When it comes to international business, language barriers are a key challenge. This is why every global company should have a strategy for communicating in plain English. There are several things that can make the difference between an effective and unsuccessful communication strategy.
Lack of plain English is becoming an issue, especially in the international business arena. What’s more, the trend is growing. Only 8% of executives surveyed said they were satisfied with their company’s communication to a global audience. It turns out that the language barrier doesn’t just affect business decisions but can also influence cultural differences, trust and collaboration between countries, and even prevent market entry. See also, countries that speak English.
Communication is a two-way street and with business it’s no different. In fact, communication is an essential element of success for any global business. It’s also crucial to be able to understand the language used by your customers and their needs, which is why we have put together a list of commonly used words in international business and their definitions.
It’s no secret that English is the world’s most popular language, but it is also one of the hardest. Today, nearly 1 billion people speak English as a first or second language and another 250 million can speak some form of it as a third or fourth. Businesses across all industries are struggling to keep up with a growing number of users who demand more from their employees than ever before.
Here are my tips for writing in plain English:
- Use every-day English and write how you would talk to a non-native English speaker.
- Keep sentences short. Break up long sentences, so they’re no longer than 20 words.
- Avoid jargon and idioms.
- Use short, clear words.
- Use the first and second person “we” and “you” rather than third person “they”, “he” or “she”.
- Present key information before the detail.
- Always use an active tone rather than passive.
- Break up long blogs or documents with headings.
- If you have to use acronyms or abbreviations ensure you write them out in full the first time you use them.
What is the need for plain English in global business?
There are many benefits to using plain English in your writing strategy. It’s easy for readers to decode and more importantly, it increases the rate at which messages can be processed by someone who is not well educated.
It also helps people find answers to their questions easily because they get instant feedback from what you’ve written instead of relying purely on an internal search function (which can take hours) or a colleague with “Tailor Made”
knowledge.
Thinking in Plain English – Break It up How about reading a few examples? I think you’ll agree it is plain to see that there are definitely benefits for the readers of your text and those who work with it.
Why should everyone learn to use plain English in business?
Courtesy of the Plain English Campaign, here is a further reminder
What’s this got to do with plain English in HBSC? Why it reflects every aspect of how we approach professional development. We focus on our core competencies and develop them as teams, identifying what makes us exceptional and pushing ourselves through workshops that push us outside our comfort zone so that we get honest feedback from clients – even when they aren’t always nice!
My role as Head of Writing
What about the line management responsibility for text production? How do I go about setting and achieving a consistent style in my business writing so that it is easy to read, understandable by all types: colleagues who alternate between different languages; international clients with multiple nationalities on our team.
How can each one of these be achieved? Each area will have its own subtle nuances but generally speaking there are three steps involved when
it comes to producing text:
1. The first step is to identify the “where” a document starts, one of those ‘rules’ such as round number headings (ie 10 heads down) or page numbers for illustrations and indexing purposes. What do you not want? – No identifying physical markers in your documents!
2. Where it ends too is where scope statements can be helpful since they clearly define what components are allowed within the
document overall. For example Sales Materials, letterhead etc
3. However we must be careful to ensure that the length of text is within optimum limits – without being too prescriptive as there will always be a need for brevity and straightforward expression in many situations
So how do you get consistent writing practices through-out? There are three key ways: A) Trainers who understand what makes things easy from other languages, can make suggestions on simplifying texts so even if they don’t fully speak English
confidently, it works in their language. B) A sense of humour – for example, I’ll write a sales note to be used by people who don’t understand English and stick the Headings (ROUND NUMBER) at both ends so that other team members can read them without opening up the whole file
(This is my own comic!) C) Once your Pre-Production processes are clear you will have internal “laughter sessions” where you give
the generator a source text and say “Don’t ask for ideas, but just write…” Every time the product comes out it will be the same so keep this in mind. In summary: you have to define what is important enough that getting it wrong won’t impact your budget too much BUT priority should always be on quality not quantity unless you are producing short bullet point documents with lots of varied content or want extensive control over every word used
I hope this article has been of interest; if so please visit my blog and feel free to ask any questions or send me an email:
“Lovingly used products can always be refurbished, they just have to be kept in the right place!” You May Like learn English.