Ways to improve business English speaking?

Question

Hi, as a consultant working in a non English speaking country, I would like to seek advise on how to continuously improve business English speaking. By definition, business English is to conduct discussions on business issues in English. The main objective is to help me improve English communication at work.

I have tried toastmasters and also seeked for private tutors. But non of them could fulfill my purpose. While it is easy to find an English teacher to “practice English”, most of them don't have business backgrounds or lack related knowledge.

Any advice would be appreciated! Would be great if you could also share online resources where I could find English tutors who could teach business topics.

Answer 1

Hi there,

Good question! I am studying 4 different languages and definitely understand the struggle. Here are my 3 top tips:

Find a teacher. I am personally using preply.com, another alternative is italki.com. You can filter teachers based on languages, reviews, budget, availability, etc, similarly to PrepLounge coaches. I am using it for a couple of languages and it works really well. In your case, you should target teachers willing to help you with business terms. Working with a teacher is relatively cheap and helps enormously if you manage to stick to a weekly class
Study daily new words. I recommend the app Anki, which uses the SRS system – the best way to learn new words. Focus on the words critical for your job – usually, if you master the 1000 most important ones, you can talk and understand relatively well your niche
Gamify your learning. I tried a few apps and the one I liked the most in terms of gamification is Memrise (focused mainly on building vocabulary) – you should target a course based on business terms in your case (you can add for free one of those created by the other users, besides the official ones offered by the app)

BONUS: find a good business book on Audible, check if you like the style of the speaker (it is very important) and listen to it in down time. You will both learn new things and improve your English.

Best,

Francesco

Answer 2

Hi there,

For languages I use the following:

Italki (cheap tutors)
Brainscape (vocabulary…flash cards)
HelloTalk (peer-to-peer conversation)
iPodcasts/Spotify (comprehension)

It's important to use all the above hollistically!

Answer 3

I had a similar situation when working in French. My strategy was to consume as much business specific french content as possible:
- Point of views from consulting firms published in that language
- Finance section of newspapers
- Books on trending business topics
- Podcasts on business topics

This will help you develop the necessary vocabulary and also understand how these topics are talked about.