What Kind of English is Right (For Your Swedish Business)?

Image: Wendy

I spoke with a TEFL teacher fairly recently about helping businesses improve their English in the Stockholm region. What bothered me about the conversation was how much emphasis she kept putting on British English.

I know from firsthand experience that businesses think globally. It’s not just about communicating in English with the British. Swedes communicate with the French, Germans, Danes, Spaniards and the rest of Europe and the world in English.

Now whilst I think it’s an excellent idea to be consistent in the language you use, I’m wary about encouraging Swedes to adopt solely British (or American, for that matter) cultural identities. Actually, I think you’re at a distinct disadvantage if you’re from Stockholm and come across as if you’re an out and out Brit.

Personally, I’m a big advocate of International English. I’d define this as a hybrid of American, British and World English that’s grammatically correct but knows when to put the nuances one way or the other.

For example, why train Swedish business people in how to converse at the pub, when they’re just as likely to use their English in bars and cafés across Europe?

When I translated Pål H. Christiansen’s novel The Scoundrel Days of Hobo Highbrow into English, the copy editor corrected “diapers” to “nappies”. However, as I pointed out this assumed the target audience was British speakers of English, whereas the novel has been marketed at an international audience.

Almost twenty years professional experience with words has taught me that most Europeans say “diaper” rather than “nappy”; hence, my decision to use an Americanism in what I would consider a very internationally-minded translation.

If your English teacher starts pushing you towards British or American English, gently remind them that English is evolving. There are now more non-native speakers of English than native speakers.

Isn’t it about time English teaching woke up to the fact that we’re now inhabiting an era of International English?

Reduce Email, Increase Productivity

Wedge is desperate to try the No Reply Necessary Tip that I mentioned the other day but fears:

it would damage relations with my colleagues, friends and random acquaintences [sic].

Yes, I agree that some people might take this the wrong way; however, in a corporate climate where unnecessary email clogs up too many in-boxes, I think we need to gently remind people about productivity.

Here’s a little graph I made for a training session I recently ran on how to use Email effectively.


The column on the left illustrates how much time is wasted per day on email; the column on the right shows what this means in terms of wasted minutes per year.

Effectively, if you’re wasting 15 minutes per day with unnecessary email, you’re wasting almost 4000 minutes per year.

This is one area in business where there is room to reassess how effectively we are using our time.

Use Email Templates

Personally, I recommend clients construct and use effective email templates.

Even if they are as simple as this one I use, they still save time. Over a year, the seconds add up to make minutes.

My personal favourite (Mac) tool for this is MailTemplate by the folks at Mactank.

How are you working to make email more effective?

Write Better Emails: Use Headings to Help Reader’s Focus

I’m teaching a couple of guest slots at Stockholm’s Påhlmans Handelsinstitut this week, talking about how we can all communicate more effectively when writing email.

One of my favourite tips is to use a Table of Contents at the very start of long emails. This makes it so much easier for people to track what you are saying and prioritise what to read.

Here’s a wonderful example (the names are changed to protect the innocent).

IEG Södermalm: Cover Letters Lecture

This post is for the wonderfully talented students at top Stockholm upper-secondary school (or gymnasium, as we say here in Sweden) IEG Södermalm. It’s the slides that I used to illustrate my talk on Monday.

Sample handouts for job applications in English and a letter template are also available.

Using the MLA at IEG Södermalm

I gave a one hour training session to staff at IEG Södermalm this morning on how to use the MLA Style Guide in teaching. The school’s management team is committed to promoting an atmosphere of intellectual rigour and creating ways in which to prepare students for university and beyond.

I made the accompanying slideshow available after the session on Slideshare so staff could take it and develop it for use in the classroom. If you want the 16 page handout that goes with the slideshow, you’re welcome to email me.

NB! A word of warning about the slides. What looks lovely on a Mac using Keynote doesn’t translate particularly well to Powerpoint.

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