7 Tips to Ensure You’re Understood when Speaking to a Foreign Audience

by Leon Potgieter.


“Americans who travel abroad for the first time are often shocked to discover that, despite all the progress that has been made in the last 30 years, many foreign people still speak in foreign languages.” – Dave Barry



The phrase “tough crowd” takes on an entirely new meaning, with deeper shades of terror-inducing nuances, when public speakers face an audience made up of individuals who do not share the cultural background and world-view of the person behind the microphone. As a Westerner living in an Asian country, where more than 80% of the population does not speak English as a first or second language, I’ve learnt the necessities for communicating across cultural barriers. Below I’ve outlined some practical and easy-to-implement tips for anyone addressing an audience of ‘foreigners’.

Use these for minimizing inevitable cross-cultural misunderstandings and appealing to a larger crowd.

1. Understand cultural assumptions – yours and theirs
Being human and all that, most of us automatically assume that our cultural norms are universally upheld and are often left confused when people don’t share our axioms. A simple overview of basic cultural assumptions would be enough to give you the knowledge you need to avoid most serious miscommunications.
International Business Etiquette courses are usually excellent for this sort of education. Barring that, the Internet can be a great help: ExecutivePlanet.com is a Wiki-style online business etiquette encyclopedia with helpful and concise culture tips for nearly 50 countries.

2. Use humor wisely
I’m a big fan of using humor in almost any kind of speech, but with non-English speaking audiences, most kinds of wittiness (1) do not translate well, (2) might even end up being inappropriate. Humor should be used wisely and preferably tested before incorporated into a speech of this sort.

A few years back, I saw a friend addressing a crowd of young Ukrainians. He was telling the story of Lance Armstrong and his rise to cycling-fame after his cancer diagnosis. In attempting to capture his remarkable recovery and near instant-success, my friend used the phrase “Zero to Hero” which, after translation drew blank stares from the crowd. Witty slogans like those might sounds funky in English, but will often be virtually meaningless in Polish, Korean or, as in this case, Ukrainian!

3. Work with your interpreter
I once spoke to a small group of Koreans and was to be accompanied by a seasoned interpreter. She asked to meet with me a few weeks before the delivery and asked for a copy of my speech draft. At a second meeting thereafter she had many questions and clarifications about certain words, phrases and content. I gladly helped and her interpreting on the big day was naturally excellent. It’s thus often a good idea to present your interpreter with a copy of your speech notes a while before the delivery, to help him/her with preparation.

The great, often overlooked benefit of working with interpreters is the natural pauses you automatically get between sentences. These are wonderful little time-frames you can use to gather your thoughts, pre-determine your next sentence and glance at your notes.

4. Skip the gobbledygook, completely
Jargon, unnecessary technical terms, geek-speak and “marketese” should be avoided like the plague. If English speaking audiences find excessive use of these confusing, how much more our crowd of focus! Non-English speakers won’t rave about your “quality transitional contingencies” since they probably have no clue what you’re talking about!

5. Speak to 12 year olds
A useful rule of thumb is to assume that English second language speakers in a non-English speaking country are able to understand at the level a 12 year old that grew up in an English country. That means that your ostentatious and delineative enunciations are better left at home and that you speak plainly and simply with clear and direct language. If a 12 year old won’t understand it, scratch it and simplify! Skip the PhD-isms, and avoid using complex and obscure sentences. See Wikipedia’s Simple English Pages for ideas on writing for non-English speakers.

6. Watch out for language nuances
Direct or forceful language is often considered rude in many honor-system countries like those of the Far East. Educate yourself on the aspects of your audience’s worldview (see #1 above) to avoid accidentally falling into the trap of offending them.

Personally, being of German/Dutch descent I grew up in a culture where indirect and vague speech is viewed with suspicion (“What are you hiding?”). And yet, living in east-Asia my to-the-point demeanor and no-nonsense approach to conversation has often been interpreted as aggression and I’ve thus had to learn to adapt my speech. You might find yourself in a similar situation when speaking to a foreign audience, so be careful of language nuances.

7. Use local terminology
I’ve heard so many Americans addressing “metric” crowds and talking in yards, miles and pounds, leaving the rest of us clueless. Similarly talking about 8th graders and 12th graders means nothing to the rest of the world. Localize your words, sentences and even your stories and parables – it makes you more approachable as a speaker and shows sensitivity and sophistication to the audience. If they notice it, they’ll appreciate it.

However, if you choose to incorporate local words or phrases in your speech, please for the love of sanity, practice your pronunciation! I’ve been at events where speakers, in an attempt to impress the crowd, have used words from the local language only to end up sounding terrible and completely incomprehensible to the audience. Don’t invite confusion – instead ask a local to listen to and help you with pronunciation. It’s better to say ‘Good Morning’ in plain English, than “Konichiwa” in Americanized Japanese that ends up sounding like “Go-knee-cheese-wow”!
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Leon Potgieter is an English Teacher, Christian Minister and Public Speaking Enthusiast who’s been living in the Republic of Korea since 2008. His website effective-public-speaking-tips.com is an ever growing online portal for public speaking tips, speechwriting help and presentation techniques.

Old Money Helps Spanish Village Stay Afloat

Here is an article describing a Spanish town’s beneficial return to the use of the peseta.

Old Money Helps Spanish Village Stay Afloat by Lauren Frayer

Villamayor de Santiago, population 2,500, is a small village just south of Madrid, Spain.

It's famous for three Manchego cheese factories and a windmill that stopped turning decades ago. More than one-third of the town is unemployed.

After Christmas, shopkeepers decided to jump-start their economy.

"We realized there's no money here — well, no euros anyway — in the pockets of our customers," says Luis Miguel Campayo, head of the local merchants' association.

So, he floated an idea: Just for a month, do business in pesetas — a currency that hasn't been in use in 10 years. Campayo had a hunch the town's aging population might have some old currency squirreled away.

"People kept their pesetas because of this romantic attachment to the past," he says — and just in case the euro folds.

So 30 shopkeepers signed on to accept pesetas and hauled out their calculators. One of them was José María Caballero, who runs the local drugstore.

"A lot of people are coming in," he says. "Including people with big bills, for 1,000 or even 5,000 pesetas."

That's about $50 — a lot to keep stashed in your closet. Caballero says shopkeepers made the equivalent of about $8,000 in peseta sales in January, so they extended the campaign through February.

"When we finish our promotion later this month," he says, "we'll change the pesetas for euros, then hand out what everyone earned."

Unlike other eurozone countries, which set deadlines for turning in old money, the Bank of Spain in Madrid still accepts pesetas for euros — at the old 2002 rate. It estimates there are more than $2 billion worth of pesetas still out there somewhere — like in 94-year-old María Martinez's pocket.

She says the pesetas fell out of a pocket in an old skirt when she was packing up to move into the nursing home where she lives now.

The nurses there say some of their elderly residents don't realize pesetas disappeared 10 years ago, but Martinez has her wits about her.
Asked if she'll spend those pesetas now, in a shop around the corner, she says no, she'll just keep them as a souvenir.

"Nowadays things are different," she says, fumbling for some euros in her purse.

http://www.npr.org/2012/02/12/146754766/old-money-helps-spanish-village-stay-afloat?sc=17&f=1004

Ultra-Orthodox Jews attack woman in Israeli town | The Raw Story

Here is yet another example of home-grown terrorism...........

Ultra-Orthodox Jews attack woman in Israeli town | The Raw Story

Iran: Morality Police Cracking Down On Barbie Dolls

Here is an article By Mitra Amiri (Reuters) that highlights Iran’s latest efforts to protect Iran’s culture from "decadent Barbie dolls".

Iran's morality police are cracking down on the sale of Barbie dolls to protect the public from what they see as pernicious western culture eroding Islamic values, shopkeepers said on Monday.

As the West imposes the toughest ever sanctions on Iran and tensions rise over its nuclear programme, inside the country the Barbie ban is part of what the government calls a "soft war" against decadent cultural influences.

"About three weeks ago they (the morality police) came to our shop, asking us to remove all the Barbies," said a shopkeeper in a toy shop in northern Tehran.

Iran's religious rulers first declared Barbie, made by U.S. company Mattel Inc, un-Islamic in 1996, citing its "destructive cultural and social consequences". Despite the ban, the doll has until recently been openly on sale in Tehran shops.

The new order, issued around three weeks ago, forced shopkeepers to hide the leggy, busty blonde behind other toys as a way of meeting popular demand for the dolls while avoiding being closed down by the police.

A range of officially approved dolls launched in 2002 to counter demand for Barbie have not proven successful, merchants told Reuters.

The dolls named Sara, a female, and Dara, a male arrived in shops wearing a variety of traditional dress, with Sara fully respecting the rule that all women in Iran must obey in public, of covering their hair and wearing loose-fitting clothes.

"My daughter prefers Barbies. She says Sara and Dara are ugly and fat," said Farnaz , a 38-year-old mother, adding that she could not find Barbie cartoon DVDs as she was told they were also banned from public sale.

Pointing to a doll covered in black long veil, a 40-year-old Tehran toy shop manager said: "We still sell Barbies but secretly and put these in the window to make the police think we are just selling these kinds of dolls."

Iran has fought a running battle to purge pervasive western culture from the country since its Islamic revolution overthrew a western-backed king in 1979, enforcing Islamic dress codes, banning Western music and foreign satellite television.

As another swipe at the West, Iranians will soon be able to buy toy versions of the U.S. spy drone that it captured in December, Iranian media reported.

Models of the bat-wing RQ-170 Sentinel - which Iran's military displayed on TV after it was downed near the Afghan border - will be mass produced in a variety of colours, reports said. (Editing by Paul Casciato)

Happy MLK Jr Day!

Were #27!!

Here is an article posted by a journalist who reveals the social justice rankings of all 31 nations members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ranking each nation in such categories as health care, income inequality, pre-school education, and child poverty. Surprisingly, or not surprisingly, the USA ranks 5th from the bottom on these measures of egalitarianism and democracy. What do you think? Read on.

We’re No. 27! By Jim Hightower

"USA: We're No. 1!"

Oh, wait — Iceland is No. 1. But we did beat out Poland and Slovakia, right? Uh...no. But go on down the rankings and there we are! No. 27, fifth from the bottom. So our new national chant is, "USA: At Least We're Not Last!"

A foundation in Germany has analyzed the social justice records of all 31 members of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), ranking each nation in such categories as health care, income inequality, pre-school education, and child poverty. The overall performance by the United States — which boasts of being an egalitarian society — outranks only Greece, Chile, Mexico, and Turkey. Actually, three of those countries performed better than ours in the education of pre-schoolers, and Greece did better than the United States on the prevention of poverty.

Our bottom-of-the-heap ranking in social justice confirms the economic and political inequality that the Occupy movement is protesting. It also helps explain why this grassroots uprising in America has spread so rapidly to more than 600 communities and has generated such broad public support. After all, our nation is fabulously rich, ranking well ahead of nearly every other OECD member in national wealth, so there's no excuse for us sitting at the bottom of the list in education, health care, poverty, and other measures of a democratic and egalitarian society.

Bluntly put, We the People have let today's elites abandon America's founding principles of fairness, justice, and equal opportunity for all.

These privileged few have purchased our government, stolen the wealth and economic future of working families, and reduced America to a plastic imitation of the country we thought we had. The Occupy rebellion is long overdue and on target.

Join it.

This article was published at NationofChange at: http://www.nationofchange.org/we-re-no-27-1326811089. All rights are reserved.

Saudi Women Use Facebook To Ban Men From Working in Lingerie Stores

I am all for egalitarianism and equal opportunity in all aspects of life. There are exceptions to equal access to jobs, however, especially in societies where woman are dehumanized, such as Saudi Arabia. Women should not have to endure the presence of males in clothing store dressing rooms, nor in lingerie or swimwear shops. I find few things creepier than having a male carry hangers of undies while taking me into a dressing room. ICK!

Here is an article about how in Saudi Arabia, where woman possess no civil rights, banned together on Facebook to effect a ban of men from working in lingerie shops. Bravo to these brave women.

Women only to work in Saudi Arabia lingerie shops
By Emily Buchanan BBC world affairs correspondent


A law allowing only women to work in lingerie shops in Saudi Arabia is coming into force.

Campaigners hope this will end decades of awkwardness in the Islamic kingdom where women have always been served by male shop assistants.

The heated issue of the total lack of female shop workers in Saudi Arabia has simmered for years.

Many Saudi women say they have felt particularly uncomfortable buying their lingerie from men.

Female campaigners recently increased the pressure for change through a Facebook campaign and a boycott of lingerie stores.

Now King Abdullah's royal decree finally comes into effect, banning male staff from selling female underwear.

"It's about time, it's been a long struggle and the authorities have finally come to their senses," says Radio Jeddah journalist Samar Fatany.

She says she, and any woman who could afford to, would often shop abroad rather than face the embarrassment of giving her underwear size over the counter to a man.

The campaign has gained extra momentum from the increasing number of young women who want to enter the workplace.

The Saudi women who can work are usually the educated elite who do professional jobs in medicine or government.

The new law could potentially create up to 40,000 jobs for ordinary Saudi women who have hitherto had little or no access to employment.

But it also means that male clerks, most of whom are foreign workers, will be out of a job.

It is not far short of a social revolution being pushed through in the teeth of fierce opposition from the kingdom's top clerics.

They do not want to see an increase in the number of women working outside the home.

The kingdom's Grand Mufti, Sheikh Abdel Aziz al-Sheikh, has warned shop owners that employing women is a "crime and prohibited by Islamic sharia law".

"There is already a growing tension between liberals and the religious conservatives in the country and this issue could provoke opposition from the religious police," says Abeer Mishkhas is a columnist for the Saudi paper Asharq al-Awsat.

The Ministry of Labour will be posting observers in shopping centres to make sure the new shop assistants do not get harassed in their first weeks of work.

The ban on male staff in lingerie departments is due to be extended to cosmetics shops from July.