English in the workplace: Shanghai

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Bilde: Heidi Berg

"The trick is to start the conversation off with a Chinese phrase or two. And the topic that is always a winner: the weather, of course!” Heidi has worked in several countries around the world. Experience has taught her that if you can greet a new business associate in their native language, and perhaps even exchange a few sentences, then you have already laid the foundation for a successful first impression.

Shanghai is China’s largest commercial and financial centre, with a large and diverse population of over 26 million people. If you work here, you often work together with people from all over the world. Some of Heidi's close partners are from Finland, USA, Bulgaria and Peru, and they all use English to communicate together. She also works with fellow Scandinavians. "But some people from Denmark and Sweden do not understand each other well, they also end up talking English together, to make sure there are no misunderstandings."

When using English to communicate, it is not necessarily the case that the more advanced your English is, the better. Heidi explains that sometimes she has to forget about things like correct grammar, formal English and perfect sentences, and just keep things simple. There is no point in saying something that is too complicated for the other person to understand. Sometimes you have to boil things down to the essence. For example: “Friday 2pm?” can work much better than saying “Could we schedule a follow-up meeting this Friday at 2 o'clock?”

Communicating in a foreign language is a tricky business and Heidi emphasises that you have to be forgiving to others if they make mistakes. She often uses social media to communicate and interact with others. Recently, someone from China wrote the following comment to one of her posts on LinkedIn: "Nice try". At first, it might seem that this is a negative comment in the sense of "nice try, but you didn't quite hit the mark here". However, this person did not mean to offend or sound ironic, she just did not know English well enough to express her enthusiasm.

When important agreements are being discussed or contracts have to be negotiated, a translator is extremely helpful and sometimes crucial. However, Chinese-Norwegian translators are very hard to find, and the solution is often a Chinese-English translator. But you would be surprised at the number of words and phrases that are really difficult to translate from Chinese to English. Here is an example:

• Fapiao Anyone who has done business in China knows about a fāpiào

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  . It is a special receipt which can be used for company accounts and is often translated directly to the English word 'invoice'. But a Chinese fāpiào is so much more than a standard invoice. A business cannot, for example, print their own fāpiào and issue it. A legitimate fāpiào can only be issued by the government, from whom the retailers then buy the fapiao.

These examples all show how communication is a key factor in the business world. The better you can express yourself and get your message across, the more likely you are to succeed.

1. Can you describe a situation where you had to adapt or change your English in some way in order to be understood?
2. Can you think of an example where a business deal might go horribly wrong because of a language mistake?
3. Let's say that you are the leader of a company who wants to improve the way your employees communicate with your international clients. What would you do to make this happen?