People speak in a very direct way and make a lot of grammar mistakes. Besides they also translate directly from German into English and sound rather impolite. Their pronunciation is also very basic, and they sound like a German using English words and are hard to understand for everyone else. 

If you feel like you're barely surviving in English and are wondering if it's hurting your effectiveness in business, ask yourself the following questions:

1. What does your communication partner understand?

Business communication is an exchange of information between two people.

When you speak, you become the ‘sender’ of information, the other person the ‘receiver’, and vice versa. It is the basic idea of communication or the way communication between two people takes place. Ideally, both communication partners are able to decode the message correctly. If it isn’t the case misunderstandings occur. How can you tell when your conversation partner can’t understand you? Their answer or reaction to your question seems off, wrong, or unexpected. When that happens, it’s time to adjust.

To make sure your conversation partner understands you, you'll have to adjust your way of speaking depending on who is receiving your message. When you work as an IT consultant for example you need the specialist vocabulary as well as words and phrases to express yourself.

That said, you also need to consider how you interact with your communication partner so that they can make sense of your information.

Therefore, it might not always be enough to just survive with your English in business.

2. Do you feel comfortable with the way you speak?

In case your answer is ‘Yes’, may I ask how you would classify yourself?

Maybe you speak on a lower, simpler level of English. You use the present tense all the time even when you’re speaking about the past or future. And between you and me: Do you sometimes think your English could sound more professional?

You can’t be tactful or diplomatic with your language because you lack the words, sentence structure, and grammar for it. But when you think of your daily business situation is it a professional, business-like way of communicating?

I know these are a lot of questions to think about. 

Before you read on take a few minutes of your time and a journal and write down the answers to the questions as well as your thoughts.

3. Does your English level still fit your role in your company? 

Let’s assume you are in a leadership position as a business executive and lead an international team.

You also need to lead appraisal meetings with your international employees.

In this situation you want to:

• Be taken seriously.
• Make sure your conversation partner understands you quite well.
• Be flexible in your word choice.
• Don’t want to affront or provoke your employee just because you were a little awkward in your communication.

If that sounds like you reflect upon the last situations you had to communicate in English with your employees. Did everything run smoothly or was there an awkward moment when you didn’t get an answer or not the one you intended?

Speaking English in business on a leadership level requires a deeper understanding of the language and a higher level of communication skills. Better English communication skills allow you to be more flexible and creative with the language. It also saves time because you avoid misunderstandings and the time you would need to troubleshoot them.

Takeaway:

Flexibility and creativity in professional English communication are key skills at a higher level.

You'll also need to make sure your communication partner understands you can speak English tactfully and diplomatically and have a vocabulary advanced enough to complete the functions of your position. This is especially true if you have moved into a more senior position.

When you notice that someone doesn’t understand you immediately you can use different ways of explaining a complex production process for example. You are not lost in translation but have the confidence, words, and phrases to express yourself in English.

Being able to survive in English is not enough for English in business. There is much more at stake like your ability to advance in your career and take on a more nuanced role. Business English is much more than everyday English.

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