Progress is too slow
“Business can get tough. Everyone expects you to solve everything within 5 minutes. You get dozens of e-mails a day, you’re running to meetings, calling everyone in between and on top of that you’d better do a good job. Anyone whose English isn’t perfect, simply needs to put in more effort, meaning that the results aren’t as good as they could be and they don’t get as much done.”
It creates misunderstandings
“We can proudly say that all our employees are bilingual, but when the company got sold to a Chinese group, all the trouble started. Suddenly all our executive meetings and reports had to be in English and we had not taken that into account when recruiting our current staff. Of course, the new board of directors was not pleased to see so many mistakes and misunderstandings.”
They speak Hollywood English
“Almost anyone can speak English nowadays. Some better than others of course, but they get by. That’s all well and good but last time I heard someone on the phone at the office and I couldn’t help but think “oh damn, that kind of sounds like an American teen TV series.” I couldn’t help but feel a little bit embarrassed for the company, since that could not have come across as professional.
No one understands them
“All communication at the office is in English. So many nationalities make it impossible to do otherwise, which is why research is also published and presented in English. Now, some of us are extremely capable and should give the presentation, but they are just impossible to understand due to their accent. Bottom line, we can’t send them, even though they would be the best option.”
This is what most companies told us when they called upon the assistance of Hello Languages regarding English classes. Please bear in mind that this is not an exhaustive list. That’s why we won’t go too far into detail when it comes to previous customer’s experiences:
- Employees that work more slowly and are getting more complaints from customers due to communication issues: doesn’t understand the issue, is incomprehensible due to the accent, cannot express himself/herself clearly
- A Belgian citizen or an expat who doesn’t master the language sufficiently or even needs to start from scratch in order to take up on all the assignments he/she should be doing at work.
- Companies or sole traders (i.e. self-employed) who pass up on the opportunity of giving presentations or speaking at conferences because they’re afraid the public won’t understand the speaker. (For other barriers concerning presentations, feel free to have a look at the following page: presentation skills.)
- Companies or sole traders (i.e. self-employed) who do not expand their business to other countries or even avoid professional contact in another language due to a lack of knowledge or a lack of confidence when speaking professional English.
- The account manager, customer service employee or front desk receptionist whose English just isn’t fluent enough to leave a good first impression of the company, professionally but also customer relationship-wise.
- …
All our language trainings are made-to-measure..
We can provide private classes as well as in-company group classes on-site or at our office.
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What do our customers have to say?
Giovanni Turano
I chose Hello Languages above all others because I had the feeling it was different: a special place, led by special people. And that is exactly what I’ve found. Tanika is not only a serious and skilled professional, with a large competence, a lot of experience and a real and proven method, but she also has the innate ability to give you the self-confidence you need to use practically and fluently what you learn. Any time I would need an improvement or refresher course in the future, I will definitely go back to Hello Languages.