admired (looked over) rather than neglected(overlooked). So, phrasal verbs are verbs plus prepositions, andthey’re the key format behind spoken English. All native speak-ers use them, and learning them is one sure way of suddenlysounding a hell of a lot more fluent. After all, imagine for a sec-ond how artificial your own language would sound without allthose handy little ein- und aus- prefixes.

Typically, when we’re speaking we don’t say “cancel”, we say“call off ”. The meeting is not postponed, it’s put off. You don’t

economical sparsam; doctor of spin (spin doctor) PR-Be-rater(in); essential wesentlich; artificial künstlich, gekünstelt;to postpone verschieben

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plan a workshop, you set it up. The event doesn’t happen, it goes ahead. Many of these structures are already available inDenglish (kick off, roll out, turn around) although here theirmeaning is often limited. A kick-off is not only a big show. Youcan also kick off any simple meeting by being the first to talk.Then you can bring up (introduce) an issue, run through(explain) it, put forward (propose) a solution and carry it out(execute it). So what’s the message here? Written English andspoken English are often worlds apart in the verbs they use.While both of them make perfect sense, we usually communi-cate with each other with phrasal verbs because they soundmore friendly and reveal a more relaxed attitude. And soundingfriendly and relaxed is good for the bottom line in any language.

It’s Old Hat

That’s the hammer! Unfortunately, this literal translation fromGerman is lost on us English speakers and goes to show thatsome things in a language remain untranslatable. We call thisidiom. Idiom is whatever you can’t translate and often reflects

to reveal erkennen lassen; bottom line Saldo; idiom Redewendung, Idiom; to reflect widerspiegeln

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specific national characteristics. But these expressions are ab-solutely vital for a proper command of the world’s number onetongue. The good news for the native German speaker is thatmany of them are almost identical with German expressions.

Thus, you hit the nail on the head in both languages. You talkabout the tip of the iceberg and there’s a light at the end of thetunnel. Sometimes there’s only a small variation between them.In German, a sparrow in the hand is worth a dove on the roof.In English a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. And as tothe question of just how important these idioms are in English,just try understanding the headlines in any English newspaperwithout them. In business culture, we use them constantly inorder to get our message across. We shore up the bottom line(meaning protect our profits), we cut the red tape (or thebureaucracy). In today’s versatile environment, we need to sortthe wheat from the chaff (another Germanism). The greatestprovider of these idioms today remains William Shakespeare. To really impact on your international colleagues, next time hit them with a little Hamlet. It’s not bad luck, it’s “outrageousfortune”. And it’s not Murphy’s Law, it’s “the best laid plans of

vital unerlässlich; versatile vielseitig; chaff Spreu; providerLieferant; impact on s.b. Eindruck auf jdn. machen

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mice and men”. If you think this kind of thing is old hat, just lookat how many Shakespeare plays Hollywood has invested in overthe last ten years.

What If ?

Most of life takes place in a purple haze of uncertainty. That partof our lives which is devoted to business is especially open tochaos and change, as the current economic climate is teachingus. We begin to shape that chaos by winning the confidence ofour global friends. So how do we communicate with themabout the future, where all our dreams (we hope) come true?

In English, we often talk about the future using conditionalformats. You can recognize a conditional format in the use ofthe word “if”. Of course, the problem is that there are at leastfour such conditional formats, excluding mixed conditionals.Only one of these formats is really useful to us in business. Theseformats are called the Zero, the First, the Second and the ThirdConditional. The Zero Conditional is the “so what” structure,and uses the present tense in both clauses. For example: “If I

to devote widmen

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lose my job, I lose my job.” This is a good structure for notgiving a damn, and is unlikely to contribute much to your bankaccount. The First Conditional uses the present followed by thefuture tense and is often used in business to communicate anopen offer. For example: “If you call me, I’ll tell you.” Actually,this is so open-ended it’s of little real value (real meaning:“Please don’t call me”). Let’s skip one for the moment and lookat the Third Conditional. This is the “forget it” structure, forexample: “If you had called me, I would have told you.” Onlythe one in the middle, the Second Conditional, opens doors, for example: “If we signed the contract now, that would begreat.” So, using the Past Simple followed by “would”, weexpress respect for our partner and begin to build our future byfocusing only on what we wish rather than what could happen.

to be unlikely to do s.th. etw. wahrscheinlich nicht tun; to contribute beitragen; to skip überspringen, auslassen; to focus on sich konzentrieren auf

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Real Mail

Electronic mail has rapidly developed into the bane of everysane worker. That’s because it’s information with the communi-cation taken out. When is the last time you received a mailthanking you for finally sending on that urgent document, afterbeing peppered with reminders beforehand? When’s the lasttime you received a mail which congratulated you on your latestpresentation? When did you ever receive a mail from a futurecolleague expressing delight at the prospect of working with you? The information superhighway is a communicationbackwater, where human contact is kept to a minimum asattachments the size of asteroids career in their hectic global or-bit. We’re far too busy and self-important to use this technologyfor its real purpose – human connection. The word technologyis interesting in this respect. It comes from the Greek techne,simply meaning “manner” or “way”. Technology is simply theway you do things. Advances in technology are not meant tobring about regression in human behaviour. Real mail treats

bane Fluch; sane geistig gesund; delight Freude; prospectAussicht; backwater Stauwasser; to career rasen; advanceFortschritt; regression Rückwärtsbewegung, Rückschritt

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people as human beings, composed of feelings and in thecourse of life stories. Using e-mail to communicate with them iscertainly cheap and handy. But it also requires a little sensitivity.People generally respond to a show of interest in who they are,to an expression of gratitude, to a timely apology, to a friendlymail touching base which asks nothing of them. Real mail isabout more than chaining them up to a stream of dubious jokesand politically correct petitions.

Pet Sounds

When Paul McCartney was asked what was his favourite all-timealbum, he replied: “Pet Sounds by The Beach Boys.” That title isalso a good way to describe those animal noises which arenative to every language. In English we call them “interjections”(that’s “throw-betweens”) or “exclamations” (literally “out-shouts”). These stand-alone sounds are shouted out to colourwhat we’re saying with a whole range of emotions. So in

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sensitivity Sensibilität, Einfühlungsvermögen; gratitudeDankbarkeit; timely zur rechten Zeit; petition Gesuch; a whole range of eine ganze Reihe von

German you say “Hoppla!” where we say “Oops!” or “Aua!”instead of “Ouch!”. Getting to know this animals’ alphabet inEnglish is all part of doing human business in it.

While many of these sounds may be open to interpretation,their general sense is unmistakable and universal. So “Aah!”expresses a sense of pleasant surprise, whereas “Bah!” sounds afeeling of disdain or scorn. On the other hand, “Boy!” express-es a feeling of excited expectation, and “Boohoo!” an ironicmessage of “Who cares?”. “Eh?” instead is a classic question tagsimilar in feeling to “isn’t it?”, while “Oh!” can carry a feeling ofshock or disappointment. Many of you will be surprised to learnthat all these interjections are, far from being slang or dialect,respectable English words. “Psst!” is our whispering sound,“Ugh!” our signal of disgust. “Yikes!” expresses a feeling ofplayful horror, “Yippee!” a sense of wild glee. These sounds willadd both spice to your mails and human feeling to your speech.“Ok!”, of course, is a positive signal shared by both languages.

unmistakable unmissverständlich; disdain Verachtung; scornHohn; disappointment Enttäuschung; disgust Empörung,Ekel; glee Freude; spice Würze

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How many of us knew its origin in US President Van Buren’snickname – Old Kinderhook?

False Friends

The other day I was in my bank. Handing over a cheque to my bank manager, she asked me to sign it – on the backside.Where I come from, we sign cheques on the back. Backsides arefor sitting on. Equally, when we run out of cheques we don’tbecome the new cheques, we get them. These classic errors arecalled false friends because they sound and look safe for us touse. So before we all have a laugh at somebody else’s expense,let’s just ask ourselves how many times we have fallen for thesame trick.

So for a start, it’s not a graphic, it’s a diagram. And the adver-tisement doesn’t have a motive, it has a motif. Then again, youdidn’t get a credit from your bank – that was a loan. And theinformation is not actual, it’s current. Take another example –

to become werden; to fall for hereinfallen auf; graphic Zeichnung; motive Motiv, Beweggrund; credit Anerkennung

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your ID card – it’s not guilty, it’s valid. And you don’t spend yourfriend a coffee, you buy him one. The TV station didn’t send thatdocumentary, it showed it. You’re not looking for an engagedmember of staff, what you may want is a committed one. How-ever, the committed staff member may or may not happen tobe engaged, depending on the ups and downs of their love lifeat the time! And you don’t have a date with your dentist at tenon a Monday morning, unless, of course, you find them simplyirresistible. What you have, probably, is an appointment. Asyou can see, false friends can make an ass of us even when our grammar is word-perfect. At best, we merely confuse ourlisteners. At worst, we give them something good to laugh at.Even the translators at work on the Maastricht Treaty made themistake of treating eventual and eventuell as true friends. And ofcourse, we had (eventually) a single currency, and not a possibleone.

guilty schuldig; engaged verlobt; irresistible unwiderstehlich;ass Esel; merely nur, bloß; eventual schließlich

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Open Exchange

German business processes reflect a German value system,where order and clarity are top priority. This makes the businessof international cooperation somewhat of a challenge, especiallywhen you make the simple mistake of taking a shared value sys-tem for granted. It’s no good telling your international partneryou must have a clear structure, if flexibility and speed, forinstance, are tops on their list.

You’ve got to actually communicate these values, along withyour information, for example: “Wouldn’t it be better in thelong run if we took a little time to develop a proper system?”You never spoke to a fellow German colleague like this becauseyou never needed to. German business types, generally, share a common belief in system and logical structure. But pleaseremember, while you’re finding your foreign partners unreli-able, unorganised, unpunctual, the chances are they might befinding you controlling, pedantic, inflexible. What’s missinghere is the open exchange of values. They simply don’t under-stand that business processes must have a solid infrastructure.Your job is not to suddenly start believing that anything goes. It

unreliable unzuverlässig; controlling beherrschend

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should be, however, to introduce and “sell” your way of think-ing to widely differing cultures. So instead of “We must have aplan”, why not try “We’d need a plan for long-term success,wouldn’t we?”. In the 21st century Global Jungle, it’s no longera question of simply continuing to build cars and insuranceschemes to export. Exporting values at the deeper level is thenew challenge.

Question Tags

English is a funny language, isn’t it? I mean, English speakers are always talking in questions, aren’t they? That’s because, ofcourse, English (unlike German) is more about making sugges-tions than statements. Those funny structures attached ontothe end of our sentences are not really questions at all, butquestion tags. In other words, they’re tagged onto the end ofstatements for rhetorical effect. We don’t expect answers.They’re merely there to express respect for our listeners bypretending to look for their feedback.

to introduce vorstellen; suggestion Vorschlag; statement Feststellung; to tag on anhängen

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Many German speakers often end their English sentences likethis, but get it wrong, or? “Or”, of course, is not the end of anEnglish sentence but its middle. Saying “or” at the end of yourGerman sentence expresses the fact you’re not sure, you’reopen to correction. Yet again we hear the difference betweenGerman logic and English rhetoric. I should add here that in theStates, this process couldn’t be easier, right? It’s always the sametag, okay? “Right” and “okay” are the classic Yank formats andthey’re as easy-going as everything else over there. Your BritishEnglish question tag, however, is a horse of a different colour.You can construct positive/positive, positive/negative or nega-tive/positive sentences. So, for example, we have invitations:“Let’s have coffee, will we?” Then we have persuasion: “It’s agreat idea, isn’t it?” And then again we have blocking: “That’snot such a good idea, is it?” Here, in a nutshell, you’ve got thethree classic formats. Out there in the Global Village there’s atime, and a place, for each.

Yank Ami; a horse of a different colour ein anderes PaarSchuhe; persuasion Überredung; in a nutshell kurz gesagt,mit einem Wort

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Test Your Phrasals

Perhaps the biggest difference between written and spokenEnglish is the difference between standard verbs and phrasalverbs. Switching to phrasals in your speech is the single biggeststep you can make in improving your fluency. Are you ready?

You want to complain about the service, so which phrasalverb means “complain”? Give up? Give out? Give in? Give over?Of course, you give out about the service. You want to proposea solution. Do you: put it forward, put it off, put it up or do youput it away? You put it forward. Now you want to make thedeadline earlier, so which phrasal verb is it: bring off the dead-line, bring around the deadline, bring forward the deadline orbring up the deadline? The correct phrasal here is “bringforward”. So you have to relate to your clients better. You needto get on with them. Or, do you need to get off with them?Maybe you have to get away with them? Or is it get aroundthem? Of course, the correct phrasal verb for “relate” is “get onwith”. Tricky, eh? Phrasal verbs are idiomatic, so translation

to switch wechseln; to complain sich beschweren; to proposevorschlagen; to relate to eine Beziehung aufbauen zu

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won’t help us here. Best to play it by ear. Now you’re going todraft a new corporate storyline. You’re going to do it in. Or doit up? Or maybe do away with it? Or are you going to do it over?Got it? Do it up. You’d like to visit an old friend. You want tocome by him. Or do you want to go by him? Put by him? Ordrop by him? Good, you got it, “drop by” here means the sameas visit. Now you’re talking.

to play by ear nach Gehör spielen; to draft entwerfen

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A Day in the Life

So, now that we’ve tuned in to many of the special featureswhen it comes to doing business in English, how does it allcome together? Well, let’s take a look at a typical German busi-nessman as he tackles a complete day’s management throughthe medium of English.

Friedrich Müller is a thirty-seven-year-old IT manager fromHessen, currently based in Munich. Over the last two years, inswitching from Product Management to International Sales,more and more of Friedrich’s job has been carried out in English.He considers this to be a great opportunity to improve hisspoken fluency and especially enjoys the increased contact withnative English speakers. He’s now gone past the stage of feelinguncomfortable communicating in English, even if (at times) heis still unsure of the correct structures to use. On several occa-sions within the last six months, Friedrich has managed almost

to tune in to s.th. sich auf etw. einstellen; to tackle in Angriffnehmen; to improve verbessern; increased zunehmend

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22

the entire working day in English. He now thinks of himself as verhandlungssicher. His confidence in doing internationalbusiness is at an all-time high. But should it be?

Let’s take a look at what exactly Friedrich is saying on theseoccasions and see if he is being (as he believes) altogethersuccessful. You may well recognize how Friedrich does businessin English. That’s because, like him, you’re probably translatingwhatever you would normally say in German. And while thistranslation may at times work correctly in terms of English gram-mar, it will almost never strike the same note as in German.That’s because there’s more to a language than grammar andvocabulary. Language is culture. So let’s take a look at a day inthe life of Freddy the Global Player.

8.30: Friedrich kicks off his business day at 8.30 by checkingout his mailbox. Seventy six new mails today! Friedrich hasdeveloped a system of sorting out this e-mail avalanche in order

entire ganz, gesamt; confidence Selbstvertrauen; to be at anall-time high auf dem absoluten Höchststand sein; to strikethe same note den gleichen Ton treffen; avalanche Lawine

37

of priority. He is happy to see that several of his requests forinformation have now been answered and he quickly moves onto chase up outstanding issues. Writing English mails has longsince ceased to be a challenge and he enjoys reading the gaffesof his fellow Germans. Sipping his morning coffee, Friedrich cutshis way through the pile, reducing it to just twelve outstandingissues within an hour.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: While Freddy’s capacity todump unnecessary mails and concentrate on the job in hand isadmirable, perhaps he should take some time out to consider e-life from the other end. He’s almost never, for example, sent amail in thanks after he has got what he wanted. Internationalcontacts are regularly told by him that no, he’s not “the respon-sible” for their query, and that they “must” contact someoneelse. They often think: “If he’s not, as he says, the right guy to talk to, why doesn’t he just pass my message on himself?” For Freddy, this is just not part of the job. Many of his foreign

request Bitte; to chase up aufstöbern; gaffe Fauxpas, peinlicher Fehler; pile Stapel; to dump wegwerfen; admirablebewundernswert; query Anfrage

38

correspondents have also reacted rather coldly to his urgentcommands (“Please send me the document”), his direct dis-agreement (“There is a misunderstanding on your side”) and histotal lack of small-talk etiquette. Is it any wonder that Freddyoften ends up sending repeat mails which begin: “Did youreceive my mail?”

9.45: Friedrich’s getting ready for his big English presentation:M-business solutions. Whole new ballgame for the company.Friedrich’s proud of the 52-page PowerPoint presentation he hasperfected over the last three months, carefully rechecking thefigures so that everything is bang up to date on the day. He’s also been grooming himself for the delivery: “Goodmorning ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Munich. My nameis Friedrich Müller and I am responsible for International SalesSupport. Today I tell you about our new m-business solutions…” He can hardly believe it when the presentation goes offexactly as planned. Just a couple of tricky questions from his

command Befehl; lack Mangel; to receive bekommen, erhalten; figure Zahl; bang up to date auf dem neuestenStand; to groom oneself sich herausputzen

39

audience that he manages to defer until he has finished build-ing his meta-narrative. A complete success, you might say.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Friedrich has presented a verycompetent translation of his German PowerPoint slides. Un-fortunately, this has failed to ignite the enthusiasm of his international audience. Their impromptu questions regardingseveral slides were all too rapidly brushed away by Freddy totheir proper place at the end of his own private spiel. Troublewas, by then they’d forgotten what they had wanted to ask!Delivering his presentation in a deadpan voice and rigid bodyposture also did nothing to spread enthusiasm among Freddy’sinternational audience. “If this was the good news”, some ofthem felt, “how would this guy communicate the bad?” Mostimportantly, with such a torrent of data it was next to impossi-ble for the group to focus clearly on what Freddy wanted to sayabout it all.

to defer verschieben; to ignite entzünden, erwecken; enthusiasm Begeisterung; impromptu improvisiert; hier: spontan; spiel Werbesprüche, hier etwa: Werbesendung;deadpan monoton, ausdruckslos; torrent Schwall

40

10.40: Flushed with victory, Friedrich takes his place in theaudience as Veronique, a French colleague, presents her team’snew project. Friedrich’s not too happy with a number of inconsistencies in her information, especially as Veronique is atpresent competing for their (currently tight) marketing budget.He doesn’t hesitate to point these errors out to both Veroniqueand the other members of the audience. How can they do goodbusiness without the proper facts? When the presentation isover, Friedrich resumes control of the group in a discussion ofthe project’s viability. It is abundantly clear to all that Friedrichhas no interest in cooperating with the group. By listing a seriesof logical arguments, he hopes he has knocked this one on thehead for good.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: It’ll be some years yet beforeFreddy has perfected the gentle art of demolishing someoneelse’s point of view in English. Right now he’s merely trying to

inconsistency Ungereimtheit; to compete for s.th. um etwas kämpfen; to resume wiedergewinnen; viabilityDurchführbarkeit; abundantly clear mehr als deutlich; to demolish zunichte machen

41

win with logical arguments, with facts and figures. He’s nottoo comfortable having to share the power zone with a perfectlyconfident businesswoman, and has yet to find a way of commu-nicating which is neither aggressive (“Have you receivedapproval from the management on that?”) nor patronizing(“We’ve already done that in the past!”). Friedrich’s Englishsentences are all statements, instead of suggestions, making hima fairly brutal counterpart at best. He should learn how to curlhis sentences up at the end with a question tag, shouldn’t he?People just aren’t going to be told what to think, are they? Anda little graciousness would go a long way to ease potentialconflict scenarios, wouldn’t it?

12.00: It’s 12.00 o’clock and Friedrich invites his newly arrivedcolleague, the Scotsman George Stewart, to lunch in thecompany canteen. When George responds in broken German,Friedrich continues speaking English just to let him know thelanguage barrier won’t be a problem. The conversation overlunch more than makes up for the canteen food as they share

approval Einverständnis, Zustimmung; patronizing herablassend; graciousness Liebenswürdigkeit; to make up for s.th. etw. ausgleichen

42

an interesting half hour getting to know each other. Friedrichasks George about his wife and children, and if he’s been workingtoo hard lately, pointing to his black “eye rings”. George quicklychanges the subject and asks about the weather in Munich, if itis always so heavy. Friedrich tells him about the Föhn and how,after living in Munich for over two years now, he’s experiencingcirculatory problems and regular migraine attacks.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Freddy certainly enjoys agood chat over lunch and is in no way lost for words. But that’sthe problem. Whereas he’s used to native English speakers prais-ing his own linguistic contortions, he’s greeted his Scottishpartner’s attempt at exercising German with the contemptit no doubt deserves. For Freddy, language training is like carracing, a question of confidence and speed. Freddy believes he’smaking it far easier for his colleague to have a good time, whileat the same time maximizing his own opportunities to brush upon the world’s lingo. Trouble is, George took none too kindly to

circulatory Kreislauf-; to be lost for words um Worte verlegensein; contortion Verrenkung; attempt Versuch; contempt Ge-ringschätzung; to deserve s.th. etw. verdienen; to take nonetoo kindly to s. th. etw. ganz und gar nicht leiden können

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this primitive expression of Darwinian logic. Freddy shouldknow that trampling over his colleague’s attempt at speakingthe language is generally considered a very aggressive tactic.Neither did George particularly appreciate his prying questions.Freddy scored better in describing the unique features of thelocal weather system, but again, he lost the plot in presentingGeorge with his latest medical update. Little does Freddy knowthat, when asked in future, George will always happen to haveeaten already.

1.30: Friedrich is conducting a Core Team Meeting withinInternational Sales. He starts by welcoming everyone and ex-plaining what today’s agenda involves. Just so this meeting doesnot go the way of the last one (“a fruitless waste of valuabletime”), Friedrich decides to limit the time available for each issueto ten minutes. At least that way, he can be confident they willcover all they have set out to do. He makes sure everyone’s notall talking at the same time and gets the group to weigh in withtheir opinions one after the other. He keeps everyone updated

prying neugierig; to score punkten; to conduct leiten; toweigh in sich einschalten

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with the decisions taken, making sure they are all in agreementbefore moving on. He has found that time taken winning theagreement of people at this point will save constant revisionslater.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Freddy’s tone of voice hasn’tchanged from this morning’s command tone during his presen-tation. He’s still saying, for instance, things like: “We must cometo a decision now.” So far, he hasn’t clicked it that meetings arealways between equals, no matter who’s taking part. He shouldmodulate his tone of voice to subtler wish formats such as: “Itwould be better if we took the decision now.” As well as that,Freddy’s totally ignoring the facial expressions and the bodylanguage of his group, operating on the principle that, unlesssomeone says otherwise, everything’s okay. Someday, perhaps,he’ll learn to always include his team members with interactiveprompts such as “What do you feel about this, Barbara?”, “I cansee you’re not so happy with that” and “What’s your reaction tothis?”

revision Überarbeitung; tone of voice Tonfall; to click s.th. et-was kapieren; prompt Anstoß

45

3.45: Friedrich receives a call on his mobile from a Spanish sub-sidiary urgently looking for an extra delivery of 2,000 computersas soon as possible to meet an unexpectedly high demand forthis particular model. Again, he explains to Miguel that this is notpossible due to a temporary component shortage and that theywill have to wait until the following month. This is the third callFriedrich has received from Miguel on the issue, so this time hetries to make it totally clear what’s causing the delay. Last week(can you imagine!) Miguel escalated his demand and appealeddirectly to Friedrich’s boss, something Friedrich now makes surewill not happen again. Phew! Some people just don’t get themessage. What did the guy expect, that by phoning again andagain they would make an exception?

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Freddy’s pretty nifty on thephone alright. Unfortunately, he doesn’t know the first thingabout connecting with his international colleagues. He should,instead of opposing Miguel’s request, be bending over back-wards to find a solution to this valuable customer’s problem.

subsidiary Tochterfirma; extra delivery Sonderlieferung;shortage Knappheit, Engpass; delay Verzögerung; to escalateausweiten; nifty flott; to bend over backwards sich verbiegen

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When you’ve got rules, you’re going to have exceptions. And what style should we adopt in our telecommunications?Right now Freddy thinks small talk is for little guys with nothingbetter to do with their time. Someday he’ll learn that businesscalls don’t begin with shop-talk like “This is Friedrich Müller inMunich. We need to know …” Someday he’ll learn how to cleara space to talk, for example: “Am I bothering you?” Somedayhe might even find out how to adopt a more respectful tone ofvoice over the phone, for instance “I’d appreciate if you couldlet me know”. And he may one day also learn a more strategicway to talk about the future using the “going to” structure.

4.10: Friedrich makes a quick call home to Babsi, his adorablewife. His young son Christoph has just started talking andFriedrich wants to hear today’s new word. He also gives Babsi anupdate on his internet search for cut-price flight tickets toLondon, where they are planning to spend a weekend alone to celebrate their upcoming anniversary. Friedrich’s a littleuncomfortable with the prices he’s coming up with, knowing

to bother stören; adorable bezaubernd; anniversary Hochzeitstag

47

just how the sterling exchange rate will burn into their spendingmoney. In a way he’d rather it was Prague they were off to, buthe reckons a few days practising “real” English will just aboutcompensate for the expense. He signs off by agreeing to pick upa bottle of their favourite Montepulciano on the way home.Now back to the grindstone!

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Charming as it may be thatFreddy touches base regularly with his wife, it’d be really greatif he could extend these wonderful social skills to the rest of us!It would be heartening to see the guy touch base with his salesforce and customers around Europe. Unfortunately, Freddydoesn’t yet understand what this means. He would consider asocial call out of the blue from a business contact to be either awaste of his precious time, or a calculating move to manipulatehim, or a sign of approaching insanity. Sadly, Freddy stillbelieves that his private and his working life should remain intwo very separate compartments at all times.

back to the grindstone zurück in die Tretmühle; to extendausweiten; heartening ermutigend; to touch base with sichmelden bei; precious wertvoll; calculating berechnend; compartment (Schub-)Fach, Sektor

48

4.30: Friedrich bumps into Englishman Richard in the corri-dor, pausing for the obligatory two seconds to say hello. Com-munications broke down between them a couple of months agowhen they were working on a project together. Richard was justso unprofessional, unpunctual at meetings, being vague abouthis objectives, missing deadlines, not following through! Toobad things haven’t worked out between them. Some guys justain’t professional. God knows who let them into the company!

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: The most important thing tounderstand when working with international colleagues is nothow the job gets done, but that it does get done. We all haveour different styles and no one has the patent on professional-ism. So Freddy’s not going to win the war without conceding atleast a draw in some battles. Sometime, deep in the future, he’llunderstand that not every kid in the global playground is asliteral as he is when it comes to deadlines. Freddy could be thefirst to make a move here, and repair the lines of communi-cation. This doesn’t necessarily mean apologizing or admitting

to bump into s.o. auf jdn treffen; vague ungenau; objectiveZiel; to concede a draw ein Unentschieden hinnehmen

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he was wrong. Often all that’s required to reboot a workingrelationship is a gentle expression of professional respect such as“I can fully appreciate your point of view” or “If I were in yourshoes I would think the same”. Freddy should really also get intothe habit of using his colleague’s first name when he’s talking tohim, for example “Richard, I can imagine how you’re feeling”.Believe it or not, this is his number one communicational blindspot.

4.55: Friedrich is putting the finishing touches to the latestproject newsletter. They’re currently running behind schedule,and he decides to spur them on with a threat of the graveconsequences of failure (“When we’re late we will get a bigproblem”). Just to make everyone’s responsibility crystal clear,Friedrich decides to list out all their names together with theirfunctions as bullet points. Zack, zack! He finishes the newsletterwith four or five open questions, which he delivers to theindividuals responsible. Attached, he supplies his now famousmulti-coloured roadmap, complete with each person’s delivery

to reboot neu starten; schedule Zeitplan; to spur s.b. on jdn.anspornen; threat Drohung

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date. By picturing the project structure for them like this,Friedrich feels he’s making 100% sure they all know the partthey’re expected to play.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: Freddy can really say it like itis. Only problem there, of course, is that no one asked him to.He seems to have confused stating clear objectives with sharingcommon goals. Teamwork, unfortunately, is what gets lost intranslation. Many of Freddy’s recipients have never agreed tohis leadership role in this project in the first place and Freddyhas done little to bring them round since. On the other hand,some others don’t feel quite happy with their individual respon-sibilities. They would be happier sharing more than one role. Afew of Freddy’s team members don’t buy into his bulldozermode of delivery. They’ve simply become demotivated and un-cooperative.

5.38: The end of another exciting day for Friedrich MüllerGmbH on the world’s stage. He’s been waiting for this day toend, because now he is technically a free man for the next three

recipient Empfänger; in the first place von vornherein

51

weeks. Quickly, he hammers out an e-mail notice to that effect:“I will be on holidays from Monday the 2nd to Monday the 23rdof blahblah. In urgent cases please contact Michael blahblah at …” Free at last, he sets off home to enjoy one of the master-pieces of German engineering – the extended long-haulholiday. It is at times like these that the endless rat race of aninternational manager’s life almost makes sense.

WHAT FREDDY’S FORGETTING: In a world where holidays are unevenly distributed, Freddy is forgetting exactly what hiscontacts might feel about his level of commitment to his job.He’s left it up to them to discover he is away for three weeks, asmall eternity in the international marketplace. Not only this,but he seems positively happy to be out of the line of fire!Someday, perhaps, he’ll recognize that not all of us in theworld’s kindergarten get six weeks’ paid bliss every year.Showing at least a sign of remorse would be a wise move. Forexample: “Unfortunately, I won’t be in the office until Mondaythe 6th …” He’ll also, we hope, learn how to keep his businessturning over by handing it over to his workmate, for example:

long-haul Langstrecken-; rat race Konkurrenzkampf; commitment Engagement; bliss Glückseligkeit; remorse Reue

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“During this period my colleague Michael will be standing in forme …” This strikes a more helpful note than the warning “Inurgent cases please contact”. It gives the important signal to theoutside that the world doesn’t stop moving when FriedrichMüller is away (yet again) on another personal voyage to theAustralian outback.

Okay guys, you’ve just seen one German manager tackling atypical day in the so-called Global Village. The Oxford EnglishDictionary defines a village as a “self-contained community”.It’s ironic that the guy who invented the term “Global Village” inthe Sixties was a Canadian, Marshall McLuhan. Canada is acountry that regularly tops the charts of desirable countries to live and work in and it may well resemble a Global Village.But, as Marshall McLuhan himself also said, “Canada is the only country in the world that knows how to live without anidentity”. Today’s international business playground is, how-ever, full of kids with very well defined backgrounds, such as theFrench, the Japanese, the Chinese and the English. It’s not acosy Global Village, it’s a Global Jungle.

self-contained unabhängig, eigenständig; cosy gemütlich

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There’s a lot more to intercultural success than Germanbusiness literally translated into English, and guys like FriedrichMüller, the future captains of German industry, have a long wayto go before they’re ready to play the globe. They should knowthat know-how is not the same as savoir-faire, that fluency inEnglish is not the same as intercultural literacy. The law of thejungle is not only rational, but also intuitive.

Take it easy!

savoir-faire gute Umgangsformen; literacy Lese- und Schreibfähigkeit

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Stilsicher Englisch sprechen

Unverzichtbarfür Ihre Gesprächserfolge!

Die perfekte Mischung aus Kommuni-kations-Knigge, Business Englishund subtilem britischem Humor –Infotainment pur!

• Zahllose Tipps des Business-TrainersMcCabe zu sprachlichen Feinheitenbringen Sie spielend leicht auf Augen-höhe mit Ihren internationalen Ge-sprächspartnern.

• Unterhaltsame Anekdoten aus deminternationalen Geschäftslebenzum Hören und Lernen für unterwegs.

• Extra im Begleitheft: alle Texte und diewichtigsten Vokabeln jeder Kolumne.

Infos & mehr

www.langenscheidt.de

Langenscheidt Kommunikationstrainer

Fit for Business?

Trainieren Sie die wichtigstenGesprächssituationen zu zahlreichenBusiness-Themen:

• Maßgeschneidertes Lernen dertypischen Redewendungen undSatzbeispiele

• Abwechslungsreiche Übungen zurVertiefung der gängigen Sprachmuster

• Britisches und amerikanischesEnglisch

Für Selbstlerner mit Vorkenntnissen, dieEnglisch beruflich einsetzen.

Den Langenscheidt Kommunikationstrainer gibt es für 9 Themengebiete.

Infos & mehr

www.langenscheidt.de

B U S I N E S S H Ö R B U C H

Die perfekte Mischung aus Kommunikations-Knigge, Business English undsubtilem britischem Humor – ein Genuss für die Ohren! Die Kolumnen ver-mitteln Insiderwissen über die Feinheiten der Weltsprache Nr. 1, behandelntypische Englischfehler deutscher Sprecher und begleiten den Hörer aufdem teils rutschigen Parkett des internationalen Geschäftslebens. Info-tainment pur – und als Extra-Service ein Begleitheft mit den Originaltextenund Wortschatzhilfen zum Nachlesen.

Dr. James McCabe ist durch seine Kolumnen in der „WirtschaftsWoche“ und andereBeiträge für Bücher und Zeitschriften seit Jahren einem großen Publikum bekannt.Bei seinen Lesern ist er wegen seines einzigartigen Stils beliebt. Seit seiner Promotionin Literatur an der Universität Oxford lebt der gebürtige Ire in Deutschland, wo er –neben seiner Tätigkeit als Autor – Seminare und Workshops bei führenden Unter-nehmen leitet. Als scharfer und geistreicher Beobachter kultureller Unterschiedebedient sich McCabe eines leichten und frechen Stils, der sich vom gängigen„Lernen“ einer Sprache angenehm abhebt.

Global English withJames McCabe 1