Over the 17 years that I have studied the Spanish language, I have never ceased to love it. It makes even the most quotidian language sound beautiful and romantic – as if the office supervisor in Madrid or Buenos Aires giving orders had studied Ruben Dario or Jorge Luis Borges before speaking. The sounds are so beautiful and the morphology so tricky that one naturally becomes loquacious. And that likely applies to French and Italian as well.
That loquaciousness can be a real problem if a native Spanish or French or Italian speaker imports it into an American business context. Unlike those, American English prioritizes and rewards a direct, concise, declarative style.
For even a US-born American, it is tough to achieve clarity, brevity, and style. But, if you are coming from another country, there is also the extra burden of communicating within US cultural expectations.
Let’s explore this by looking at José María Álvarez-Pallete’s 2024 president’s presentation to stockholders of the company which he heads, Telefonica. Here is the link: https://www.telefonica.com/es/wp-content/uploads/sites/4/2024/04/jga24-discurso-presidente-Jose-Maria-Alvarez-Pallete.pdf
Telefonica is a multinational telecommunications company with headquarters in Madrid, currently employing slightly over 100,000 people with reported earnings of nearly 41 billion. It is a major player.
In his, Pallete elaborates high-flown conceptions about his company’s future with AI, largely setting aside dollars-and-cents data. Well into the speech, he says:
Hacemos de la Inteligencia Artificial una fuente de valor y eficiencia y, por eso, sobre esa conectividad hemos construido una capacidad cognitiva que nos capacita para ofrecer servicios y productos de última generación que darán a nuestros clientes la capacidad de mejorar sus vidas.
Luchamos por reglas justas entre todos los jugadores del mundo de la tecnología donde todos aporten su justa contribución y se eviten situaciones de abuso.
Creemos que la soberanía del dato es parte de la dignidad de la persona y no puede
ser expropiada sin contrapartida justa y consciente.
I would translate it as:
We are ensuring that Artificial Intelligence is a source of value and efficiency and therefore, with regard to that connectivity, we have constructed a cognitive capacity that shows us how to offer the newest generation of products and services so that our clients can improve their lives.
We are fighting to have fair rules among all the players in the world of technology, where everyone can make a fair contribution and avoid abusive situations.
We believe that data sovereignty is part of personal dignity and that it cannot be expropriated without fair and well-thought out setoffs.
Beautifully said. But you could not have a greater contrast between this and the hard-headed, direct approach of someone like Warren Buffet in addressing Berkshire-Hathaway shareholders.
First, notice how Palette grapples with theoretical conceptions that go beyond the world beyond the company and its clients. Even in announcing a vision with intricate aspects of storytelling, the American business speaker or writer would focus on the relationship between his company and his audience of stakeholders.
Second, notice how this has a somewhat political dimension to it with its use “fairness, “expropriation”, and “personal dignity.” In American business communications, with its theoretical firewall between the political and financial, the speaker would have to think long and hard about including such language, even if they are articulating a corporate vision. Along similar lines, he would be cautious about a word like “expropriate” which has a legal dimension.
Finally, notice the verbosity of the sentences, particularly the first one – which could easily be split into three. Then, there is: “We are fighting to have fair rules among all the players in the world of technology, where everyone can make a fair contribution and avoid abusive situations.” If Palette were my client saying this in American English, I would simply have him say, “We are fighting for fair play in the world of technology,” with the rest of the ideas being necessarily implied. That concision and directness actually gains credibility in American business culture.
So, as beautiful as the language undoubtedly is, it carries cultural expectations that must be dropped in favor of those more appropriate to an American business audience, particularly directness, brevity, and simplicity.
Like what you have read here? Are you an English as a foreign language speaker needing to learn the cultural nuances of communicating to an American business audience. Let’s get to work.
