你英语讲得怎么样，我一点儿都不在乎——这就是这篇文章的主旨。我是一个ABC，同时也是位高管和老板。对我而言，我只关心我能不能听懂你的话，以及你能不能听懂我的话。要想和我这样外国人交谈，英语该达到哪种程度？达到我刚刚说的这种程度就够了。
我的母语是英语，虽然普通话是我的第一外语，但我的普通话说得很差！而我已经在中国生活、工作了20多年了！因此，对于没出国生活过，却能学好外语的人，我是极为崇拜的。国内成千上百万的白领的英语说得都比我的普通话好多了。这简直不可思议！
可是，我碰到过国内许多人，他们在用英语和外国人对话时，往往缺乏自信，他们最大的问题就是觉得自己的英语不够好。但在和他们对话时，我完全不会这么想。事实上，我的想法恰恰相反。几乎每次，我对他们英语水平的要求和标准都远远低于他们自己的标准。也就是说，你对自身英语水平的要求远高于我这种外国人的期待。
我希望以下观点会帮助你在职场中更自信地用英语与外国人交流。
我们对英语的挑剔程度没你想象的那么高！我发现中国人比我们外国人还苛求英语水平。但事实上，我们的要求并没有那么高。例如，在我们公司招人时，我手下人会向我介绍候选人：“我们喜欢这个候选人，但他的英语不太好。”但当我面试他们时，我觉得他们英语说得挺好，没啥问题。这种情形经常发生。我一点儿也没受到困扰，因为他们说的我都能懂。
所以，在与外国人，尤其是外国经理或高管沟通时，关键并不在于流利度。只要你能表达想法，有重点，口音重、语法差、讲话慢，这些根本不重要。只要我能听懂你的话，就够了。
之所以强调这一点，是因为许多人在与外国人交流时，往往会担心太多，太紧张。他们爱想太多，觉得自己的词汇量不够大，会犯许多语法错误，口音太重，说得太慢。但我很清楚，对你们而言，英语是门外语。我不会批评你的语言技巧，我只想听懂你想说的话。
我参加过许多次有中国人向外国高管进行展示的会议，在散会后，没有一次听到有人说“我不喜欢这个提案，因为他的口音太重了”，“我不会考虑他的建议，因为他的语法太差了”。我们压根儿就没有这种想法。
重要的是，我们能明白你的话，你也能明白我们的话。我们真正关心的事只有两件：
1）你能表达内心想法，并清楚地告诉我们
2）你能理解我们的要求和所说的内容。
商务沟通注重实用性，重点在于人们能理解你说的话。你的英语用不着多优雅、多正式、听上去多有文化，用不着用大词和复杂的句型。相反，想让对方轻松理解你的话，你得用简单、直接的方式进行沟通，也就是说，要用简单的单词和句子。
身为在中国打拼的外国人，我也会使尽全力弄懂你的要点和想法。商务情形往往有个清晰的目的或目标，如了解情形，解决问题，获得批准等等。这不是语言竞赛。
因此，我会尽我所能认真倾听你说的话。中国的每个外国人在与非英语母语人士交流时，都会这么做。老实说，我们大多数人对语言并不在行。我们会的中文很少，甚至几乎没有。所以，无论你英语说的怎么样，只要能帮助我们在中国做好工作，我们都会感到非常高兴。
注重观点和想法的质量——此外，我们关注的是你的说话内容。只要你说的内容有趣、有益，我就会让你说个够。在与老板、高层或客户交流时，我们看中的是你观点和想法的质量。
在撰写《Develop Yourself As A Future Executive》这一职业发展书目时，我曾专为这一点采访过一位候选人。他的工作常常需要和外国高管打交道。在很长一段时间，一想到要和他们说话，他就会很紧张。
后来，他意识到，这些高官不介意他英语的流利程度，而在意他的说话内容。如果他有优秀的想法和思想过程，那么无论他英语说得怎样，听上去都很悦耳。
慢慢地，他开始提供更多事实、参考和背景信息，人们变得更容易听懂他的话。他开始注重自内容的质量，确保他们是有益的，有分量的。随后，在用英语与别人交流时，她变得越来越自信，越来越不紧张。正如他所说：“假如你的想法很好，那么你说出来的内容很会很好”。
因此，在判断一个人的英语够不够在我公司工作时，我只会考虑三件事（再次申明，这三件事与你英语的流利程度几乎毫无关系）。我会问自己这三个问题：
1) 你能不能合理表达思想和观点？许多时候，我需要了解你对某事的想法。例如，你对某一情形有什么看法，你计划该如何处理某件事。因此，你得能清晰、简洁地告知我你的想法，用你的逻辑分析能力告诉我，为什么你的想法是个好想法，以及你要如何实现这一想法。
我不希望再一连问你好几个问题，也不希望要费老大劲，试图弄明白你在想什么。你要能告诉我目前工作进展如何，以及你有什么想法。英语不流畅？没关系，只要我能明白你的要点，就可以了。
小贴士：保持简洁！
在用英语交流时，不要过分考虑该用什么词，什么句型，也别想着怎么说才能让人眼前发亮。商务场合，尤其是高管，往往偏爱简单、直接的表达。再次重申，能让人眼前发亮的是你想法的质量。
2) 你能不能准确理解我的话？比起表达自己，也许更重要的是你能不能准确理解我的话。我的语速正常，美国人，也没什么口音。但我的客户有印度人、英国人、澳大利亚人，他们的口音很重。所以，如果你连我的话都听不懂，那我就会担心你能不能理解客户的话，处理好他们的业务了。
对我来说，我需要你对我的话理解程度达到至少80%，不然就会产生太多误会。你会丢掉许多我想让你知道的要点和细节，不能给出高质量、精确的工作表现。
小贴士：录下他们说的话。
在会谈甚至一对一交流时，我公司的员工会把我的话录音。我一点儿也不介意，反而很欣赏这种做法。这体现出他们的职业性，愿意抓住我的关键点，以防不能立马明白我说的所有内容。会后听我的录音还能帮他们提高英语水平。虽然会多花一些时间，但这有助于你的工作。
3) 你能不能清楚地进行书面交流？即便你无需常常说英语，但大部分外企的书面语言都是英语。即便你是技术人员和工程师，也常常需要与国外同事进行邮件交流。
我们公司在面试时，会让候选人用书面英语回答开放性问题，借以评估他们的英语书面表达能力。
幸好大多数人的书面英语要比口语好。书面交流也不像口语那样需要实时反应。在打字时，你有时间思考该如何把你要说的话形成文字。
小贴士：利用现成的工具。
现在有很多拼写检查、语法检查的工具。虽然有些人还没有养成用这些工具的习惯。但只要运行这些小工具，就能马上发现、改正文字中的基本错误。多花两三分钟，你的文字就能更体面。
你对自己的英语能力不自信，但你的英语比你想的要好很多。你的英语已经可以高效地与外国人交流了。想想上述三个问题的回答，你便能更清楚自己的英语水平在什么程度，需要再做哪些提高。
当然，提高英语技能是一项很好的未来投资。在外企走得越高，越需要与外国人打交道。但最终，在用英语与他人交流时，重点其实不在流利度，而在于你说话内容的质量和方式。
I don’t care how your English sounds. If there’s one thing you take away from this article, this would be it. As an ABC, senior executive, and boss, all I care about is whether I can understand you and you can understand me. Regarding how good your English needs to be when communicating with people like me, that’s all that really matters.
Before going on, I’ll mention that I’m a native English speaker. However, my 2nd language, Mandarin, sucks! It’s terrible. And this is after living and working in China for over 20 years!So I have huge respect for anyone who can learn a 2nd language without even having lived in another country before. Not only is this incredibly impressive to me, it describes millions of Chinese professionals who speak English far better than I speak Mandarin.
Yet, I meet so many people here who lack confidence when communicating with foreigners in English. Their biggest problem is they don’t feel their English is good enough. But whenever they speak to me, I’m not thinking this at all. In fact, it’s the opposite. In almost every instance, my requirements and standards for their level of English are much lower than what they’re thinking. Or put another way, the English standards in your mind are much higher than what foreigners like me actually need and expect from you.
I hope the following perspective will help raise your confidence and approach when speaking English with the foreigners in your job and work.
We’re not nearly as critical of your English as you think! – Actually, I find that Chinese people are much more critical of each other’s English than we are. For instance, before my staff introduces someone for me that we’re considering to hire, they’ll often say, “We like this candidate, but his English isn’t that good.” But when I interview them, their English is fine. No problem. This is almost always the case. It’s fine to me because I can understand everything they say.
So here’s the most important thing I’ll say about communicating with a foreigner, especially a foreign manager or executive. Greater fluency isn’t the key. As long as you can express your thoughts and main point(s) of what you want to say, your accent, grammar, or how slowly you talk doesn’t matter. to me. If you can make yourself understood, that’s good enough.
I emphasize this point because many people worry too much and get too nervous when speaking to a foreigner. They overthink everything. They think their vocabulary isn’t big enough, they make too many grammar mistakes, their accent is too heavy, or they speak too slowly. But I’m fully aware that English is your 2nd language. I’m not interested in criticizing your language skills. I just want to understand what you want to tell me.
I’ve been in many meetings where a Chinese person is presenting something to foreign managers or executives. Not once have I ever heard one say afterwards, “I don’t like his proposal, his accent is too heavy.” Or, “His grammar isn’t good enough for me to consider his recommendation.” That’s not even close to what we think or care about.
What matters to us are that we can understand you, and be understood by you – What we care about are really just two things: 1) You can express your thoughts and what you want to say to us, and 2) You can understand what we’re asking and telling you.
Listen, business communication is very practical. It’s about being understood. What you say doesn’t need to sound beautiful, formal, or highly educated. You don’t need to use big words or fancy sentences. To be understood easily, you actually want to speak in just a simple, straightforward way. This means using simple, straightforward words and sentences.
As a foreigner working here, I can also tell you that I make every effort to understand your key points and ideas. In business situations, there’s usually a clear purpose or objective. It’s to understand a situation, solve a problem, get something approved, etc. It’s not a language contest.
So I’m always going to do my very best to listen carefully to what you want to say to me. This is the same for every foreigner in China who needs to communicate with non-native, English speakers. Frankly, most of us are terrible at languages. We speak little or no Chinese. So we’re happy about whatever English you can speak to help us do our jobs here well.
It’s about the quality of your thoughts and ideas – In addition, what we pay attention to most is what you have to say. As long as it’s something interesting or beneficial, I’m going to give you every chance to say it. When speaking with your boss, your senior management, or a client, it’s the quality of your thoughts and ideas that matter to us.
One candidate that I interviewed for my career development book, Develop Yourself As A Future Executive, Today, understood this well. In his job, he often had to communicate with senior managers who were foreigners. For a long time, he would always get very nervous speaking with them.
Finally, he realized that these senior managers weren’t judging what he said by how fluent his English was. They were assessing what he had to say. So if his ideas and thought process were good, then whatever he said would sound good.
He began providing more facts, references, and background information, which, low and behold, helped make him more easily understood by others. As he focused more on making sure what he said had merit and weight, he became more confident and much less nervous when speaking to others in English. As he put it, “If your thoughts are solid then what you say will be solid too.”
So when determining if a person’s English level is good enough to work for me and our company, I just consider three things. Again, they have little to do with how good you sound. I ask myself these three questions.
1) Can you reasonably express your thoughts and ideas to me? – There will be many instances where I need to know what you think about something. For instance, your assessment about a situation, or how you plan to handle something. To let me know, you need to be able to communicate your thoughts to me clearly and simply. You need to be able to share your logic sense and the reasons why what you’re telling me is a good idea, and how you plan to make it happen.
What I don’t want to do is to play 21 questions with you. I don’t want to have to spend a lot of effort figuring out what’s going through your mind. You need to be able to tell me what’s happening and what you’re thinking. I’m okay if what you say doesn’t sound so smooth, as long as I can understand your key points.
A Good Tip:Keep things simple! When expressing yourself in English, don’t overthink your words and sentences, or try to sound impressive. In business, keeping things simple and straightforward is always preferred, especially when you’re talking to managers and executives. Again, it’s the quality of your thoughts that impresses others.
2) Can you accurately understand what I’m saying? – Perhaps even more critical than how well you can express yourself to me is how well you can understand what I say. I speak at a normal speed. And as an American, I don’t have a heavy accent. However, some of our clients have heavy Indian, British, or Australian accents. So if you can’t understand me very well, I have big concerns about your ability to understand and handle business with some of our clients.
For me, I need you to understand at least 80% of what I’m saying. Otherwise, there’s going to be too much miscommunication. You’re going to miss important points that I need you to know and details of what I need you to do. This will greatly impact your ability to deliver high quality, accurate work for me and our company.
A Good Tip:Record what they say. In a meeting or even one-on-one, people in our company will record what I say. I don’t mind this at all. In fact, I like it. It shows their professionalism and desire to catch all my key points, in case they can’t immediately understand everything I say. Listening to what I’ve said later also helps improve their English. It takes more time, but will help you do your job better.
3) Can you communicate clearly enough in writing? – Even if you don’t need to speak English often, in a foreign company it’s likely that most, if not all, of your written communication will be in English. Even for technical and engineering professionals, you’ll often need to correspond by email with overseas colleagues.
In our interview process, we have candidates write responses to several open questions to help us assess their ability to express their thoughts in writing.
Fortunately, most people write better than they speak in English. Writing is also not a rea-time situation like speaking. When writing, you have the time to think about exactly how you want to say something.
A Good Tip:Use available tools. These days, there are tools like spell check and grammar check to help you. For some reason, however, many people here don’t use them. But to eliminate and correct many basic mistakes, you just need to run what you write through these tools. The extra 2-3 minutes that this takes will make your written communication look and sound much better.
So if you’re someone who lacks confidence in your English abilities, they may actually be much better than you think? They may already be good enough to communicate effectively with the foreigners you interact with. Your responses to these three questions can give you a better sense of this, and how much your current level of English really needs to improve.
Of course, improving your English skills is a great investment for your future. The higher you go in a foreign company, the more you need to interact with foreigners. Ultimately, however, fluency is not the key to communicating well with others in English. What matters much more is the quality of what you say than how you say it.
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