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.Often, I am invited to universities throughout the world to talk to groups who aren’t fluent in English. Even in speeches that I give in the United States, often the audience is composed of non-English speaking members or the local business community. 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. While a large portion of what I tell you will all ready be known to you, there could be some novel ideas too.
One of the keys to success is having the audience think of you as clever, gifted, and intelligent. If you have these traits then you already have an advantage over many speakers. Suppose you receive a formal invitation in the mail today to address a large body of Japanese Translation workers. If you decide to accept then you should think about the type of person these people want to hear. In most cases, they expect someone who look and talks professionally. They also want to listed to someone who is knowledgeable in their profession. While you might think this is a simple request, many people find speaking in front of an audience to be difficult. If you are a good public speaker, you gain instant credibility and well respected among the community of listeners. Further, the master of public speaking will find that he is more persuasive and informative than other speakers and this will undoubtedly drive his future success.
Having described the basic requirements, I will now provide some more pointed recommendations for speaking to foreign audiences. Something that we believe is important to point out is that you should always give careful consideration as to how jokes and humor are incorporated into the presentation. Commody can help you to connect with and reach the audience and it can be done effectively through the use of cartoons and comic strips. However, speakers who are unfamiliar with local customs often make embarrassing and sometimes damaging mistakes. For example, we might think that it is acceptable to use a funny skit from a Saudi Arabian television show to use in a presentation that is being given to a group of international Arabic Translation workers. The audience might gasp and be so hurt or appalled that they storm out and have a negative image that has been branded into their minds about you and your company. Luckily, it would take a lot to make a group of people from any country become this irritated over your speech. However, if you do include comedy into your speech to an international audience then it is critical that you allow the audience a few extra moments to decode the meaning and find the humor. Another important point to make is that while an audience composed of Russian Document Translation workers may have studied English, they may not have studied American English. 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.
