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Politicians deliver speeches with words in other languages of the host country. They have a phrase or entire speech in the language of the city or country they are visiting. No reason why every business person should not do this.
Actually, there is a reason to not try to pretend you speak better than you do. A friend of mine who was in sales said that when he was sent to another country he would learn the language but pretend he could not speak it. Then when the other sales team were muttering to each other that they would negotiate a price, or what was their final price, or even that they would cheat him, he would understand, but they would not bother to speak quietly because they thought he could not understand. That gave him an advantage in negotiating because he knew what they were planning and what was their last price, the highest they would pay, or the lowest they would charge. He got the best available deal which still left them happy and reached a conclusion to the business - so they could conclude quickly and go off to lunch!
Translation
You can translate words and phrases and short sentences on Translate Google.
Put a message on Facebook and you can get it translated with a click.
Try to write and translate a simple sentence a day. Ask people in the Polyglot page on Facebook to translate or check your translation for accuracy. At the end of the month you should have a brief introduction to yourself.
The average person speaks at the rate of 125 to 130 words a minute.
I have also read 500 words for five minutes.
That means 700 words for 7 minutes.
Allow extra time for changing slides. How can you check your speed? To save typing out, pick up something already written. For example, you can note the number of words in a newspaper article, by counting sets of ten words. Read it aloud for one minute. Your five minute speech will be 625-650 words long. Roughly a page. Depending on whether you single space or double space for corrections. You should highlight the important words in yellow highlighter. (You can do this with font colours or background colours if you print your speech in Word or Powerpoint.)
My speech in Chinese or any other language might start like this
Hello, everybody. My name is Angela. I live in London, England. My first language is English. I also speak French. I want to learn Chinese. My favourite hobby is learning languages. I am learning Chinese on Duolingo. I am a teacher of English. I am not retired. I have a husband. And a son. A grown up son. A daughter in law. And a grand-daughter. She is one year old. I also like swimming. And eating out at restaurants. And visiting museums. And photography. I write a blog on travel. I am the author of twenty books. One of them is a book on Quotations. The title is Quick Quotations. Please look. You can see my books on Amazon. I have lots of Friends on Facebook. Please connect with me on Facebook.
Bonjour tout le monde. Je m'appelle Angela. Je vis à Londres, en Angleterre. Ma première langue est l'anglais. Je parle aussi français. Je veux apprendre le chinois. Mon passe-temps favori est d'apprendre les langues. J'apprends le chinois sur Duolingo. Je suis professeur d'anglais. Je ne suis pas à la retraite. J'ai un mari. Et un fils. Un fils adulte. Une belle-fille. Et une petite-fille. Elle a un an. J'aime aussi nager. Et manger au restaurant. Et visiter les musées. Et la photographie. J'écris un blog sur les voyages. Je suis l'auteur d'une vingtaine de livres. L'un d'eux est un livre sur les citations. Le titre est Citations rapides. Regarde s'il te plait. Vous pouvez voir mes livres sur Amazon. J'ai beaucoup d'amis sur Facebook. Veuillez vous connecter avec moi sur Facebook.Hola todos. Mi nombre es Angela. Vivo en Londres, Inglaterra. Mi primer idioma es el inglés. Yo también hablo francés. Quiero aprender chino. Mi pasatiempo favorito es aprender idiomas. Estoy aprendiendo chino en Duolingo. Soy profesora de ingles. No estoy jubilado. Tengo un marido. y un hijo Un hijo adulto. Una nuera. Y una nieta. Ella tiene un año. También me gusta nadar. Y comer en restaurantes. Y visitar museos. y fotografía Escribo un blog sobre viajes. Soy autor de veinte libros. Uno de ellos es un libro sobre Citas. El título es Citas rápidas. Por favor mira. Puedes ver mis libros en Amazon. Tengo muchos amigos en Facebook. Por favor conéctese conmigo en Facebook.Hallo zusammen. Mein Name ist Angela. Ich lebe in London, England. Meine Muttersprache ist Englisch. Ich spreche auch Französisch. Ich möchte Chinesisch lernen. Mein liebstes Hobby ist Sprachen lernen. Ich lerne Chinesisch auf Duolingo. Ich bin Englischlehrer. Ich bin nicht im Ruhestand. Ich habe einen Ehegatten. Und ein Sohn. Ein erwachsener Sohn. Eine Schwiegertochter. Und eine Enkelin. Sie ist ein Jahr alt. Ich schwimme auch gerne. Und in Restaurants essen gehen. Und Museen besuchen. Und Fotografie. Ich schreibe einen Reiseblog. Ich bin Autor von zwanzig Büchern. Eines davon ist ein Buch über Zitate. Der Titel lautet Schnellzitate. Schauen Sie bitte. Sie können meine Bücher auf Amazon sehen. Ich habe viele Freunde auf Facebook. Bitte verbinden Sie sich mit mir auf Facebook.
You can copy this and add in your name and hobbies and family. I tried to do Google translate into German and Hebrew and greek and Russian but unfortunately you get the foreign alphabets which I cannot read. You have to do the transliteration word by word and phrase by phrase and then check that your sentence structure is correct.
Watch out for false friends, words which sound the same but mean different things in other languages or dialects. Even in English. For example, in English Pants translates to the American underpants. The American word pants translates to the English trousers.
Useful Websites
Translate Google
Duolingo
Please share links to your favourite pages
