Davies-Business-English

01/03/2023

This is a view looking over Palma, Mallorca, on a little excursion during a few days of English immersion training - a few days spent speaking English all morning, all afternoon or even all day. It's really great to get away from it all and just practice your English in a super relaxed way with the Mediterranean sun, food and atmosphere. Send me a message and let's talk about how you can benefit from and enjoy this great offer. It really is the best way to improve your English!
Wo möchten Sie Englisch lernen?

22/07/2022

Everybody loves to talk about the weather. It’s considered a basic component of smalltalk. However, this week, in Europe, the topic is not such a small one. Of course, if you live in some parts of other continents, this has been a ‘hot topic’, pun intended, for some time.

Whatever your personal beliefs are on the topic of climate change and global warming, you don’t have to search the internet for long or listen to many world news reports before you see and hear stories of serious weather related events around the world. In Europe, the current heatwave has led to dramatic TV and newspaper reports of fires in Spain, Portugal, France, Greece, Croatia and Türkiye and even in England where a record breaking high temperature of over 40 degrees was seen in London. Canada, the USA, China and parts of Africa have also been in the news. In contrast, heavy rains have caused floods in parts of China, USA and Australia.
My impression of the reporting is that the majority is focussed on the immediate issues in each location such as the tragic loss of life and homes and livelihoods destroyed. Reports are often concluded with a passing reference to climate change and the need to prepare for more similar extreme events in the coming years, like we just have to accept this. Nothing can be done.

Have we given up? Should we just sit back and wait for our homes and businesses to be destroyed by fires or floods, whichever comes first?
The arguments seem to be that the changes which could slow down the climate change process - the reduction of the amount of carbon being released into the atmosphere through the use of fossil fuels - are too difficult and expensive. Surely, the destruction of lives, businesses, homes and even the very planet we live on, including the human race, is a worse option.

I feel there needs to be more dialogue, conversation, communication around this topic, in governments, of course, but also in companies, so that action can be taken. Are we really going to wait for governments to legislate or can industry make some real decisions rather than simply ‘greenwashing’ their activities?

After all, the scientists have been warning us for decades and now it is here and it could be our businesses that are washed away or that go up in flames one day soon.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

12/07/2022

Why work on improving your English when your computer can translate everything for you? In fact, with computer translations, do we even need to use English?

The technology for computerised simultaneous translation is well advanced now. We are able to speak into a machine in one language and the machine will complete the translation and speak for us in another language. As the technology gets better, there is a strong argument that English will no longer be needed as a common, global language or ‘lingua franca’.

However, there are still some problems with this solution. Firstly, we must have confidence in the translation software and its ability to translate a lot of languages - there are well over seven thousand languages spoken in the world today, so that’s a huge amount of confidence.

Secondly, and perhaps more importantly, I feel that communication with another person via a computer takes away part of the personal, human connection that relationships are based upon. People like to do business with other people based on trust and a certain personal connection.

In the book Zero to One (Crown Business 2014 USA), Peter Thiel writes: ‘People have intentionality—we form plans and make decisions in complicated situations. We’re less good at making sense of enormous amounts of data. Computers are exactly the opposite: they excel at efficient data processing, but they struggle to make basic judgments that would be simple for any human.’

When doing business with other people, we are making judgements based on our communication with those people. We are not processing large amounts of data. I am convinced that our ability to communicate personally with our business partners will always be an important part of our business relationships. Computers can help us to learn how to do this ourselves but I don’t think they are a good replacement for human contact.

As a result, when use of computer-based translators becomes more widespread, I think there will be two new categories of business people: those who need them and those who don’t.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

04/07/2022

What’s the next thing you need to do in English? Do you have a meeting or video conference programmed? Perhaps you have to communicate with a colleague or colleagues in another country, in English. It would be a good idea to prepare for this.

What is the purpose of the meeting? Do you want to get information or give it? Or both? Whichever it is, your business communication will be more effective if you are specific with your questions and the information that you give.

It is quite common for people to ask vague questions such as:

‘How are things going with the suppliers?’
This might get the response:
‘Fine.’

Or:

‘The same as usual.’

But is that what you really want to know? If you want to know about stock availability or delivery times then it would be better to include these terms in your question so that your colleagues know what you mean and can give you the information that you need. For example:
‘How long does SupplierX need to deliver new orders?’

The same is true when talking about sales. A vague question might not get the response you need:

‘How are the sales figures at the moment?’
‘Not too bad.’
‘Quite good.’
‘Better than expected.‘
‘Could be better.’ etc.

With these responses you still don’t have any more real information than you started with. It would be better to ask:

‘What are the figures for this month/quarter and what are the percentage comparisons for the same period last year?’

Whatever you are discussing, if you need specific information you should ask for it - be specific with your questions. This will make your communication in meetings more efficient and effective. In fact, maybe you don’t need a meeting at all. Maybe you can just send the questions by email.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

23/06/2022

Continuing from last week’s post on words that go together well, one of the areas of vocabulary that is often not very strong is the use of adjectives and adverbs. Firstly, lets be clear what the difference is between the two as they are used in English. An adjective is used to modify (usually to describe) something or someone, whereas an adverb is used to modify (or give more information about) everything else - verbs, clauses, adjectives, other adverbs and adverbial phrases and give information about place, manner, time, circumstances, degree or cause.

Knowing this isn’t essential but it can help when choosing the right form. For example, ‘slow’ is an adjective and would describe something like a train - ‘We don’t want that train, that’s the slow train’. ‘Slowly’ is an adverb and might describe the way the train is moving - ‘Why is the train moving so slowly?’ A lot of adverbs end with the letters ‘ly’ so that is a pattern to look out for, but it’s not always the case, so it’s better to learn the phrases rather than just the individual words.

Here are some examples of adverbs and adjectives:
- In the future, the jobs people do will be dramatically different.
‘Different’ describes the jobs of the future so it is an adjective and ‘dramatically’ tells you how different they will be, so it is an adverb.

- He was very excited about his new job.
‘Excited’ describes his emotional state and is an adjective. ‘Very’ tells you how excited he was or his degree of excitement, if you prefer.

These kinds of words allow you to express yourself more completely (adverb) and to communicate more effectively (adverb) by giving or receiving more (adverb) detailed (adjective) information (you get the idea?). We also like to use several at the same time in order to emphasise the message:

- I’d like a drink. I’d like a long, cold, refreshing drink.
- I need a report on this. I need a detailed and accurate report on this, urgently!

If you are reading or listening in English, start noticing and making a note of these words that go together to make up more useful phrases so that your communication can become more complete, interesting, motivating, attractive or compelling, depending on your role, who you need to communicate with and for what purpose.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

15/06/2022

A lot of clients have the initial objective of building their vocabulary because they often find themselves in a situation where they can’t ‘find the word they are looking for’. This breaks the fluency of their speech and can make them feel a little embarrassed. As we go forwards, we discover that this is not the whole problem. Simply learning more words does not help them as much as they had hoped because individual words on their own are not always that useful. We don’t just communicate in single words. Sometimes it happens, especially in informal situations such as ‘Coffee?, which would probably mean ‘Would you like a cup of coffee?’ However, in business conversations it is usually necessary to express ourselves in a more detailed way. This means we need to know which words go together with other words and in what sequence.

One simple example of this is a monochrome photograph or video, perhaps for a publicity campaign, which would be described as ‘black and white’ and not ‘white and black’ as it would be in Spanish. So, when reading and studying a text or listening to an audio it is important to notice words in their contexts, and which other words go with them, so that it becomes easier to use vocabulary to communicate well.

Let’s look at some other simple examples. How would you describe your food, say, at a business lunch?

‘Nice’ - This tells me that the quality and flavour is acceptable but not much more.

‘Very nice’ - With an enthusiastic tone of voice, I would understand that this is better than just ‘nice’.

‘Really nice’ - The tone of voice again lets me know that we are moving up the quality scale.

‘Delicious’ - Now we are getting somewhere! However, don’t say ‘very delicious’ as ‘very’ isn’t really a ‘strong’ enough word to add value to ‘delicious’. Try ‘really delicious’ or, if the flavours are doing a tantalising tango on your taste-buds then ‘absolutely delicious’ will tell me what I want to know.

Here’s another example. I was watching a TED Talk recently and the three words, ‘lifetime’, ‘body’ and ‘work’, were used together. Someone’s ‘lifetime body of work’ is all the work they have done in their life, someone like an artist, as in this example in the talk. The individual words can be used in different contexts but together they make an interesting and maybe useful phrase.

So, here is my tip for you. Each time you look at a text or listen to an audio, don’t just focus on individual words, look at the other words that make up the phrase, like the links in a chain. Maybe it can all be translated directly and maybe it can’t. Ask yourself what the whole phrase means in its context, in English? This is how we really communicate.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

08/06/2022

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31/05/2022

How long does it take to learn English?

A friend of mine was recently talking about applying for a new job and one of the requirements was to have English level B2 or higher. But what does that mean? His English is pretty good although he is not a native speaker and I could have written a letter saying that he has that level but I thought it would be better if he did a formal test and obtained a certificate.

The level B2 refers to one of the six levels described in the Common European Framework of Reference for Languages (CEFR) and you can find descriptions of the levels for self assessment purposes, in various languages, here: https://lnkd.in/dCk3PDzF

Of course, if you need to achieve a certain level for a job then it might be too late to study and learn enough by the time you send in your application. So, how long does it take to get to B2?

If you currently have level B1, it takes an average of 200+ hours of guided study to improve to the next level and this can be very demotivating as it might seem like a lot, especially as we all live busy lives already. So, what’s the solution?

The best way to achieve your goals is to make a plan. You know the big target but you need to break that down into smaller and more manageable process steps. Break the 200 hours down into classes and study sessions which cover each of the 4 language skills: reading, writing, speaking and listening. The best way to learn is to do something every day, just like learning and practicing playing a musical instrument.

What can you commit to? If you had one class per week for 90 minutes that would total 72 hours within 48 weeks. Two classes per week would achieve the same result in half the time. Add in 90 minutes of private study on 4 days of the week and that’s another 6 hours per week or 144 hours in 24 weeks. It’s a lot of self discipline but it can be reasonably achieved in 6 months with a bit of planning and focus on the goal.

Besides, if it means a better job with more money, providing a better life for you and your family, maybe it isn’t so unreasonable after all.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

Self-assessment grid, CEFR, Common Reference levels

18/05/2022

This week, I would like to draw your attention to one of my favourite podcasts called Business Anchors Podcast by Dan and Lloyd Knowlton who run a video and social media marketing agency in southeast England called, appropriately, Knowlton.

I really like the podcast because it is both informative and funny. You might also like to follow them on LinkedIn and watch some of their videos which are also very funny.

Today I want to highlight episode 94 of the podcast which you can find here https://knowltonmarketing.co.uk/capacity-planning/ with a transcript so you can listen, read and look up any vocabulary or phrases that are not familiar to you. You can message me and ask me if there is anything that you are not sure about and I will do my best to explain. This episode of the Business Anchors Podcast is about capacity planning. This is a term that is used to describe the process of planning and allocating work in relation to the amount of time available to do it. In this way, it can be seen whether there is too much stress or too much slack in the business.

This is a topic that is close to my heart because, I often have conversations with people who want training for themselves or their teams but when we look at the calendar for a good time to do the training, we find that everyone already feels stretched to the limit and finds it difficult to ‘make time’ for training, without even thinking about any additional preparation or follow-up time before and after our training sessions. I also lost my job once because of a lack of capacity planning, but more on that in a moment.

People often talk about ‘time management’ but I always think that this is a misnomer as we cannot manage time - we all get 24 hours a day and there is nothing we can do to change that. We can only manage resources and organise, delegate or prioritise tasks so that we achieve what needs to be done before any deadlines.

Dan and Lloyd make some important points and useful suggestions on how this can be done and how the results can be used by owners, managers, freelancers etc., thus knowing how much time is available, how long things take and scheduling ALL activities at work to know when we can or need to take on more work. It is also useful as a tool for telling your boss, even if you are self-employed or the CEO, i.e. you are the boss, that you are already working at 110% capacity etc. As an employer, it can be used for planning the growth of a business and employing new personnel or outsourcing.

So, about that job I lost. One reason that this is such a favourite topic of mine is that many years ago, I had a job which only lasted a few months because capacity planning wasn’t carried out and I didn’t find out until after I had joined the company as the Project Manager. I soon discovered that the company owner didn’t know how much work we had - we had lots of contracts running but they were nearly all about to expire in about a month. When I sat down with the boss and went through everything in detail, he realised that they were about to run out of work. The following Monday, my birthday, I returned to the office to be told that the company could no longer afford to pay my wages. It was one of those big ‘life lessons’ for me and a moment when I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry. I decided to laugh.

So remember, if you want to run your business or team more effectively, and maybe even organise some training, it is a good idea to use a capacity planning system to see how time is being used in the business or department.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

09/05/2022

Recently, my friend and colleague, Chris Bate, posted on LinkedIn about ‘business buzzwords that are fashionable at the moment’, asking for opinions and 37% of respondents to the survey said they were ‘annoying but necessary’, 31% said they ‘explain complex ideas’ and another 31% chose the option ‘meaningless rubbish’. Opinion seems fairly evenly divided.

I made the comment that language, including business language, changes and develops with time. I suspect this is true of all languages, especially with developments in technology that need new ways to name and describe them.

Some languages have an ‘official school’ or other authority that decides what is correct and what is not but did you know that there is no ‘official’ English in this sense and that English dictionaries are simply a record of the language commonly in use? This means that if enough people are using a word or phrase then it is recorded in dictionaries. Not all dictionaries are the same and words and phrases come and go as they come in to and fall out of use.

Examples of this can be found in literature and old dictionaries, of course. So, if you don’t like some aspects of ‘modern language’ maybe you would prefer we all spoke like characters from Charles Dickens’ novels or Shakespeare’s plays.

Perhaps you would like to go back to using some old fashioned words such as ‘hail’ instead of ‘hello’ or ‘ye’, ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ instead of ‘you’ along with ‘thy’ and ‘thine’ for ‘yours’. In fact, you might be lucky enough to find some of these still in use in some English dialects if you travel around Britain for a while.

We have some old-fashioned words in Business English, too. When was the last time you used a telex machine (if you know what one is) or even sent someone a letter written using a typewriter? Was it ‘yours faithfully or ‘yours sincerely’ for business letters? Now it’s all emails with ‘Kind regards’ or we simply leave people ‘hanging in mid-air’ by signing off with my personal least-favourite, an unfinished ‘Best’ .... best what?

Don’t forget the modern additions to your own native languages such as ‘Ich habe es downgeloadet’ or ‘Puedes Wassapearme’!

Remember, we need to communicate effectively and authentically with other people so be prepared to be flexible with the words you use.

Better English, Better Business, Better Lives.

09/04/2021

I have seen a few social-media posts recently about problems with learning English and they have made me think that many people may be approaching the whole concept of language learning in what I consider to be the wrong way.

Many people think that it is necessary to learn English because it is an important global language; but how much of the globe do they really want to communicate with? This raises the question ’Who do you want to talk to?’

If people are working in international environments then there could be a real advantage in having good English language skills for talking with clients, suppliers, colleagues, team members, subordinates, employees... - there are many possibilities.

The next question is 'What do you want to talk about with these people?' Simply learning the English provided in a text book is not going to be very helpful for the specific conversations necessary in most jobs. It is important to remember that the language is just a tool for communication. This is a process that many people are not very good at in their first language so simply learning English may not be enough.

We need to be good communicators in the language we choose to use at the time and this introduces elements beyond grammar and vocabulary.