English for Entrepreneurs

[Hicks]

Hi.
I have noticed on this site that there are a lot of 'non-English as a first language' entrepreneurs. I was thinking about doing a book exclusively for them to provide them with the English they need....then I thought the market would be too small so I then thought that I could have it as a section of a Business English book.

I would appreciate people's feedback; especially if English is not your first language.

Would you read/buy this?
What topics would you like to see included?
Would you like interviews? Ie real world examples.
Would you like testing sections at the end of each chapter? I usually hate this as you need time for things to sink in.
Would you like pro-forma letters/copy that you could just add the details (so as to avoid grammar mistakes etc).

Anything else?

Of course if I do go ahead I will give you a free copy

Thanks very much for your time.

 

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[Hicks]

LOL!
That popular EH?

Good job I asked first.

 

[Roland]

Can you speak several languages? If you do, I am sure you know that it is not with a book that you can learn a foreign language.

Personnally, I would no longer buy a book to learn a language. The only way I have found to efficiently learn a language and be able to reach a decent level is by practising it with native speaker (and in immersion in the country). In a book you will find the basics only and the theory but as everybody knows, the theory and the real life are always quite different. Every non-native English person here will know all the basics to understand what is said in this forum.

Sorry to be negative but I am exactly your targeted customer and I would never buy such a book.

 

[Hicks]

Hi, thanks for the response. I tend to agree with you. I went to 'language school' for two years full time in the target language country but things really took off when I started watching 3-5 hours of tv a day.

A lot of people/universities etc do buy language books (its a big industry), but I think the type that would be an entrepreneur would have more of a 'do it yourself mentality'.

Thanks for your feedback, it's clarified it for me.

 

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[Roland]

I am not saying that there is no market for your idea but the targeted customers you described in your first post are probably not the good ones.
Happy if it helped

 

[Hicks]

I think you are right, thanks a lot. It can be quite tricky picking what angle to take with these things.

 

[FastNAwesome]

English is not your first language.

Check.

Would you read/buy this?

No. Lots of free info and translators online. Book doesn't teach you how to pronounce,
doesn't give you feedback, and doesn't impose an obligation to show up in class... so
I think live courses are superior.

Anything else?

I wish I could improve my spoken English, but guess it's just practice.

 

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[Dave C]

I only care about learning improved grammar.

The market you may want to improve is that most people can learn to speak to 80% of a language within six months but that last 20% takes years. Unless you can improve that. Does that have a market? I have no idea.

But teaching languages involves creating a system, selling people on that method etc etc

 

[BaladOfARichMan]

What I miss the most as a non-native English speaker here is the lack of support/feedback in my language.

The online things that Im starting are all in Spanish since I live in Spain, Spanish is my first language and above all I'm a beginner in business. So I cannot send you the links (like lot of people here do) to get the advice, support, criticism or feedback in general. I dont mean that TFF should have a Spanish section. It is just that I miss that feedback from you.

 

[Hicks]

Thank you all for your feedback and opinions. Pretty interesting. I think if you work in an industry for long enough you assume you know everything which of course you don't.

I wish I could improve my spoken English, but guess it's just practice.

Actually, I would suggest that you concentrate on accuracy; which you can do on your own. If I were you I would read and watch as much as possible and then input 'real sentences' into a spaced repetition programme such as 'anki'. Basically what this does is that it gets you to memorize chunks of real language and then increases the spaces in which you are tested. This is a bit like 'language weight training' so you start with being tested after a few days and then after 4 days then 8 etc etc. This will vastly improve your accuracy as you will not be constructing sentences out of nothing but will be using perfectly constructed bite sized pieces of language. This is how we actually learn language. Grammar rules are used to explain languge not to construct it.....which is why text books so often produce terrible speakers. Concentrate on 'collocations' and 'full sentences' not individual words strung together with rules.

Here is a link to anki. https://ankiweb.net/
Here is a link about spaced repetition.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spaced_repetition and http://www.fluentin3months.com/spaced-repetition/
Here is a link to 'All Japanese All the time' a site that explains these methods perfectly. http://alljapaneseallthetime.com/

I only care about learning improved grammar.

The market you may want to improve is that most people can learn to speak to 80% of a language within six months but that last 20% takes years. Unless you can improve that. Does that have a market? I have no idea.

But teaching languages involves creating a system, selling people on that method etc etc

Interesting. This has given me insight on why some things sell better than others. Thanks

What I miss the most as a non-native English speaker here is the lack of support/feedback in my language.

The online things that I'm starting are all in Spanish since I live in Spain, Spanish is my first language and above all I'm a beginner in business. So I cannot send you the links (like lot of people here do) to get the advice, support, criticism or feedback in general. I dont mean that TFF should have a Spanish section. It is just that I miss that feedback from you.

Unfortunately I am unable to comment, but I do know that there are some Spanish people on this site maybe they will be able to help.

As I said I really appreciate the feedback. I think basically what I was thinking was that I've been onto a few start-up websites and they have glaring English mistakes which would cause them to lose sales. But I think probably their English is pretty good so rather than a book they just need to get their sites properly proofread.

Thanks again for saving me some time and energy.

 

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[Formless]

@Hicks Nice to see a fellow AJATTer here

 

[Hicks]

Hi yes I used it for the JLPT. Would never of managed it otherwise. Great site.

 

[FionaS]

I'm an AJATTer too! Even though I don't study Japanese (Russian and Spanish). It has some amazing resources.

I also love Anki in my language study, it is very helpful.

As far as the book itself, I don't see a huge market for it. My first language is Dutch, and even though I speak English to native fluency, I would not have considered this if I didn't. But, I've always been the 'write it and get someone to proofread' kinda person... I'm not a fan of books.

There are so many free resources for English out there, another book (even if it is focused on English) may not make that much of a difference. If you google 'business english' there are a bunch of books out there already.

Maybe you could look into 'business german/russian/japanese/chinese'? Those languages all seem to be fairly popular in business as well, and less resources are available for each of them.

 

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