Estimated reading time: 8 minutes

In 1066, William the Conqueror invaded England and accidentally broke the English language.

Within two centuries, English had absorbed thousands of French words. Legal vocabulary, culinary terms, words for royalty and government — all French. “Attorney general” still follows French grammar to this day: adjective after the noun, just like in Paris. Nobody blinks.

English never recovered its purity. And it never tried to.

French has the Académie Française — a 387-year-old institution whose job is to protect the language from exactly this kind of contamination. German has Hochdeutsch, the formal highland standard. Japanese has its own regulated form.

English has a shrug.

Which means when you ask yourself whether your English is proper enough — proper enough for that international project call, that job interview abroad, that stakeholder presentation — you are chasing something that has never existed.

And once that lands, it changes everything.

English Has No Official Standard — and That’s Actually Good News

Most major languages have an official authority. English doesn’t.

Some linguists point to Received Pronunciation — the “BBC accent” — as a British standard. But very few people actually speak it, and it carries no formal authority outside of certain broadcasting contexts.

So when someone tells you to speak “proper English,” the fair question is: which one?

A Glaswegian accent sounds nothing like London English. Southern Alabama is a different world from the West Coast. And beyond native-speaking countries, English has taken on a life of its own — Indian English, Malaysian English, Nigerian English, Philippine English — all fully legitimate, widely spoken dialects with their own grammar, rhythm, and vocabulary.

English became the global language of engineering and business precisely because it doesn’t belong to anyone.

It adapts to every context it enters. Including the international engineering projects you’re working on right now.

English Didn’t Borrow From Other Languages. It Mugged Them.

The linguist’s joke is that English doesn’t borrow from other languages — it follows them down dark alleys and goes through their pockets for loose grammar and vocabulary.

That is not far from the truth.

The base is Old Germanic — Anglo-Saxon, rough and practical. Then the Vikings arrived and English quietly absorbed sky, window, knife, and they without asking. Then 1066 happened. French was the elite language, so English raided the French dictionary to sound fancy at dinner parties. That is why we use Germanic words for the basics — cow, pig, house — and French words for the expensive versions: beef, pork, mansion.

Then English smashed it all together with wildly inconsistent spelling and threw in random silent letters to keep everyone guessing.

A beautiful, chaotic, three-language trench coat pretending to be a proper language.

So when English feels inconsistent — when the rules make no sense, when exceptions outnumber the rules, when you have been studying for years and still get caught off guard — that is not a gap in your learning. That is just English being English.

The useful reframe: the rules were never sacred to begin with. Which means you are allowed to play with them.

What a Job Coach for Engineers in Australia Taught Me About This

In one episode of the English for Engineers podcast, I spoke with Natalie Peart, a job coach who works specifically with immigrant engineers in Australia. Her work focuses on helping technically qualified engineers navigate the Australian job market — the applications, the interviews, and the cultural adjustment to Australian workplaces.

One thing Natalie made very clear: Australian employers hiring engineers with English as a second language are not looking for someone who sounds like they grew up in Sydney. What they are looking for is someone who communicates professionally, handles workplace interactions confidently, and gets the job done.

Australian business English has its own flavour — more casual than formal British English, heavier on phrasal verbs, more direct in tone. There is a cultural expectation of informality that can catch engineers off guard if they arrive expecting a more hierarchical communication style.

But none of that requires a particular accent or textbook-correct grammar. It requires understanding how communication works in that specific context.

If you are specifically thinking about working as an engineer in Australia — the job applications, the interviews, what hiring managers actually look for — I wrote a companion article on exactly what Natalie shared from her experience coaching engineers through that process. [link coming soon]

Functional English: The Only English That Actually Matters

Stop asking: “Is my English correct?”

Start asking: “Am I getting my point across?”

Functional English means using the English you already have to do the one job it needs to do — communicate clearly, professionally, and without creating costly misunderstandings.

When I talk with international colleagues, I will use the Scottish “wee” for something small and the Southern US “y’all” for a group. Native speakers understand me every time. When one of my engineers asks why I’m mixing Scottish and American English in the same sentence, my answer is simple: “Because I can.”

That is the freedom of functional English. You draw from a global linguistic palette. You are not locked into one model.

What functional English is not:

• Memorising grammar rules that native speakers themselves cannot explain
• Studying for IELTS-style exams designed for academic, not professional, contexts
• Waiting until your English is “perfect” before participating in meetings or speaking up

What functional English is:

• Using vocabulary and phrasing that works in your specific professional context — technical meetings, stakeholder calls, written reports
• Knowing when to be direct, when to soften, and when to ask for clarification
• Building enough fluency that you stop translating in your head mid-sentence and start communicating in real time (more on this soon — I have a whole article coming that destroys the fluency myth)

One more thing worth saying out loud: clear is kind.

Not simplified. Not dumbed down. Clear. When your stakeholders understand you immediately, that is not a sign you over-explained. It is a sign you did your job. Clarity is not the enemy of precision — in engineering, it is the whole point.

Communication Style Is Not the Same as Correct Grammar

Different professional contexts call for different styles. Technical English for engineers on international projects is not the same as Business English at a London law firm. Neither is more “correct” than the other. They are optimised for different purposes.

My focus is on communication that works in engineering contexts: cross-border project meetings, stakeholder presentations, international team calls, technical documentation. We do not study for exams. We study for actual work.

Something worth naming: the engineers I work with are often excellent communicators in their native language. The challenge is rarely intelligence or professional competence — it is adapting that competence to a new linguistic environment. Once that shift happens, progress is fast.

Not sure where you stand? A free 15-minute call is a low-effort way to find out. [link:]

FAQ: Proper English for Non-Native Engineers

Stop Chasing Proper English. Start Communicating Like the Engineer You Already Are.

If you have been second-guessing your English, waiting until it is “good enough,” or feeling less capable in meetings than you know you actually are — let’s talk.

Book a free 15-minute discovery call. We will look at where you are, what is getting in the way, and whether working together makes sense. No commitment, no pitch.

If you are working on something more specific — a role abroad, stakeholder presentations, fluency for a particular challenge — a 1:1 session might be a better fit. Get in touch and tell me what you are dealing with. We will figure out the right next step together.