Formal English is No Help with Business English
The English learned through textbooks in Korea is of hardly any use in the business world. An assistant manager of SK Global sent a fabric sample to a British buyer early last month and then asked "Color OK?" in an e-mail. A couple of days later, the Korean employee received a reply from the buyer who simply wrote: "Color AsIs.ˇ±Referring to various dictionaries for any hidden meaning in the two words, the Korean man failed to understand what else the word "asis" could stand for, other than a miss spelling of an animal. Finally, the assistant manager called up the buyer to ask the true meaning of "color as." The buyer explained it meant all colors were acceptable, as "as" has a meaning of "together." Apparently, "as is" is widely used in British business.
As such, in the business world, Korean businessmen face many incidents that cannot be handled by only knowing the formal basic English learned at school, the SK Global employee said.
Other business people involved in trading with foreign countries agree. Kim Heung-chol, a manager of SK Global, said, "We were taught basic English conversation at school but never business English." Kim reaffirmed, "School English is of little use in the business world." In this situation, there are endless episodes regarding English in business. A manager of a trading company responsible for exporting and importing telecommunication products has frequently used the expression "You had better" when he meant to say "I think it can be preferable to do it like that." Whenever he used this expression, his business counterparts showed a little bit surprise which he never quite comprehended. Much later, he came to learn the expression "you had better" gave an imperative implication of him ordering instructions. The manager said, "Now I have learned many ways how to make a roundabout and gentleman-like expression. With English learned only through textbooks, it is difficult to understand what specific expressions are being used in a foreign country."
The same manager once ran out of petrol in Los Angeles last March while driving a rent car. He drove in to a gas station and, being used to someone filling the car for him in Korean gas stations, he shouted to an employee "The oil tank is empty!" Even though the serviceman heard what the Asian man had said, he shrugged his shoulders. After returning to Korea, the businessman realized that he must have used an expression that was too explicit. He read one day that in such a case the correct
expression is "I've ran out of gas."
A manager of another trading house working for the shipbuilding team, Chung, had many difficulties in understanding Australian English pronunciation when he made a business trip to Sydney some time ago. Chung went there for an international bidding, and there was great amount of tension in the negotiation room. In an effort to ease the
tension, Chung started a light conversation with an employee of an Australian shipbuilding company. Upon learning that his Australian counterpart had come from other city besides Sydney, Chung asked, "When did you get here?ˇ± The Australian man replied what Chung clearly heard to be: "I came here to die." Chung nearly jumped out of his chair, because he thought this Australian man meant to say that he came to this place "with a strong determination to die to win the bid." Later on, however, Chung realized the Australian businessman had said "I came here today." This humorous episode happened because the Korean man did not know Australians pronounced the word "today" to sound like "to die."
Nowadays, many big enterprises have run business English teaching programs in order to help them perform proper business activities with people in foreign countries. Lee Yoon-keun, manager of the internationalization team at the Samsung Institute of Human Resources Development, said, "Instead of grammar and reading comprehension, we focus on teaching practical ways of conducting business, including making presentations and conducting negotiations. In fact, there are not many trainees who are able to master business English, even though they are very good in grammar and have advanced reading comprehension skills.ˇ±
