to expect (non-British/US/Austrialian etc) people working in a professional arena to be able to write English, or to get help?

[TalkShowHost]

I am working on an international project where I am writing reports with colleagues from across Europe - the working language is English. It's natural that they won't be able to communicate as well as a native, and I don't mind correcting bits of grammar - but I am receiving official reports that are gibberish.

I suppose I don't want to offend anyone, but much of this work needs a complete and utter re-write and we're talking of 100 page documents. How do I approach this sensitively? They really need to be paying for a translator.

I obviously get the error in my quickly written OP, which defeats my point a little, but I'm annoyed!

I'm not sure whether you're being unreasonable to expect them to be able to write English. But they are unreasonable if they think that you, as the native English speaker, should rewrite everyone else's work to get it to an acceptable level of comprehensibility.

If they need a translator then you will have to tell them bluntly I think. You'll be lucky to manage it without offending them though...

You could raise the issue of communication skills with the Project Manager?

You need to raise this with a manager asap before you translating everything becomes the norm.

The problem is I don't think there is budget set aside for translation

How is it offensive to expect people to be able to do all aspects of their job properly?
If they are struggling to write correct, intelligible English then either they write in their native language and the company pays for translation, or they mploy someone who can do the whole job properly, or they run classes to ensure that reports are up to scratch.

Are you the project manager, OP, or just a working member? The project manager should have considered this as part of the project risk assessment and recommended a proportion of the overall project budget be put aside for translation costs. Is there a change control process so that the issue can be raised and considered now, and if necessary some money diverted or the budget increased?

I'm a working member of the team - my boss is also a not a native english speaker and I'm used to correcting the occasional bit of text for him, yet for these reports, they're complete nonsense and I can barely make sense of them.

I agree with selectausernames advice. Sounds like the budget for a translator needs to be CR'd in.

Pass the problem up the line with a suggestion that you could translate the garbled English for £20 an hour or so.

tell your boss that the reports you are receiving do not make sense because of the poor quality of written english and ask him if he can provide a translating service for those who are not native speakers

I often wonder how the people in customer service who cant speak English, get through the interview. It boggles the mind when they cant even understand a simple question like where is the cheese?

I had to write to sainsbury and suggest they give this poor soul a job off the shop floor as clearly she wasnt equipped

If you're talking important documents then I agree with you - they should hire a translator or make sure their staff's English is up to scratch.

It's extremely unfair that non-English speakers are expected to learn our language while many people from Anglophone countries will never need or try to become proficient in another language, but it's the way the business world is right now. Who knows, generations from now it might be Mandarin or Arabic that's the international business language.

I work in a language school where we prepare international students for IELTS (English, basically) tests. These tests are hard and the students work their arses off. Its so amazing to see how they improve in a few months. I don't see how, if university students are expected to reach a certain level of fluency before being allowed to study, that people in the corporate world don't face the same pressure.

OP I sympathise. I had a very similar experience earlier in the week. There's a cross-Europe project about to kick off at work and we had a preparation teleconference a few days ago. The synopsis which came back from the project manager was garbage - not only badly written, but wrong on a number of points. It would have been less time-consuming if I had just written the synopsis without us having the bloody call. Quite what the project leader was doing in all this I don't know because they clearly hadn't checked the document.

Same project leader sent an email today asking us to save the day for a kick off meeting...on the very day I told him was the worst possible day to have such a meeting and when the teleconferencing kit is not usable. I despair.

beaker because they are interviewed by someone for whom English is not their native language. Ever likely everyone complains they can't be understood.

I speak/understand three other languages, one of them fluently and I would not send out crap in any of them - I'd either check, check and check again or admit my limitations depending on the language.

sounds like outsourcing somewhere cheap - and getting what they pay for. There's a lot of it about.

flag it up, your manager has messed up their budgeting but that's not your problem.

I sympathise, too, OP. We didn't realise until too late, and the project leaders are among the worst offenders, argh. What's worse, they're sometimes talking about fairly complex academic theory that isn't our area of expertise, anyway.

We've had weird conversations talking at cross purposes, only we didn't realise until after the fact. My boss (polyglot himself) resorted to asking his wife who speaks (their European language) like a native & he suddenly understood a bit more what our non-fluent partners were trying to say.

... oh, and some of the minor project partners have members who since they can't understand what they're reading they just fudge the results they send back. I had to nicely but firmly ask for that person not to do the next bit of project work.

Definitely flag it up. It's also clearly a long term training issue - if these people are expected to write English language reports then they need training in business English writing, and not just a one day communication skills course but something longer term.