Humans v Computers

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...

Be specific

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...

From words to phrases 2

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, let’s 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 -...

From words to phrases

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...