Most international engineering teams work in English. Some team members are fluent. Others are proficient. A few might...
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non-native speakers
For engineers who work in English as a second or additional language in their professional lives.
International Team Communication: What Non-Native English Speakers (and Their Colleagues) Need to Know
There's a particular kind of exhaustion that doesn't show up in any project report. It hits engineers at the end of a...
Spare the Details: Explaining Technical Work to Non-Technical Stakeholders
Most engineers do not lose time on the technical problem. They lose it on the explanation. Johan Bel knows that...
Neurolanguage Coaching and its Advantages for Engineers
Neurolanguage coaching blends neuroscience, language expertise and coaching into one approach. Olivia had seen the...
Multilingual Engineering Projects: How Three Countries Build in Three Languages
Most engineers accept that international projects run in English. Then they meet a project that runs in three...
How to Choose a Technical Translator: What Engineers Should Look For
Your specification goes out for translation. It comes back in French. You cannot check it, so you sign it off and...
Career Advice for Engineers Moving to Denmark (and Beyond)
If you're an engineer thinking about a move to Denmark, or you're already there and confused about why interviews keep...
The Austrian Oak: What Arnold Schwarzenegger Can Teach You About Learning English
Before Arnold Schwarzenegger was the Terminator, he was an Austrian immigrant. People mocked his accent, his body, and...
You Don’t Have to Master Everything Yourself
Ever felt like you should know every rule of English grammar, every verb tense, every exception, on top of actually...
How Technical Translators Work: The Unsung Heroes of Engineering
Clients ask Olivia to translate their documents all the time — a tender spec, a contract, a manual. She always says...
Authentically Aussie: How Engineers Get Hired in Australia
Thinking about moving to Australia as an engineer? The timing might be better than you think. Australia is short on...
Writing Work Emails in English (Without the Panic)
You can hold a technical conversation, defend your work in a meeting, and handle the hard parts of your job in a...
Systems at Work: Recognizing Patterns in Business English
Everything can sound new and confusing when you're learning a new language, especially when it comes to a language...
Finding Your Voice: Speaking Up as a Woman in Engineering
Speaking with people from other cultures can be difficult, but working in engineering as a woman can be even more...
Junk the Jargon: Why Engineering Jargon Isn’t Clear
In this episode of English for Engineers, I sit down with Becky Paroz, a 30-year veteran of the Australian...
Lost in Translation: How Culture Shapes Business Communication
You can have perfect grammar and still get completely misread. That's the whole premise of these two episodes — one...
Why International Teams Misread Each Other’s Response Times
A Japanese engineer emails a question to his German counterpart. The German technician knows the answer and replies...
Rubber, Pants, and “My Fault”: The British and American English Mix-Ups That Actually Matter
A senior lawyer, the head of an entire legal department, turned bright red on a train. He was escorting a 19-year-old...
Technical English vs Business English
What I Mean by "English for Engineers" In this episode of English for Engineers, I take on three terms that get thrown...
Well, Hello There, Engineers
In the first episode of the English for Engineers podcast, Olivia introduces herself and explains why a civil engineer...