If you would like to learn something about countries you do business with, you might like Kwintessential’s country profiles. Reading through the profile for Germany, I was reminded that you should never give lilies or chrysanthemums if you’ve been invited to somebody’s home, as they’re used at funerals. And yes, Germans do love shaking hands, don’t they?
Twist your tongue around this tongue twister:
“We surely shall see the sun shine soon.”
Do you have any idea how you would translate the German word “Doppelgänger”? You might be surprised. It’s “doppelganger”. A doppelganger is a person who looks so much like you that it could be your twin.
You might like to read this report about two doppelgängers here. And if you’re really interested in finding someone who looks like you, you can go to twinstrangers.net and start a search!
A German colleague of mine invited me to attend one of his workshops. He used an abbreviation (that is a short way of writing a word or a phrase) that I was not able to understand. I had absolutely no idea what his workshop was about. I’m sure he didn’t realise it himself. He probably uses the abbreviation again and again. And that’s where the danger lies. We are so used to using abbreviations (like ‘etc.’ and ‘asap’), that we can’t imagine that others won’t understand them.
That’s why I always tell people to avoid abbreviations and to write the word or words out in full. So instead of writing ‘i.e.’, write ‘in other words’. And rather than write ‘F2F’, write ‘face to face’. Or ‘laugh out loud’, rather than ‘LOL’.
You’ll make it easier for your reader to understand you! 🙂
“Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” Theodore Roosevelt
