International Presentation Skills

By Anna Sobell, Mari Cruz olivan, Nathalie Moire, Maja Sanderson and John Rubick

Presentations:

Just hearing the word above can put some people immediately on edge, especially along with the words “would you mind giving a…”. This fear can quickly multiply when the presentation has to be conducted in a foreign language, but worry not…we are here to help! We can deliver courses in every world language and all our trainers have plenty of business language training experience, which allows them to provide essential language training in a way which is tailored to your particular needs, goals and industry.

As part of our ‘Top 5 in our top 5’ series of blogs, we’ll give you handy, bite-sized presentation expressions in 5 of our top (most popular) languages: Spanish, German, English, French and Russian! But before we do, here are 5 tips from Gina Barnett, an experienced TED speaker, coach, and author of a book on communicating in business:

1.  Start drinking water 15 minutes before you start talking. Nerves tend to dry mouths out which can be distracting for both you, and your audience; a dry mouth might lead to some unappealing ‘clicking’ sounds.

2.  Focus on your breathing when you feel the adrenaline. It may sound simple, but when that adrenaline kicks in, the best thing you can do is just breathe, deeply.

3.  Use your tone to strengthen your words. Match your tone to the content of your sentence. If you are delivering exciting news, don’t do so in a monotone. Similarly, deliver serious updates in a tone which is direct and clear. Disparity between tone and content can distract the audience without them realising.

4.  Give people a chance to adjust to your pronunciation. Keep your opening sentences slow and very clear. This will allow your audience to adapt their ears to the way you speak. This is good advice not just for delivering presentations in a foreign language, but also in your native language; we all have different accents.

5.  Expect the unexpected. You may forget a word; someone may drop something backstage; there might be a technical difficulty. Take a moment, breathe deeply and just roll with it.

https://blog.ted.com/a-ted-speaker-coach-shares-11-tips-for-right-before-you-go-on-stage/

Spanish

1. La cuestión que vamos a tratar hoy es…
2. Volviendo a lo que hemos visto al principio…
3. Esto me lleva al siguiente punto de mi exposición…
4. Tratemos, finalmente, el último aspecto…
5. Muchas gracias por su atención, ha sido un placer haber compartido hoy con ustedes…

French

1. En guise d’introduction, …
2. A la fin de la présentation, nous aurons encore du temps pour répondre à quelques questions.
3. Dans un premier temps… dans un second temps…
4. J’attire votre attention sur…
5. Pour conclure, je dirai quelques mots sur…

German

1. Sehr geehrte Damen und Herren, mein Name ist…
2. Als Erstes möchte ich…
3. Besonders hervorheben möchte ich…
4. Ich möchte das mit einigen Beispiele zeigen.
5. Haben Sie noch irgendwelche Fragen?

English

1. I’m delighted to be here today to tell you about…
2. I’ll be happy to answer any questions that you may have at the end.
3. This leads me to my next point, which is…
4. To recap the main points of my talk…
5. Thank you all for listening, it was a pleasure being here today.

Russian

1. Я рад представить сегодня (Ya rad predstavits sevodnya)…
2. Я рад ответить на все вопросы…(Ya rad atvietits na vsie vaprosy)…
3. Спасибо всем за то, что пришли (Sposibo vsiem za to, shto prishli)…
4. Разрешите представиться. (Razpeshytie predstavitsa)…
5. Меня зовут… Я представитель компании… (Menya zavut….Ya predstovitiel kompanii…)…

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