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International English
 With 70% of the world’s population not speaking English as their first language, you need to use clear, plain English when communicating with non-native English speaking customers. The English spoken by people, from a variety of language and cultural backgrounds, who speak English as a second language, is known as ‘International English’.
When using International English, don’t presume that your own business practice and cultural references will be understood. Miscommunication can cost your business time and resources.
Knowing your customers and your team
Understanding the audience for your communications helps to make your speech or writing more effective. Use our advice and resources to help you identify the languages spoken, cultural backgrounds and business practices of your customers. Even where English is the language of choice, get to know your team and find out who can use their knowledge of different cultural and language backgrounds.
Providing training in English and intercultural skills will ensure that your team communicate clearly with an understanding of language and cultural differences, the impact of the way they speak and listen and their body language. See our guide to managing a multicultural workforce for further advice.
 Understand the business etiquette, for example, of writing in English for a Chinese business audience where you need to use titles and family names in all your business correspondence. Do not use given names by themselves. Learn more
Hints and tips
- Use simple, plain language, avoiding jargon, jokes and slang.
- Maps, diagrams, objects and pictures can help you make your point.
- Do not speak too quickly or shout, but don’t speak so slowly that you sound patronising. Be prepared to repeat yourself to make sure you are understood.
- Write down names, addresses, times and key points of information. Writing in ‘lower case’ is easier to understand than block capitals.
- If in doubt use the active voice for your writing, it is easier for non-native speakers to understand, e.g. ‘We sent the parcel yesterday’, not ‘The parcel was sent by us yesterday’.
- Check understanding with ‘open’ questions, asking ‘what’, ‘how’, ‘why’ and ‘describe’ questions, rather than asking for a simple ‘yes’ or ‘no’ response.
- Use metric units, as there are only three countries in the world that don’t officially use metric units: USA, Liberia and Mynamar.
- Many countries use dollars ($) as a currency so always make clear the country for which it is intended, e.g. USD, AUD.
- Write out dates in full as they may be presented in different forms in different countries (e.g. 6/05/09 is June 5th 2009 in the USA but 6th May 2009 in the UK).
For documents, reports, manuals, brochures and product information for global use:
- When producing these documents, always check that the English you use is simple and easy to understand. They may need to be translated into another language, and clear, plain English is easier to translate.
- When receiving documents in International English, do check your understanding of any terms that are not immediately clear or words that may sound the same but have different meanings.
- Most importantly, don’t sign any legal or contractual document until you are sure that all the terms are understood.
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