during my years working in the United Nations I frequently went on Mission not like Tom Cruz mission is UN speak for a business trip usually my missions took me to the Middle East where I did a lot of my work but occasionally I would go to other places on one such occas I went to Boston to meet with Consultants to prepare for a very important mission that we were going to be doing in Iran I traveled with a good friend and colleague tier tier was from France and when we were together we would always speak in French but TI worked in English he spoke English he'd even done some courses at Harvard University his English was very good the meetings went well in Boston and one day at the end of the day we were trying to decide what are we going to do in the evening now tier being a sophisticated Frenchman wanted to go to this elegant jazz bar and have a martini me being a sophisticated Canadian I wanted to go watch a hockey game ice hockey for the Brits here so we compromised we would go to the hockey game and then to the jazz bar we went to the game tieri really enjoyed it it was exciting it was fun we chatted with with the local people after the game we're walking along to the jazzar again speaking in French and T says to me that was a lot of fun but I have to tell you something really strange happened and I said what and he said when you meaning me when you were speaking English with the people around us next to us I couldn't understand half of what you were saying I've never heard you speak like that before and I didn't understand it and for a moment I was confused but then I realized I was back in North America surrounded by native speakers at an exciting sports event so of course my English changed it became quicker it became filled with more jargon more colloquialisms and for me it was as we say a light bulb moment because I realized that my English had adapted when I worked at the United nations in front with an international audience as compared to when I speak to a native speaking audience and it's one of the most important lessons I learned during my time at the un unfortunately for many native speakers who haven't had the benefit of an experience like mine it's a lesson that still needs to be learned now I know today we have a huge number of people who are non-native speakers of English including the entire Dutch speech writers Mafia as I understand by a show of hands how many people here are nonnative speakers of English many another question for those who raised your their hand have you ever had the experience of listening to a speaker and there were times during the speaker presentation where you did not understand what the speaker was saying if so raise your hand it's essentially the same his name was r I don't know this this is a common phenomenon on this planet of approximately 8.1 billion people there are 2.4 billion who speak English but interestingly only 400 million of us speak English mother tongue so more than 80% of the people who speak English are not native language speakers and this can become a problem we heard from syndra about nato in 2015 NATO a working group produced a final report where they concluded native English speakers are not good at adapting their English for non-native English audiences other studies confirm the same thing Studies have shown that if you have non-native speakers speaking in English for example a Greek a Hungarian and a Brazilian and then a native speaker joins the conversation the chances for misunderstandings increase now why is that well there are obvious reasons speaking too fast jargon colloquialisms but there's another reason which I think really goes to the core of this problem I speak other languages I've given speeches Andor presentations and workshops in French Italian German and Arabic and I'm also studied under Lang other languages not to learn them but just out of Interest I have books looking at the linguistic constructions of languages because it fascinates me I'm really interested in cultures and languages and here's what I firmly believe English is very different from most other major languages in one significant respect most languages when you go to learn them and you don't speak a related language they are very challenging at the beginning this applies to the Latin languages German for sure definitely Arabic the Slavic languages etc etc there are complicated rule rules for verbs each pronoun has a different ending the subjunctive is challenging there's gender many uh languages have cases nominative genitive dative accusative but as you go deeper into these languages you start to see the patterns and the repetitions English is the opposite it is a language which I believe is very easy to get a solid grasp of early our verb structure is simple basically it's the third person singular that changes we have no masculine feminine neuter adjectives always come before they never change it's relatively simple but as you go deeper into English it becomes increasingly complex and when native speakers meet non-native speakers such as many of you here who speak excellent English it's not readily apparent to us that the sophisticated parts of English are understandable by you so the question becomes what can we do with it because I strongly believe that as a native speaker I have this incredible advantage today with English being the lingua franka of the world but I also have a responsibility and we have a responsibility and Larry's Workshop yesterday we talked about individual and mutual responsibility I think we native speakers have a responsibility to adapt our language and it's in our interest as well because at the end of the day every speech every presentation it's not about the speaker it's about the audience and I could say the most eloquently beautiful speech but if you can't understand what I'm saying what's the point of me speaking so what I'd like to do today is offer you a basket of ideas to think about when you are speaking or when you are preparing a speech for another speaker in English to a non-native audience and I preface my comments by saying I am not advocating for the sterilization of English English is an incredibly beautiful language it can be incredibly powerful in Simplicity and then it can be incredibly eloquent and great iCal flourishes but rather think about these ideas as you are preparing your speeches the first rule is really the foundation for all of the others when given a choice between eloquence and Clarity choose Clarity choose Clarity it is more important that your audience understand what you're saying Clarity involves and this Clarity is like I said it's the backbone for all the other rules but simple things you can do speak a little more slowly pronounce enunciate the words clearly so they're easily understood and we heard Tessa talk about pauses pauses become very important I love what Mark Twain said the right word may be effective but no word was ever as effective as a rightly timed pause because you give the audience a chance to think about what you said so if you're writing a speech for a speaker and the speaker is going to use the notes or a teleprompter put in square brackets at strategic places pause the notes are for the speaker to remind them just to slow down to let the audience absorb it so Clarity is the first thing second idea in general prefer the active voice to the passive voice now I can see smoke coming out of Larry's ears because we we talked about this in his Workshop yesterday and when it's an all English audience I agree the passive is beautiful and can be very powerful but I have spoken to non-native speaking colleagues and they have almost uniformly told me that the passive is more difficult for them to understand because they have to do the mechanical the linguistic gymnastics in their head of who did what so it's not the right word should be used use the right words don't say a decision was taken by the government say the government decided it's going to be easier for your audience now of course there are exceptions where you don't care who the subject was then you can use the passive for example millions of people are diagnosed with cancer every year it doesn't matter who diagnosed them what's important is that cancer is still a problem and we need to find a solution but in general active versus the passive a related idea is affirmative versus negative sometimes we have to say negative things we should not do this we should not invest in that and that's fine where it can become tricky is if I say it's not a good idea not is a negative but good is a positive so people well if it's not good it has to be bad then just say it's a bad idea it's a bad idea it's easier again for people to understand a third idea and this comes from one of the great masters of the English language Winston Churchill who said the short short words are the best and the old words when short are best of all Church Hill was really a big advocate for the Simplicity of language and again this is where we are sacrificing a little bit of eloquence for clarity but I remember one in Canada I had a casee in court and I went early and I was listening to the trial before me I heard a police officer in the stand testify I observed the accus exit the vehicle and proceed on foot to the building and I thought why not just say I saw the accused get out of the car and run to the building or I once read an environmental report the Marine biota experienced a 100% fatality rate all the fish died so when you're writing your speeches you know I encourage you don't initiate when you can begin don't terminate when you can end don't transmit if you can send and please please don't utilize when you can just use another idea eliminate eliminate unnecessary words the great French writer Anan Deere he wrote The Little Prince which I encourage everybody to read I've read that book half a dozen times at least I always learned something new he said Perfection is not when there's nothing more to add it's when there's nothing more to take away so English native English speakers we frequently say things like well basically it's about this or I literally did that and these words can actually cause confusion among non-native audiences we are also very bad at being redundant so please don't talk to me about Advanced planning because all planning is done in advance it's just it's just planning don't Briefly summarize because a summary should be brief just summarize and please please nobody has ever created a new innovation because it's either new or it's an innovation all Innovations are in inherently new the next two ideas are very important and they're ones with which I continue to struggle because they are so prevalent so common in English the first of which is to be very careful with contractions a contraction in English we have this wonderful convention where we can take two or three words and compress them into a single word so I am becomes I'm you will becomes youu he would becomes heed they could they they would not because they wouldn't and I've talked to people especially people who speak Slavic languages mother tongue contractions are very difficult for them to understand and when you have a negative contraction it's even more complex we wouldn't have invested had we known the outcome we wouldn't have we would not have we would not have invested had we known the outcome and again I'm sure that I've used several contractions already while speaking without knowing it because they are such an integral such a deep part of the English language but just be mindful of them they are a challenge for many people the second big issue that we have in English and it's it's something that gives English Lang the English language a wonderful flourish is something known as a phrasal verb a phrasal verb what is a phrasal verb you take a simple verb give take show turn put run and then you add a word after it and it changes the meaning entirely for example yesterday I went for a run in Cambridge and I ran into guy and Brian and so we went to the bar and we ran up a bill and now I'm feeling run down so when you give me your presentation don't run on and don't give me the runaround all of these things mean different things take the verb to break a couple might break up my car might break down a criminal might break in but a prisoner might break out but none of that matters because we've had a big breakthrough and now we're going to break away from the pack again easy for a native speaker not necessarily easy for a non-native speaker even when the verb and the extra word are the same it can have a different meaning take the verb to put p and take the word down put down the pen don't put me down I'm going to put down a deposit I'm going to put down the baby I'm going to put down the dog [Music] the dog's fine the dog's fine no dogs were harmed in the delivery of this speech so just again be mindful if I'm going to put down a deposit I'm going to pay a deposit think again of the audience of the audience idioms can also be a problem for native speakers the English language is filled with idiom I'm going to go the extra mile so we can touch base and raise the bar we're in the ballpark I'm going to cut to the chase no strings attached and don't worry I won't leave you high and dry or in the dark or up in the air I'm going to bring you up to speed so we're on the same page and these these are all kinds of Expressions we use you know all the time and yet these idioms they don't mean the same thing to every to other people and a related idea is colloqui not colloquial cultural or Sports references I work with lots of Americans who come to Europe I tell them and Americans here take note outside of Canada and the United States nobody understands American football and nobody cares so do not talk about we're going to punt we're not going to throw a haary pass we are not on the one yard line going over for a touchdown and baseball in your Europe is very similar nobody understands it's great if you can bring in local cultural references like here Cricket could work football that real football could work as well but be mindful of that again I want to stress I'm not advocating for the sterilization of English because it is a beautiful language but again it's not about you as a speaker it's about the audience I leave you with two other ideas before we then have a little bit of time for questions and these are a little bit different if you are speaking using with inter through an interpreter or writing for somebody with an interpreter and I've done a lot of that there are some fundamental things you should do if you can send the text of your speech in advance to the interpreters please do it I always arrive early when I have a speaking engagement if there are interpreters I go and meet them I introduced myself who and I asked them what do you need from me because they are an integral part of your speech I say you know what do you need can is just let me know I tell them what I need I always make sure I can see them they're usually in a booth at the back and we agree on signals I tell them from time to time give me a thumbs up if everything is going okay my speed my volume if I'm going too fast signal me to slow down it works perfectly and it's nice and subtle so if I'm speaking they're just somebody else in the audience I just bring them in because if I don't do that and I'm speaking quickly what an interpreter will do is speak into the headphones of everybody else and say can you tell the speaker to slow down and that really throws the Rhythm off my website and I'll I'll write the address over there well it's called manner of speaking. org it's one word I've been writing a Blog for about 15 years on public speaking there's a post I wrote called Lost in Translation and it's about 10 tips for working with interpreters it got picked up at the European commission actually by some interpreters who were convinced I was secretly an interpreter writing this article but it got circulated a lot so that can you can find some other tips there final piece of advice and again this has nothing so much to do with your English but it's just a way to show respect for the audience I firmly believe that when I speak in a country that has a different language I try and say a few words in the local language I was in Finland was on Finland last week so I said a little bit of Finnish and people appreciated it that preparation trip to Boston for this trip to Iran this was a big trip back in the day at the UN and I was the head of mission which meant I was the most senior person and I was leading a team of about 20 people to Iran we had two days of of meetings in tan and then we split into three groups to go on fact-f finding missions around the country as head of mission I had to give an opening statement at the plenary with the head of the Iranian delegation and I felt very strongly that I wanted to say a few words in farsy so I worked on about a five sentence opening in farsy with an Iranian colleague in Geneva at the UN and before I'm getting ready to leave I asked my friend mush can you understand what I'm saying and he said he said he said yes your pronunciation is very good but it's really interesting because your accent makes you sound like you're from Afghanistan because they speak fary in the in the western part of Afghanistan it's just like when I speak French I clearly have a French Canadian accent so we get to Iran the first day of the meeting about 80 but a little bigger than this no about twice the size three times the size of this audience here I'm sitting at the front there's a big picture of the Ayatollah Ki behind me there's there's some government officials it was like out of a movie and you could feel the tension so I gave my opening in farsy and then at the end nice Applause people really appreciated it as they're applauding I'm thinking should I tell them about my accent should I not tell them should I tell them should I not tell them this is the UN and then I thought I'm going to do it they're just people we're all just people so I said I'm really glad you're were able to understand my farsy because my friend mosa said that it made me sound like I'm from Afghanistan the whole room just burst into laughter and you could feel the tension come down a notch and it was a the meeting wasn't always easy and it was long and there were difficult moments but it set the right tone and it started from a point of respect and this is the final thing that I I would leave you with as either native speakers of English or excellent speakers of English to respect audiences that don't have the same fluency with the language as we do because I think when you do that when people feel respected they're going to be much more open to receiving your message and much more open to connecting you connecting with you Winston Churchill once said famously that England Britain and the US are two countries divided by a common land language don't let don't let English be the thing that divides you with your audience use it to bring you closer together and best of luck to everybody with your speeches and presentations [Applause]