F2F Class Notes 29th October (Selma) [3-1]

NOTE: Leigh wanted to use the words form the ‘upgraded’ paragraph below as her Class 1 vocabulary, so for her next class, she will bring in a paragraph that will need to be checked.

Corrections

I studied German for one year, in my university.

my pronunciation became weird My pronunciation can sound weird some times. 

Vocabulary

beg to differ – fancy and sophisticated  way of saying to disagree

pardon me – excuse me

colloquial – informal and very often used

there are a lot of differences between chinese culture and german culture, for eg our chinese clients always think the verbal agreement is enough, but for the counter-party, they always think no, we should write it down to make sure everything is fixed / set in stone / clear. Sometimes for me it’s unbearable because i need to translate german into chinese for my chinese clients and at the same time i also need to translate chinese into german for my german colleagues because they cannot understand each other very well. in order to make my chinese client completely understand everything, i need to do a lot of research and studies / studying. at that moment i felt it was unbearable but after that when i reminisced i felt that i had already learned a lot of things from this communication.

Given my experience from working in a German law firm, I think there are a lot of differences between German and Chinese cultures.  One thing that particularly stands out to me is that oftentimes Chinese clients will think a verbal agreement is sufficient, however, our foreign clients will disagree. They believe all agreements should be written down, so that all terms are set in stone and equally clear to both parties. It can become very frustrating at times to have to translate from Chinese to German and vice versa in order to make sure both parties can completely understand what they negotiated. Since I am required to explain the details to my Chinese clients, I oftentimes have to do a lot of research myself so that I am able to do my job well. However, that can become very annoying. Yet, when I think about it, I realize that it is equally as beneficial to me, as I am able to learn a lot from this communication/interaction.