When "Technical English" Is Not Enough

You have probably heard the term "technical English" used as if it is one fixed thing. Learn the vocabulary, get the grammar right, and you are done.

But engineers working across borders quickly discover they need more than one technical English — and more than one way to use it.

I recently spoke with Dr Omar Chavéz Alegría, professor and department head at the Facultad de Ingeniería at the Autonomous University of Querétaro in Mexico, about a project that spans three countries, three official languages, and more local languages than most people realise. What we talked about was not really about grammar at all. It was about which English — or which word, in any language — actually gets the job done.

If you work on international projects, this is worth your attention: engineers need more than one technical English, and the reason why might surprise you. The "right" technical term is not always the one in your textbook. Sometimes it is the one that the person on site actually understands. We have explored this idea before in the article on what Technical English actually is".

A Real Case Study: Engineering Across Three Languages

Dr Chavéz is part of the Eco-Innovation Network, an initiative that brings together universities, research institutions, and governments across Canada, the United States, and Mexico. The network works on real environmental engineering problems — water pollution, waste management, biodiversity loss — and it does that work across three countries simultaneously.

At the centre of it sits the Commission for Environmental Cooperation (CEC), headquartered in Montreal. The CEC was created alongside the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA, or TLCAN in Spanish) in 1994, specifically to manage the environmental impact of increased cross-border industrial activity. Its job is to coordinate environmental policy across North America — and to make sure that coordination actually reaches people, regardless of which language they speak.

In practice, that means every technical report the CEC produces is published in English, French, and Spanish. Every public meeting includes simultaneous interpretation across all three. The assumption built into the whole structure is simple: if someone cannot follow the conversation in their language, they are not really part of the conversation.

That is a reasonable principle for environmental policy. It is also a reasonable principle for engineering teams. If you want to see what that looks like in a real international project, this article on technical English and global collaboration goes into more detail.

What the Monarch Butterfly Can Teach Us About Working Across Borders

Every year, monarch butterflies migrate across North America. They move through Mexico, the United States, and Canada — three countries, three sets of environmental regulations, three languages — without stopping to negotiate any of it.

The people responsible for protecting that migration cannot do the same.

Tracking monarch populations, coordinating conservation efforts, sharing data across research institutions in three countries — all of that requires people to agree not just on the science, but on the language they use to discuss it. Which species counts as endangered? Which threshold triggers a policy response? These are not just biological questions. They are communication questions.

This is exactly what the CEC manages. And it is a useful reminder that in international engineering work, the technical problem is rarely the hardest part. Getting everyone into the same conversation is.

When the "Right" Word Is Not in Any Textbook

Here is where it gets interesting.

Dr Chavéz works on infrastructure projects in regions of Mexico where the working language on site is not Spanish. It is Maya, or Ñañu, or another indigenous language spoken by the local community. And when that is the case, the technical vocabulary changes completely.

The Spanish word for pavement does not help you if the crew in front of you speaks Maya. The word you need is saskap. The word for subgrade is kankap. These are not informal nicknames or shortcuts. They are the precise, correct terms for those construction elements in that language — and using them is the difference between a crew that understands the specification and one that does not.

This is not a niche problem. It is a version of the same challenge that shows up on international engineering teams everywhere: the "correct" technical term is only correct if the person you are talking to recognises it. Otherwise, it is just noise.

Clear is kind. And clear means using the word that actually lands — not the word that looks right on paper.

What This Means for Engineers: More Than One Technical English

If you are a non-native English speaker working on international projects, you have probably focused most of your energy on getting your English right. The grammar, the vocabulary, the formal register. That is a reasonable place to start — but engineers need more than one technical English to truly get the job done.

Dr Chavéz's work also points to that: merely knowing the word is not enough. You also need to know which version of that word works for the person in front of you.

Your client in Canada may use different terminology than your subcontractor in Mexico, even if both are working in English. Your stakeholder in Germany may understand "earthworks" perfectly, while someone from a different background reaches for "excavation" or "groundworks" for the same thing. None of them is wrong. But if you are the engineer coordinating across all of them, you need to notice the gap and close it.

That is a more advanced skill than vocabulary. It is audience awareness — knowing not just what a term means, but whether it will be understood by this person, in this context, on this project.

This is what engineers who communicate well actually do. Not just "speak English."

Adapt.

Want to Hear the Full Story?

This article covers the language and communication angle from my conversation with Dr Chavéz. But the episode goes much further.

We talk about the full history of NAFTA and its environmental consequences, the role of the Joint Public Advisory Committee (JPAC), how human and animal migration patterns intersect with environmental policy across North America, and what it actually looks like to coordinate conservation efforts at a continental scale.

If that sounds like your kind of rabbit hole, you can listen to the full episode here.

Bringing This to Your University

This conversation with Dr Chavéz started because he invited me to give a guest lecture at the Facultad de Ingeniería at the Autonomous University of Querétaro — a session with his students on what Technical English actually is and why it matters for engineers. The discussion that followed was one of the liveliest I have had in a classroom. Engineers ask pretty good questions when the topic is relevant to them.

It was not the first time. I have also given a guest lecture on presentation skills for engineers at a university in Colombia. Different topic, different country, same principle: engineers deserve language training that speaks their language — technically and professionally.

If you are part of a university — an engineering faculty, an international programmes office, a language centre — and you think your students would benefit from a session like that, I would love to hear from you. We can talk about what a guest lecture, a workshop, or a short course might look like for your department.

The first step is a free 15-minute call. No preparation needed on your end — just a conversation about what your students are dealing with and whether I can help.

Book a free 15-minute call →

Frequently Asked Questions