As a veteran business leader, who has spent the past two decades in international trade, I often am invited by multicultural and ethnic groups to discuss business events that are influencing growth. Frequently, I get asked to speak in front of European and Asian audiences who are not native speakers of the English language. Even when I am speaking in front of American audiences, there are many times when large portions of the audience don't understand English. With a large number of speeches to foreign speaking audiences under my belt, I thought that I could offer some suggestions for others who are called on to do the same. I believe that you will know some of the advice that I give already and maybe pick up something new.
A good speaker knows how to carry himself in a way that is convincing and authoritative. He must also know how to maintain a high level of likability and appear to have a high degree of intelligence. Suppose that you have been asked to talk talk to an association of
Japanese Translation workers. These people paid money to hear you come and talk and they expect to see a person with great accomplishments. While the task at hand sounds like a breeze, the majority of people find public speaking to be very troublesome. The businessperson who is an effective public speaker will not only stand out but stand above his or her colleagues. In addition, a good communicator will become masterful in the use of words to the extent that he can presentation, motivate, inform and persuade others to be more productive and make meaningful contributions.
Having described the basic requirements, I will now provide some more pointed recommendations for speaking to foreign audiences that
Legal Translation workers will be particularly interested in. One thing that could really blow up a good speech is the incorrect use of joking and plain absurdity. By using material from the Sunday comics section, you may be able to target the learning, listening and mental habits of audiences to the content that you are presenting. But before jumping into the use of humor, we advise that it be used cautiously in order to avoid ineffective and unintended delivery results. To explain what we mean, lets consider a speech writer who wants to include a comedy act from an Arabic radio station in a speech to be given to a group of
Arabic Translation agencies. At the time of planning the delivery, it seems like it could be extremely useful in conveying an idea. However, we may not consider the unintended results. You might even turn the audience against you if you accidentally do something offensive. Of course, something would have to go terribly wrong for it to reach that point. But always give the audience some additional time to digest and interpret the meaning. Sometimes, it takes a few extra moments. If you are told that the group of English to Russian Translation workers that you will be addressing is bilingual then find out if they were trained in British English or another dialect.
If the event organizers tell you that the Russian Translation workers were trained in US English the you are probably safe. However, if it turns out they were taught UK English then you really need to review your presentation because UK English words can have completely different meanings.
