Most people don’t know that I started my professional life as a soldier in the United States Army. For a military person, abbreviations, acronyms, and nomenclatures are part of everyday life. In other words, we spoke the language of jargon. Now jargon
In my last article, I discussed the idea of keeping it simple and speaking to your audience within the context of a historical site or museum. This week, I’d like to look at writing text for art exhibits, which is
One of my professional passions is to help people make the complex simple. For some reason, people think that to sound intelligent, or be taken seriously, they have to give long, complicated explanations. In fact, the opposite is true. There is a genius
Top tips to make your guests feel like VIPs The coronavirus numbers in Germany are dropping nicely, so my husband and I decided to book a holiday for late summer. That said, we are being quite conservative about the whole thing. The
I’ve been doing a lot of thinking about what life will be like once this pandemic has finished once and for all. Some people I’ve spoken to think that life will go back to exactly as it was pre-pandemic. Others,
Last week, we discussed how to develop a tour when English isn’t your first language. But understanding the language doesn’t guarantee that you’ll give a good tour. In fact, when I asked a question on LinkedIn about language issues, many
Last week, I wrote about the need for good English skills in the tourism and heritage industries and that you don’t need to speak English fluently to get the job done. Instead, I recommended aiming for functional fluency, which is
I recently read a conference paper about the lack of English language skills among the tour guides at the Aceh Tsunami Museum in Indonesia. The author concluded that of the thirteen guides tested, only one was considered fluent in that
I want you to imagine this situation: You are in charge of a project that is costing your company millions. But you have everything under control. You have kept a very close eye on every step of the project and,
Landing a job that requires experience presents a real Catch-22 situation for anyone trying to break into a new field. How are you supposed to get professional experience if no one will give you a job to get that experience? That
Words are singularly the most powerful force available to humanity. Yehuda Berg Most people think that to change the world, you need to have a superpower. But I argue that most people already have a superpower: they have the ability to
This week, I am breaking from my normal Business English blog to talk about something really close to my heart: grassroots activism. Most people don’t know about my passion for this. But for most of my life, I have volunteered to
Over the past two months, I have seen a deluge of articles about video conferences and online meetings: how to look good online, basic etiquette, and how to deal with technical issues. But few are addressing one of the basic communication issues
Last week we looked at the Objective and Summary sections of your CV. This week, I’d like to discuss how to describe your professional experience. The most important thing to keep in mind when writing this section is that your
Last week, we talked about how to layout your CV and what to include in it. Today, I’d like to talk about writing the Objective and Summary. CV is short for curriculum vitae, which literally means “the course of my
Let’s face it: with everything happening in the world, you might need to look for a new job. That means writing a CV, building your network, and job interviews. But what if you have to do it all in English?
It is only natural that when someone studies a language, they want to see improvement. Yet, these same people often get frustrated because they have been taking lessons for months – even years – but aren’t making progress. When I
We all make mistakes. Just because a native speaker says something doesn’t make it right. In a recent conversation, a client said, “I didn’t see nobody.” When I corrected him, he was confused because this was how they said it
Right now, it seems that everyone is conducting business via conference calls. Unfortunately, they are the one thing that many non-native English speakers have the most difficulty with, particularly if native speakers are on the call. But there are some
In the past, the easiest way to introduce change was slowly. This gave people time to accept the changes and to adapt to new ways of doing things. Unfortunately, because of the nature of the current Covid-19 crisis, time is
Change isn’t coming. Change is here. Covid-19 has seen to that. Millions of people who have never before worked from home are now expected to telecommute. Meetings are now done exclusively online – even at the highest levels. And even for people like me
I’ve been hearing from people all week about how difficult they find working from home. This article from the BBC has some suggestions that deal with motivation and work/life balance – which are good. But how do you deal with
Normally, I spend my working week dashing from one client’s office to another. Our sessions are always face-to-face, up close, and personal. That changes as of today as I will be working strictly from home. Unfortunately, I could see this coming. I wouldn’t
Happy Monday everyone, and here is your Monday Morning Tip from Marshallsay English! Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve had so many questions about punctuation that I decided to write a series of short articles on the subject. Today, we
This week’s subject comes from a reader. She wrote that someone she knows, but has not seen in a long time, recently passed away and she wanted to write a letter to his wife. However, she is struggling to find
On Friday morning, I opened my 6-year-old MacBook computer, clicked on the browser icon, and waited for it to open. But instead of opening, the icon just bounced in place. Thinking maybe it was the app and not the computer,
Working on my business strategy for 2020 meant looking back over this past year and asking myself what my clients needed and what they struggled with the most. The answer surprised me. All of my clients are specialists in their
I love reading human interest stories this time of year – you know, stories that really aren’t news but they make you feel good. I was reading just such a story in The Guardian this week when I came across
I love this time of year. Here in Frankfurt, we have the Christmas Market – which is one of the most wonderful things about living in this city. Then there are all the lovely Christmas parties I’m invited to. Some of these are
This past week, I stumbled upon an old article from Art News, which discussed how museums around the world are re-writing museum interpretive panels (the text that tells you about an object or a site) to better communicate with visitors.
