Talking to foreigners

Abstract

A German businessman is telling an English sales director about an international conference he attended. He says that if the Englishman had been there he could have made a valuable contribution — he even suggests some subjects he might have covered. The Englishman accepts the compliment then changes the subject and gets down to business. But something has gone wrong. The German behaves strangely — as if he's been affronted — and breaks off the interview soon after. Later it emerges that the communication breakdown was caused by a simple grammatical slip. The German had used the past tense thinking that this was the correct grammatical form for the future. The conference had not yet taken place and the German was extending an invitation not expressing a compliment.

Citation

SCHERMER, J. and MAUDE, B. (1973), "Talking to foreigners", Industrial and Commercial Training, Vol. 5 No. 9, pp. 435-437. https://doi.org/10.1108/eb003344