A senior lawyer, the head of an entire legal department, turned bright red on a train. He was escorting a 19-year-old intern to her first day at a British office. She had arrived from the US days earlier, and he had two pieces of advice before they reached the building.

If someone asks you for a rubber, he said, they mean an eraser, not what you are thinking. And whatever you do, do not say pants when you mean trousers. Here, pants means underwear.

That intern was Ama Zbarcea, who I interviewed on my podcast. She now has over a decade of experience negotiating contracts across borders, and she still remembers repeating "rubber" and "trousers" to herself for the rest of that train ride, like a password to a culture she had not learned the rules of yet.

Here's the thing non-native English speakers rarely hear: you actually have an advantage here. You are allowed to mix British and American English in a way a native speaker cannot. Nobody expects you to pick a side. What you need is to know which words are safe to mix, and which ones are not.

Which English Should You Even Learn?

Engineers ask me this constantly: should I learn British English or American English? The honest answer is that you do not have to choose, and in some ways, you are better off not choosing.

A native English speaker generally sticks to one dialect their whole career. If a British person starts mixing in American spelling and slang, it can read as inconsistent, or even like they are showing off. You do not have that problem. As a non-native speaker, people expect your English to come from different sources: films, colleagues, courses, whichever country you happened to work in. Mixing is normal for you in a way it is not for a native speaker.

That is a real advantage. It also means you cannot rely on instinct the way a native speaker can, because you did not grow up absorbing which version of a word is safe in which room. You have to learn the handful of words that actually cause trouble, on purpose, the way you would learn any other piece of technical vocabulary.

Three Words That Do Not Mean What You Think They Mean

Here are three you should actually know.

Rubber: In American English, this usually means condom. In British English, it simply means eraser, the thing you use to correct a pencil mistake. If you are not sure which meaning your listener will hear, say eraser instead. It works everywhere and it embarrasses nobody.

Pants: In British English, pants means underwear. If you mean the trousers you wear over that, say trousers. Ama said "pants" about thirteen times in her first two weeks anyway, correcting herself each time. People noticed, people smiled, and nobody held it against her. That is worth remembering: getting it wrong even after you know the right word is completely normal, not a failure.

"It's completely my fault." In American English, this phrase is often used casually, a quick way to take the blame and move on: I made a mistake, I will fix it, no drama. Ama used to say it all the time. Said to a British colleague, the same words are taken completely literally, as a full and serious admission that the entire fault is yours. Same sentence, same words, and one version costs you nothing while the other one might follow you around the office for months.

"That's So Interesting" Might Be the Politest No You Will Ever Hear

Some false friends are not about a single word. They are about an entire sentence that sounds positive and means the opposite.

In British workplace culture, indirectness is often a form of politeness. If a British colleague responds to your idea with "that's interesting," or worse, "that's so interesting," do not assume that was a compliment. In many contexts, it is a polite way of saying: I do not think this is a good idea, but I am not going to say that directly.

To an American ear, or to anyone trained on more direct communication styles, "interesting" sounds neutral at worst, complimentary at best. In British English, said in the right tone, in the right meeting, it can mean the exact opposite. The words stay warm. The message underneath does not.

There is no foolproof way to tell the two apart from the words alone. What helps is watching what happens next. Genuine interest usually comes with a follow-up question, or a next step. A polite no tends to end the sentence right there, with nothing built on top of it.

If you are ever unsure which one you just received, it is a completely reasonable question to ask directly: does this mean you would like to move forward, or is there a concern you would rather raise? Asking is free. Guessing wrong can cost you weeks of work built on an idea nobody actually approved.

When You Get It Wrong Anyway

Sometimes the mix-up is not about a single word. It is about your whole style.

Ama was often the one on her British team who got put on the phone to resolve conflict, because Americans tend to be more comfortable with direct confrontation, and it did not intimidate her the way it can intimidate a more conflict-averse colleague. One day, a colleague from Slovakia overheard her hang up after solving a problem quite assertively. The colleague spun around and shouted, with real warmth: "Ama, I love you. You are so rude."

Ama tried to correct her gently: I think you mean assertive, or a problem solver. The colleague said it again anyway, several times, delighted. In her own Eastern European background, that kind of directness was something she admired and had been missing from her British colleagues. It was, genuinely, a compliment.

But Ama still had to explain, carefully, that the word rude needs to be used with caution in the UK. Rudeness is taken seriously in British culture. If the wrong person overheard that comment and believed it literally, it could have cost Ama her reputation, not built it.

If you ever find out that somebody read you as rude, or pushy, or something else you did not intend, here is roughly what Ama does. Wait until emotions settle a little before you bring it up. Then approach the person casually, in person or on the phone, and say plainly what happened: I said these things, and I felt something was off afterward. From my side, I was not trying to be rude. If it came across that way, I am sorry for the effect, even if that was never the intention. Then invite them to tell you directly next time, instead of assuming the worst about you.

There is also a smaller trick that helps before any of this happens. Ama never introduces herself to someone new by email. She calls, so people hear her accent first. Hearing an American voice makes British colleagues more forgiving in advance, in her experience, because they immediately know she is not from their culture and might say things that land differently than intended. I do something close to this with my own second, third, or fourth language: within the first few minutes of speaking, I mention that it is not my native language, so people are primed for the odd grammar slip or cultural mismatch before it happens.

If you want the fuller story behind this interview, Why International Teams Misread Each Other's Response Times covers the other half of my conversation with Ama, on how fast and slow replies get misread across cultures.

Not Sure Which Version of English You're Speaking?

Most of what derails people on international teams is not big grammar mistakes. It's the small stuff: a word that means something different than you think, a phrase that is more polite than direct, a reputation you didn't mean to build.

That's exactly what I help engineers work through: not a longer vocabulary list, but clear communication on international projects. Clear is kind, and it also saves you time and money, because your message gets across the first time instead of the third.

If that sounds useful, book a free 15-minute call, and we can talk through what's actually derailing your communication.

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Original Post from 4 January 2022; latest update: 24 August 2026.