Many professionals struggle with one of two extremes.
Some say too little. They hold back, soften their message, or avoid difficult conversations altogether.
Others push too hard. They interrupt, blame, criticize, or try to win at the other person’s expense.
Neither approach works well.
Assertive communication means expressing your thoughts, needs, and boundaries clearly while treating the other person with respect. It is not about being forceful. It is about being clear.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published September 2026
Passive language often comes from good intentions.
You may hold back because you want to avoid conflict or worry about hurting someone’s feelings. You may fear damaging a relationship or believe your opinion doesn’t matter. You may feel uncomfortable challenging someone with more authority or be new to the company and unsure of your place. You may also worry about negative consequences, including losing your job.
These concerns are understandable.
The problem is that habitual passivity often leads to frustration, resentment, and missed opportunities. People cannot respond to needs you never express.
Being assertive is a skill. Like any skill, it improves with practice.
Assertive communication is:
It communicates self-respect without disrespecting anyone else.
In practice, that means:
It also means being aware of habits on the passive end that undermine you: minimizing your own needs, apologizing for having an opinion, or giving away your power to avoid discomfort.
On the aggressive end, it means avoiding habits that damage working relationships: attacking, judging, blaming, or spending too much time reliving the past instead of solving the problem.
Sometimes you genuinely don’t care about the outcome. Sometimes another person’s idea is simply better. Choosing not to push your own preference can be perfectly appropriate.
The important thing is that it is a conscious choice—not a habit born from fear or uncertainty.
The right message delivered at the wrong moment often fails.
Some conversations belong in private. Some should wait until emotions have cooled. Choosing the right time is part of communicating well.
Speaking up does not guarantee you’ll get what you want. Occasionally, you may be ignored, challenged, or even criticized.
But professionals who never speak up rarely influence decisions, develop leadership presence, or earn the trust that comes from honest communication.
The difference between passive and assertive language is often smaller than people expect. Here are some common workplace situations.
Passive:
“It’s okay if you don’t have time. I’ll just do it myself.”
Assertive:
“I’d appreciate your help with this project. I know you’re busy. Can we look together at how we might fit it in?”
Passive:
“Whatever you decide is fine with me.”
Assertive:
“I like that direction. I’d also like to share another idea before we decide.”
Passive:
“It’s fine if I don’t get to speak.”
Assertive:
“I’d like to give a brief update on our progress. Could we find a few minutes on the agenda?”
Passive:
Allowing one person to dominate.
Assertive:
“Let’s park that topic for now so we can cover the rest of today’s agenda.”
Passive:
“Whatever you think is probably right.”
Assertive:
“I see it differently. Let me explain how I reached my conclusion.”
Passive:
“No, I’m fine. It didn’t bother me.”
Assertive:
“That was stronger feedback than I expected. I’d like some time to think about it before I respond.”
Passive:
“I didn’t really want that project anyway.”
Assertive:
“I had hoped to get that assignment, so I’m disappointed. I’ll prepare well for the next opportunity.”
Passive aggression sounds polite on the surface but communicates resentment underneath. Instead of solving problems, it creates new ones.
Passive-aggressive:
“I guess you didn’t want to hear my comments in the meeting.”
Assertive:
“I was disappointed that I didn’t get a chance to contribute. What can I do next time to make sure I have an opportunity to speak?”
Passive-aggressive:
“You must have been exhausted when you wrote this.”
Assertive:
“I’d be happy to help edit this if that would be useful.”
Passive-aggressive:
“Sure... I don’t mind working all weekend.”
Assertive:
“I understand the urgency, but I’m not available this weekend.”
Passive-aggressive through gossip:
“George, let me tell you what Susan did.”
Assertive:
“Susan, I’d like to discuss something that bothered me. Do you have a few minutes?”
Assertiveness is not about winning.
It is not about dominating conversations or getting your own way every time.
It is about expressing yourself honestly, respectfully, and clearly enough that other people understand what you think, what you need, and where you stand.
That is an important part of clear, respectful professional communication.
Do you need to communicate more assertively at work? Our spoken business English training is tailored to your needs and goals by a native-speaker trainer.
You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
You are doing well in your role. Your technical knowledge is strong. You are dependable. Your manager sees potential.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published September 2026
Then comes the feedback:
“If you want to move to the next level, you need to work on your communication.”
This is common advice. It is also frustratingly vague.
What exactly are you supposed to work on?
Do you talk too much—or too little? Are your explanations unclear? Do you need to sound more confident, listen better, handle disagreement differently, or become more concise?
“Communication skills” is not one skill. It is an umbrella term for many different behaviors. Unless you identify which of those behaviors is creating a problem, it is difficult to improve.
The useful question is not:
How do I become a better communicator?
It is:
What does better communication need to look like in my role?
A useful way to answer that question is to look for unnecessary listener effort. Where are people having to search for your point, interpret your meaning, or translate your message into something useful?
If your manager says you need to improve your communication, resist the temptation to respond with:
“Okay, I’ll work on that.”
Instead, get specific. You might ask:
These questions turn a broad judgment into observable behavior.
That matters because “needs stronger communication skills” can mean many different things.
This could mean that your listener has trouble identifying your main point.
Perhaps you:
If this is the issue, the skills to work on may include clear thinking, structure, precise language, concision, listening, pronunciation, prosody, and audience awareness.
A useful habit is to ask yourself:
What is the one thing I want this person to understand?
Then make sure that message is easy to find.
Sometimes the problem is not that your ideas are unclear. It is that the listener has to work too hard to get to them.
You may:
This is especially noticeable in meetings with senior colleagues, where time and attention are limited.
Concision does not mean saying as little as possible. It means giving the listener enough information without making them sort through the rest.
Try:
Headline → essential support → stop
If more detail is needed, the listener can ask for it.
Our post about concision explains how you can say more, with less.
This feedback is often misunderstood.
Your manager may not be asking you to feel more confident. They may be reacting to signals in your communication.
For example:
“I don’t know, but maybe we could possibly…”
creates a very different impression from:
“I recommend option B.”
Other confidence signals include:
Confidence may be an internal feeling, but other people perceive it through observable behavior. You can communicate confidence even when you do not yet feel completely confident.
You can work on those behaviors directly.
This does not necessarily mean you need to talk more. It may mean that your ideas are not visible enough.
You may be waiting until you are completely certain before contributing, speaking only when directly invited, or letting other people frame the discussion before you enter it.
At more senior levels, people are often expected to contribute judgment, not simply information.
That might mean saying:
Speaking up is not about dominating the room. It is about making your thinking available when it can help the group.
This usually does not mean using bigger words. Nor does it necessarily mean that your strategic thinking is weak. The problem may be how you communicate that thinking.
Less senior communication often stays close to activities, details, and processes. Senior or strategic communication tends to focus more on:
Compare:
“I spoke to the supplier, reviewed the schedule, and checked with operations.”
with:
“We can still meet the deadline, but only if we approve the supplier change today.”
The first tells us what you did. The second tells us what it means.
Similarly, instead of saying:
“We had three calls with the client and changed the timeline twice.”
try:
“The client has changed scope twice, which now puts the launch date at risk.”
Then go another level:
“We need a scope decision this week, or we should reset the launch date.”
As people move into leadership, they are increasingly expected to interpret information rather than simply report it.
Strategic communication answers questions such as:
“Executive presence” is often the label people use when several communication issues appear together.
It is also a phrase that can sound impressive while telling you very little. Rather than treating executive presence as something mysterious or innate, it is more useful to break it into observable behaviors.
At The English Center, we look at five broad areas:
The point is not to imitate a stereotypical executive. It is to make your communication easier to trust, follow, and act on. You can read more in our article: What is Executive Presence?
This often means you are communicating the same way with everyone.
But different listeners need different things:
Good communicators do not simply ask:
What do I want to say?
They also ask:
What does this person need from me?
That is audience awareness, and it becomes increasingly important as your responsibilities grow.
Sometimes communication feedback appears only when there is tension.
Perhaps you communicate well when everyone agrees but become too blunt, too passive, too defensive, or too accommodating when the stakes rise.
You may need to work on:
Strong communication is not demonstrated only in presentations and meetings. It is often most visible when the conversation becomes uncomfortable.
People rarely receive this feedback in such direct words. Instead, they may hear:
Listening is not passive.
Active listeners try to understand the message before constructing their response. They notice what has actually been asked, what has not been said, and what matters most to the speaker.
Listening makes almost every other communication skill better. If you listen poorly, even a beautifully structured response may be the wrong response.
This usually does not mean you need to become more entertaining.
In professional communication, storytelling means helping people understand what happened, why it mattered, what you did, and what they should take from it.
This matters in:
A good professional story has a point. Without one, it is simply chronology.
If you're serious about improving this skill, our Business Storytelling Coaching Course is perfect for you.
This feedback needs careful diagnosis.
The issue may be language, but it may also be delivery.
For professionals who use English as an additional language, managers sometimes use vague expressions such as “be clearer,” “improve your English,” or “work on your accent” when what they are actually experiencing is increased listener effort.
Possible causes include:
A strong accent is not automatically a problem.
The useful question is:
Which features of my speech are making listeners work harder than necessary?
That is much more specific—and much more trainable—than simply trying to “lose your accent.”
Our blog post, Why You're Hard to Understand in English and How to Fix It, goes into more detail on the subject.
These different communication problems have something important in common: the listener is being asked to do work that the speaker could have done.
Strong communication removes as much of that unnecessary work as possible.
If you have been told to “work on your communication,” start here.
Do people struggle to find my point?
Focus on clarity, structure, and headline-first communication.
Do I regularly get told I talk too much?
Focus on concision, listening, and selecting relevant details.
Do I know my subject but sound uncertain?
Focus on confidence signals, hedging, pace, and vocal delivery.
Do I contribute information but rarely make recommendations?
Focus on judgment, headline-first communication, and strategic framing.
Are my ideas largely invisible in meetings?
Focus on speaking up, making concise contributions, and communicating with conviction.
Do people react badly to my directness?
Focus on diplomacy, audience awareness, and interpersonal intelligence.
Do I avoid difficult conversations?
Focus on assertiveness, boundaries, and difficult-conversation skills.
Do I explain well to experts but lose everyone else?
Focus on audience calibration and simplifying without oversimplifying.
Do listeners frequently ask me to repeat myself?
Identify whether the cause is volume, pace, articulation, pronunciation, phrasing, terminology, or audio quality before deciding what to practice.
Do I answer thoroughly but somehow still miss the point?
Focus on active listening.
Once you understand what the feedback means, turn it into something you can practice.
This creates a practical development cycle: example, diagnosis, practice, and feedback.
Managers can help by making communication feedback more specific.
Instead of:
“You need better communication skills.”
Try:
“In senior meetings, you often give us the background before the recommendation. I want you to lead with the recommendation and then give us the two or three facts that support it.”
Instead of:
“You need more presence.”
Try:
“You know the subject, but you soften your recommendations so much that people aren’t sure what you actually think.”
Instead of:
“Be clearer.”
Try:
“When you explain technical issues to clients, you include details they don’t need. Start with the business impact and add technical detail only if they ask.”
That kind of feedback gives someone something specific to practice.
You do not have to become louder, more extroverted, more polished, more charismatic, or less yourself.
Communication is a collection of skills. Some may already be strengths. Others may be limiting your impact.
The goal is not to transform your personality. It is to identify where your listener is working too hard, where your message is losing force, and which specific behaviors will make you easier to understand, trust, and work with.
So, the next time someone tells you:
“You need to work on your communication,”
do not stop at the label. Ask:
“What would better communication look like?”
That is where useful development begins.
If you have received vague feedback about your communication and are unsure what to work on, a targeted communication assessment can help identify the specific behaviors affecting your impact.
So, do you need to work on your communication skills at work? Our spoken business English training is tailored to your needs and goals by a native-speaker trainer.
You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
Meetings bring many professional communication skills together in real time. You need to listen, think, speak spontaneously, read the room, structure your ideas, respond to other people, ask questions, disagree when necessary, and sometimes help the conversation itself work better.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published August 2026
That is why someone can speak excellent English and still struggle in meetings. Fluency helps, but meeting communication is a different skill.
Effective meeting communication is also not about speaking the most. A useful question, a clear recommendation, a well-timed challenge, or a concise summary can contribute more than several minutes of talking.
The strongest meeting communicators understand both what they want to contribute and what the conversation needs from them. Sometimes that means making a point. Sometimes it means listening. Sometimes it means clarifying a misunderstanding, bringing the discussion back on track, or helping the group reach a decision.
And there is no single “correct” meeting style. The way you communicate should change according to the meeting you are actually in.
Advice such as “speak up,” “interrupt politely,” or “be concise” only makes sense in context. Before deciding how to communicate, consider what kind of meeting you are in.
A three-person meeting is usually conversational. There is more natural turn-taking, more opportunity to ask questions, and more space to develop an idea.
In a working meeting of six or eight people, you may need to enter the conversation more deliberately. Contributions often need to be shorter because several people are competing for limited time.
In a larger meeting, opportunities to speak become less frequent. You may need to decide in advance which one or two points are worth making.
In a town hall or large presentation-style meeting, effective participation may mean asking one strong question rather than contributing throughout.
The goal is not to speak equally in every setting. It is to contribute appropriately.
A brainstorming session, status update, decision meeting, client meeting, negotiation, one-to-one, and project review all require different communication.
In brainstorming, you may build freely on unfinished ideas. In a decision meeting, the ability to summarize options and recommend a course of action becomes more important. In a client meeting, listening, questioning, and managing relationships may matter more than demonstrating everything you know.
Ask yourself:
What is this meeting supposed to accomplish?
That question should influence how you communicate.
Your communication job may change from meeting to meeting. You might be there as a subject-matter expert, manager, project owner, client representative, facilitator, presenter, decision-maker, or junior team member.
You do not need to perform the same role in every room.
Ask:
In person, eye contact, posture, body orientation, facial expression, and small vocal signals help manage turn-taking.
Online, many of those signals are weaker. Delays make interruptions more awkward, people may speak at the same time, and silence is harder to interpret. You may need to make your intentions more explicit.
Hybrid meetings create another problem: people physically in the room often have a communication advantage. They can see subtle cues, make eye contact, and enter the conversation more naturally. Remote participants can easily become observers unless the meeting leader actively includes them.
A meeting between close colleagues is different from a meeting with the CEO. A Dutch team may have different expectations around direct disagreement than a British, Japanese, American, or highly international team.
Even within the same country, company and industry cultures vary.
Effective meeting communication is therefore not a fixed style. It is the ability to adjust your communication to the people, purpose, power dynamics, and environment in front of you.
Good meeting communication often begins before the meeting.
You do not need to script everything you plan to say. In fact, doing so can make you less responsive to what actually happens. But a few minutes of preparation can reduce the pressure of having to think about both your ideas and your English at exactly the same time.
Before an important meeting, consider:
If you expect a difficult discussion, prepare a few phrases as well. Knowing how you will introduce a concern, challenge an idea, or ask for clarification removes one source of pressure when the moment arrives.
Before your next meeting, identify one or two contributions you genuinely want to make. You are much more likely to speak when you have already decided that those points matter.
“Speak when you have something to say” sounds like sensible advice, but effective participation requires more judgment than that.
A better question is:
What does the conversation need from me right now?
Sometimes it needs your expertise. Sometimes it needs a question. Sometimes someone has already made your point and repeating it adds little. Sometimes the group needs clarification or a summary more than another opinion.
Good communicators pay attention to what has already happened in the conversation and choose their moment accordingly.
This involves two kinds of contribution.
You add information, ideas, recommendations, questions, concerns, or expertise.
You help the group communicate or work more effectively. You might clarify what is being decided, summarize where the discussion has reached, bring the conversation back on track, invite another perspective, or identify a misunderstanding.
Both can be valuable.
At the same time, do not let “reading the room” become an excuse for disappearing from it. Professionals sometimes talk themselves out of making useful contributions because they are uncertain about their English, worried about interrupting, or waiting for a perfect opening that never comes.
If you have something relevant to contribute, you generally need to find a way into the conversation.
There is also a more serious reason people sometimes remain quiet: speaking may carry genuine interpersonal or organizational risk. If a team punishes disagreement or a senior person regularly shuts people down, the problem is not simply confidence or communication technique. Good communication includes recognizing those realities and choosing your strategy accordingly.
Instead of asking yourself, “Should I talk more?”, ask:
“What useful contribution can I make to this meeting?”
Knowing what you want to say does not help if you never get the opportunity to say it.
In many international business meetings, turns are not formally offered. Participants signal that they want to speak and enter the conversation themselves.
Useful phrases include:
These phrases make your intention clear without requiring aggression.
Pausing does not necessarily mean you have finished speaking. But if your voice, face, and body all signal completion, someone else may understandably take the turn.
When you need a moment, you can signal that your thought is continuing:
Your voice matters too. If every phrase ends with the vocal pattern of a completed statement, listeners may assume you have finished. Eye contact, body orientation, and continuing vocal energy can help signal that the floor is still yours.
You do not need to fill every pause with um, you know, or a stream of extra words. A deliberate pause often sounds more confident than rushing.
The easiest response is often to stop speaking. That can become a habit.
If you were genuinely finished, let the other person continue. If you were not, calmly reclaim your turn:
You do not need to raise your voice. The goal is simply to make it clear that your contribution is not complete.
Interrupting is not automatically rude. In some meetings, it is necessary to prevent one person from monopolizing the discussion, clarify a misunderstanding before it grows, or stop the conversation drifting away from its purpose.
For example:
To clarify
“Sorry—before you go on, can I check that I've understood correctly?”
To redirect
“I want to make sure we get back to the main question before we run out of time.”
To add an important point
“Can I jump in there? There's one issue we haven't considered.”
To create space for others
“I'd like to hear a few other perspectives on this as well.”
The appropriate amount of interruption varies considerably between teams, cultures, personalities, and meeting formats. The principle is not interrupt more. It is learn to manage conversational space deliberately.
Online meetings often require clearer verbal signals:
In hybrid meetings, people in the physical room should pay particular attention to remote participants, who have fewer natural ways to enter the conversation.
Notice what you currently do when someone interrupts you. If you routinely abandon the floor, practice one simple phrase:
“Just to finish my point—”
Meetings move quickly. If people have to wait too long to discover your point, they may stop following—or someone else may make the same point more clearly while you are still working toward it.
Strong meeting communicators usually give the headline before the history.
Compare:
“Well, I've been looking at the data, and I noticed there are some patterns across Q2 and Q3, particularly in the northern region, and what I think this might suggest is...”
with:
“The data suggests we have a regional problem in the north. Here's why I think that.”
The second version tells listeners immediately where the contribution is going. The supporting detail now has a purpose.
A useful structure is:
Point → explanation → evidence or example
For example:
“I recommend delaying the launch by two weeks. We still have two unresolved security issues, and releasing now would create unnecessary risk.”
This is not about making every sentence short. Some ideas require explanation. The goal is to give listeners enough structure to follow your thinking.
Small phrases can help enormously:
These phrases tell listeners how to organize what follows.
If someone else makes your point before you do, you can let it go or add something genuinely useful.
For example:
“I agree with James that timing is the main risk. I'd add one thing: we also need to consider the impact on customer support.”
That shows engagement without repeating the conversation.
After your next meeting, choose one contribution you made and ask:
Could the main point have come earlier?
If the answer is yes, rewrite it mentally with the headline first.
Listening in a meeting is not passive.
Strong participants do not simply wait until another person stops talking. They use what they hear.
One way to show this is to connect your contribution explicitly to the conversation:
This makes your contribution part of a shared discussion rather than a sequence of individual speeches.
In person, eye contact, a nod, facial expression, and taking notes can signal attention without taking up floor time.
Online, these signals are weaker or sometimes invisible, so verbal acknowledgement may become more important.
Visible listening is particularly useful for professionals who tend to become quiet while thinking. Silence does not always communicate concentration to other people; sometimes it is interpreted as disengagement.
A good question can add more value than another opinion.
Useful questions might clarify:
“What do we mean by success here?”
Test an assumption:
“What makes us confident demand will increase?”
Explore consequences:
“If we choose option B, what happens to the timeline?”
Bring out another perspective:
“How does the operations team see this?”
Or force useful clarity:
“What decision do we actually need to make today?”
Questions are not a lesser form of participation. Often they are one of the most sophisticated forms.
In your next meeting, make one contribution that begins with something another person has said rather than starting from your own position.
Disagreement is a normal part of productive professional communication. The difficulty is making your challenge clear without creating unnecessary resistance.
Compare:
“You're wrong about the timeline.”
with:
“I think we may be underestimating the timeline.”
The underlying concern may be similar. The second version makes it easier to discuss the issue rather than defend a position.
That does not mean you should hide disagreement behind vague language.
Useful levels of challenge include:
Adding or qualifying
Offering another perspective
Direct challenge
The language should reflect the weight of your disagreement.
You do not need to say “That's a great point” when you do not think it is.
You can simply show that you heard the other person's reasoning:
“I can see why speed is the priority. My concern is the level of risk we'd be accepting.”
That keeps the disagreement connected to the discussion.
Hierarchy changes the stakes, but seniority does not automatically make silence the best strategy.
You might say:
Choose language that fits both the importance of the issue and the culture of the organization.
Sometimes people remain silent because the organization has taught them that disagreement is unsafe. No phrase can solve that structural problem. Communication skill includes judging when to challenge publicly, when to raise an issue privately, and when a more careful strategy is needed.
Notice whether you use the same language for every disagreement. Practice distinguishing between:
adding → qualifying → challenging.
You do not need to chair a meeting to help it work better.
Highly effective participants often make contributions to the process, not just the subject matter.
Ask:
“Before we start, what do we need to leave here having decided?”
or:
“What's the main outcome we need from this meeting?”
A clear question can give an unfocused meeting a useful direction.
Try:
“This is useful context. Can we make sure we get back to the main question?”
or:
“Could we park that and come back to it if we have time?”
You are not dismissing the tangent. You are helping the group manage limited time.
Sometimes disagreement continues because people are actually answering different questions.
A useful intervention is:
“I think we may be discussing two different issues here.”
Then name them.
That can be more valuable than adding another argument.
Ask:
These questions move the group from discussion to outcome.
Do not assume everyone has the same understanding of what happened.
Useful questions include:
Clear next steps are part of effective communication.
Sometimes the right contribution happens afterward.
You may realize that something important was not raised, that your point was misunderstood, or that a commitment needs confirming.
A short follow-up can be completely appropriate:
“I wanted to flag one issue I didn't get a chance to raise in the meeting.”
or:
“Just to confirm my understanding of the decision...”
Good meeting communication does not necessarily end when the call closes or everyone leaves the room.
At the end of your next meeting, ask yourself:
What was decided, what happens next, and what—if anything—is still unclear?
Meeting leaders have additional communication responsibilities. Your job is not simply to speak more than everyone else. It is to create the conditions for a useful conversation.
Before the meeting, be able to complete:
“This meeting will be successful if we leave having...”
That might mean making a decision, generating options, identifying risks, assigning responsibilities, or reaching agreement on next steps.
If the purpose cannot be stated clearly, reconsider whether a meeting is necessary.
Good facilitation includes:
Bringing people in
“Maria, you've worked closely on this. What's your view?”
Managing dominant speakers
“I want to make sure we hear from a few other people as well.”
Redirecting tangents
“That's worth discussing, but let's park it for now.”
Checking understanding
“Are we all using ‘launch ready’ to mean the same thing?”
Watching the quieter signals
Someone who has not spoken may be disengaged—or may simply be waiting for an opening. Do not assume. Create one.
In larger, online, and hybrid meetings, facilitation becomes even more important.
A leader may need to:
A useful meeting should end with a shared understanding of:
If no decision was reached, say so explicitly.
A thirty-second summary at the end can prevent hours of confusion afterward.
After your next meeting, ask:
Did the people who needed to contribute have a genuine opportunity to do so?
If not, consider what in the structure or facilitation prevented it.
The people who communicate effectively in meetings are not necessarily the most extroverted, the most senior, or the most fluent.
They have developed specific behaviors.
They prepare. They read the room. They know how to enter a conversation and how to hold the floor. They make their point clear. They listen and respond to what other people actually say. They ask useful questions. They disagree without creating unnecessary friction. And when needed, they help the group communicate more effectively.
You do not need to improve all of these skills at once.
Choose one behavior and practice it deliberately. Prepare one contribution. Lead with your headline. Ask one better question. Reclaim your turn once instead of giving it away. Summarize a discussion before the group moves on.
Confidence often develops from doing these things successfully—not the other way around.
Because language fluency and meeting communication are not the same skill. You can speak grammatically accurate, fluent English and still struggle to enter a fast-moving discussion, structure an answer under pressure, disagree diplomatically, or judge when to speak.
These are communication skills. They can be learned and practiced.
Do not begin with a general goal such as “I need to talk more.” Prepare one or two useful contributions before the meeting and look for an appropriate opportunity to make them.
It also helps to prepare simple floor-taking phrases such as “Can I add something here?” or “There's one point I'd like to raise.” Having the language ready reduces hesitation when the moment arrives.
First, make sure your pauses do not consistently sound like the end of your turn. Maintain eye contact and vocal engagement, and use holding phrases when necessary.
If someone interrupts before you have finished, calmly say:
“Just to finish my point—”
or:
“Let me complete that thought.”
You do not normally need to compete by raising your voice.
It depends on the context. Expectations vary between countries, organizations, industries, teams, and individuals.
Brief interruption may be entirely appropriate when you need to clarify something, correct a misunderstanding, bring a discussion back on track, or enter a conversation where there is no formal turn-taking.
The goal is not to interrupt frequently. It is to recognize when interrupting serves the conversation and to do it clearly and professionally.
Focus on the issue rather than the person's authority.
For example:
“There's one risk I'd like us to consider before we decide.”
or:
“I see the logic. I have a different view on one of the assumptions.”
The appropriate level of directness depends on the organization and the stakes. In some situations, raising a concern privately after the meeting may be more effective.
Significantly. Expectations can differ around interruption, silence, hierarchy, disagreement, eye contact, turn-taking, preparation, and how explicitly decisions are stated.
International meetings often contain several communication cultures at once. Rather than trying to memorize rules for every nationality, pay attention to the people and organization in front of you.
Clear structure, active listening, careful observation, and the ability to adapt are valuable in almost every meeting.
Effective communication in meetings is one of many professional skills you can improve much faster with spoken business English training. Your private course is tailored to your needs and goals by a native-speaker trainer.
You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
Concision is commonly defined as communicating an idea clearly and completely using no more words than necessary.
That is useful, but it can also be misleading. The goal is not simply to use fewer words.
The goal of concision is to make your meaning easier for the listener to grasp.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published August 2026
In writing, we can reread, edit, cut, reorganize, and try again. Spoken communication gives us no such luxury. We have to listen, decide what matters, organize our thoughts, choose our words, and respond to other people — all in real time.
That is why spoken concision is difficult.
When we ramble, the problem is not simply that we use too many words. We make the listener work harder. They have to hold information in their head, identify what matters, separate the point from the supporting detail, and sometimes wait surprisingly long to discover why we are telling them any of this.
Good professional communication reduces that work.
Your listener should not have to go on an archaeological dig to discover your meaning.
Rambling is rarely just carelessness. Usually, something is happening underneath it.
We may be:
These are common human behaviors. Native speakers ramble, too. Speaking in another language simply adds another layer of cognitive load.
The goal is not to eliminate spontaneous or expansive speech. Casual conversation would be rather soulless if we never thought aloud, went off on a tangent, repeated ourselves, or changed direction halfway through a sentence.
Professional communication is different. In a meeting, presentation, interview, negotiation, or important conversation, your listener needs to understand what matters without unnecessary effort.
Concision is closely connected to executive presence because concise speakers demonstrate something beyond language ability: they demonstrate control over their thinking.
Clear, well-structured communication can signal:
This does not mean skilled communicators always speak briefly.
A complex issue may require considerable explanation. A persuasive argument may require evidence. An interview answer may need an example. A leader may need to tell a story.
The difference is that the listener knows where the speaker is going and why the information matters.
That is an important distinction:
Concision is not just about word count. It is about using the listener's attention efficiently.
Good concision starts with good listening. You cannot give someone a focused answer if you have not understood what they are asking or what they need from you.
Listen to understand before you begin constructing your response. This sounds obvious, but we often start preparing our answer while the other person is still speaking. As a result, we may miss the actual question, an important qualification, or information that makes part of our planned answer unnecessary.
Sometimes people ramble because they answer the whole subject instead of the particular question. Sometimes they answer the question they expected to hear. And sometimes they simply did not understand the question well enough in the first place.
This can happen to both first- and second-language speakers. Perhaps you lost concentration for a moment. Perhaps the question was unclear or badly phrased. Maybe the speaker has a strong or unfamiliar accent. Perhaps you understood most of the question but missed one important word. Working in another language also adds cognitive load, and sometimes you simply need to hear something again.
Whatever the reason, do not guess and launch into an answer.
A brief request for clarification is usually far less noticeable than a long, confident answer to the wrong question.
You can simply say:
Once you are clear about the question, start with the core information.
For example:
“Can your team deliver this by Friday?”
You could explain the project history, the supplier problem, the staffing situation, and everything that has happened since Monday. But the listener asked whether your team can deliver by Friday.
Answer that first:
“Probably not. The supplier delay has put us at least two days behind.”
That may be enough. If necessary, explain further.
Knowing your audience also helps you decide how much context to add. If everyone already knows about the problems that caused the delay, explaining them all again adds listener effort without adding much value.
Do not feel pressured to produce an extensive answer simply because someone has asked a question.
Listen first. Understand what is being asked. Then decide what deserves an answer.
Once you understand what is being asked, decide what you actually want to say.
One of the most common causes of rambling is starting to speak before you know where you are going. The speaker begins with context, adds another thought, qualifies it, remembers something else, and eventually discovers the conclusion.
Before an important contribution, ask yourself:
What is the one thing I want this person to understand?
If possible, formulate it in one sentence.
That is your headline.
Everything else is supporting information.
You may need a moment of silence before you begin. Take it. A short pause while you think is usually far easier for the listener than a long answer in which they have to search for your point.
Once you know your point, consider starting there.
Instead of:
“Given everything we've discussed and the problems we've been having with delivery, and obviously there are several factors involved, I think perhaps we should consider delaying the launch.”
Try:
“I recommend delaying the launch. We still have two unresolved delivery risks.”
Now the listener immediately knows what the information is about. If more context is needed, you can provide it.
A useful structure is:
Headline → context → relevant detail
This is particularly effective when people need to make decisions, understand recommendations, or act on what you say.
It is not a rule for every conversation. Sometimes context genuinely needs to come first. The principle is more important than the formula:
Do not make your listener wait unnecessarily to discover why you are speaking.
People who know a subject well often have the hardest time deciding what to leave out. Everything seems relevant because, in some sense, it is. But there is a difference between a detail being related to the subject and the listener actually needing it.
Ask:
Does the listener need this detail to understand my point, believe it, or act on it?
If not, you can probably leave it out for now.
This is not about withholding useful information. It is about selection.
You do not have to say everything you know in order to give a complete answer. You have to say what the listener needs.
There can also be a competitive element to wordiness. We sometimes say more because we want to demonstrate expertise, intelligence, or command of the subject. But communication is not a contest to see who knows the most. Your expertise is most useful when you make it accessible to someone else.
Do not use ten pieces of knowledge when the listener needs three.
Good communication is cooperative. The goal is not to impress the listener with what you know, but to use what you know to create understanding.
Sometimes people are not using too many words at all. The real problem is that the listener cannot see how the information fits together.
Instead of:
“I’m concerned about the budget, and we’re already running behind schedule. We may also have a problem with staffing because two people are moving onto another project.”
Try:
“I see three main risks: cost, timing, and capacity.”
The second version gives the listener a framework for the information that follows.
Simple signposting can make quite complex communication feel concise:
Structure also helps the speaker. Once you have announced that you have three points, you have given yourself a route through your own answer.
You do not necessarily need to say less.
You need to make it easier to follow.
Storytelling can sound like the opposite of concision. Stories take time. They contain context, detail, people, actions, consequences, and sometimes emotion.
But a good story is highly selective.
You do not tell the listener everything that happened. You choose the details they need in order to understand what happened, why it mattered, what you did, and what came of it.
That is concision.
A well-structured 60-second story can feel far more concise — and be far more meaningful and memorable — than a rambling 30-second answer because the listener never has to wonder:
Why are you telling me this?
Story structure gives information shape. It allows you to communicate considerable meaning without forcing the listener to organize the material themselves.
This is particularly useful in job interviews, presentations, and leadership communication. Instead of giving someone a collection of facts, you can give them a short narrative with a clear point.
The skill is not making the story as short as possible. It is deciding what belongs in the story and what does not.
Sometimes we use extra language while working our way toward what we actually want to say:
“I think what I'm basically trying to say is that the main issue for me would probably be…”
Often, the real sentence hiding in the blah-blah is simply:
“The main issue is…”
Speakers sometimes stack several hedges around a perfectly reasonable point:
Instead of:
“I think maybe one thing we could perhaps consider would be postponing the launch.”
Try:
“I suggest postponing the launch.”
Hedging is not bad communication. Words and phrases such as perhaps, might, I think, and I suggest can express genuine uncertainty, soften a message, or make it more diplomatic. The problem is using several of them when one — or none — would do the job.
Other common run-ups include:
These phrases are certainly not wrong. Sometimes they serve a useful diplomatic or social purpose. They can soften a statement, signal openness, or give the speaker useful thinking time.
The question is whether the language is doing a job.
If it is simply habitual scaffolding between you and your point, try removing it. Use hedging deliberately rather than habitually.
A pause is one of the most useful tools in spoken communication.
For the speaker, it creates thinking time. You can choose your next idea or find the right word instead of filling the gap while your brain catches up.
For the listener, pauses provide audible punctuation. They separate ideas and make the structure of your message easier to hear.
This creates an important paradox:
To speak more concisely, you may need to speak more slowly.
Trying to eliminate rambling by speaking faster often makes matters worse. Your mouth gets ahead of your thinking, and filler rushes in to bridge the gap.
Pause instead.
You do not have to fill every silence.
Sometimes the problem is not reaching the point. It is failing to stop once you get there.
“The deadline is Friday. So we really do need this by Friday. Friday is basically the latest we can accept it.”
The first sentence may already have done the job:
“The deadline is Friday.”
Repetition can be useful for emphasis. Additional explanation can be necessary. But unconscious repetition often weakens rather than strengthens a message.
The same applies to immediately paraphrasing something you have already said clearly, adding another example that proves the same thing, or continuing simply because nobody else has started speaking yet.
If you have made your point, show the listener some respect.
Say it. Then stop.
Let the other person respond.
You do not have to anticipate and answer every possible follow-up question. Give people what they need, then allow them to pull more information from you.
If you are unsure whether more detail would be useful, ask:
“Would you like me to go into more detail?”
Concision is interactive. Listening to what the other person asks, notices, or needs next is often more effective than trying to provide every potentially useful piece of information in advance.
Concision is not minimalism.
There is a place for detail, nuance, evidence, explanation, examples, and stories. Complex subjects sometimes require complex answers.
The skill lies in deciding what the listener needs and controlling the order in which they receive it.
Give them enough structure to understand the significance of what follows. Then provide as much detail as the situation requires.
The goal is not to make every answer short.
The goal is to make every part of the answer earn its place.
Spoken concision is a habit. It improves through practice.
Read this answer:
“We’ve had some delays getting the final figures from Finance, and Marta is away until Thursday. We were hoping to have everything ready this week, but I think we’re going to need a little more time. So I’d suggest moving the deadline to next Tuesday.”
Which sentence should have come first?
Try reorganizing the answer before reading on.
A stronger version might be:
“I suggest moving the deadline to next Tuesday. We’re still waiting for the final figures from Finance, and Marta is away until Thursday.”
Notice that we have not simply cut words. We have identified the point, put it first, and kept the information that supports it.
Ask yourself a professional question:
“What is the biggest risk with this project?”
“What do you recommend?”
“Why did the deadline move?”
Answer in one or two sentences.
Then stop.
If more information is needed, add it deliberately.
Choose a professional experience you frequently talk about.
Give yourself 60 seconds to tell it.
Include only the context the listener needs, the action that matters, and the outcome or point of the story.
Then ask:
What did the listener actually need in order to understand why this story mattered?
Answer a question clearly.
Then stop.
Do not automatically add another example. Do not repeat the conclusion. Do not explain what you just explained. Do not rescue the silence.
Let the other person respond.
For many professionals, this is the hardest concision exercise of all.
Before your next important meeting or conversation, take thirty seconds and identify:
What is the one thing I most need these people to understand?
Write it down if that helps.
That is your headline.
Then decide what they genuinely need in order to understand, remember, or act on it.
Start there.
Good spoken concision follows a simple sequence:
Listen → understand → select → structure → answer → stop.
Or, viewed as three decisions:
Selection: What does this listener need?
Structure: In what order will they understand it most easily?
Restraint: When have I said enough?
Concision is not about making communication smaller. It is about making meaning easier to access.
Concision is one of many professional skills you can improve much faster with spoken business English training. Your private course is tailored to your needs and goals by a native-speaker trainer.
You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
Executive presence is about inspiring confidence — in your colleagues, your clients, and the people who make decisions about your career. You build that confidence through the way you think, speak, listen, and respond — especially when the stakes are high.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published August 2026
Every time you communicate at work, you are asking something of the people around you: their time, their attention, their mental energy. Executive presence is the set of skills that makes that burden as small as possible. When you have it, people will follow you, trust you, and act on what you say. The good news is that these skills can be learned, by non-native and native speakers alike.
We've broken executive presence down into five elements based on our 17 years of experience working with professionals, each with practical tips for immediate improvement.
Clarity: Can I understand you?
Structure: Can I follow your thinking?
Vocal leadership: Does your delivery guide me?
Confidence, judgment, and composure: Can I trust you and your judgment?
Interpersonal intelligence: Can you understand me and respond appropriately?
When you lack clarity, your listener has to do extra work — pausing to read between the lines, asking follow-up questions, or worse, walking away with the wrong understanding. Communicating clearly from the start removes that burden.
It combines precise word choice, clean articulation, prosody (as we still discuss in a moment), and concision. Many professionals, particularly in high-stakes situations, say more than they need to. It can feel safer to elaborate, to qualify, to cover every angle. But length is not the same as thoroughness, and more words often mean more effort for your listener, not less.
Quick win: Before your next important response — in a meeting, an interview, an email — ask yourself: what is the single most important thing I want this person to understand? Start there.
Even when individual sentences are clear, a listener can still get lost if the overall message has no visible shape. Structure is what lets your listener follow your thinking without effort. They always know where they are, where you're going, and how the pieces connect.
In English professional communication, the expectation is usually that you lead with your main point and then support it. Saving your conclusion for the end (common in many other communication cultures) makes the listener hold everything in their head, increasing cognitive load, until the meaning finally arrives. That is exhausting, and in busy workplaces, it can cause confusion or misunderstanding.
Signposting works the same way. Phrases like "I have three points", "to summarize...", or "my main concern is..." give your listener a mental map before you begin. They know what to expect and can follow along without effort, rather than constructing the structure themselves as you speak. For longer communications — presentations, pitches, complex updates — the same principle applies at a larger scale. That's where business storytelling becomes a skill worth developing.
Quick win: Try the headline-first habit. State your main point or recommendation first, then explain. Your listener will follow you more easily and spend less time wondering where you're going.
Your voice does more than carry words. Pace, tone, rhythm, emphasis, and pause all send signals that help (or hinder) your listener's comprehension. Good prosody tells your listener what is important, what is background, and when to pay close attention.
Flat, monotone delivery (even with correct pronunciation) makes it harder for the listener to know what to prioritize. Rushing through a key point signals that it isn't worth dwelling on, even when it is. The most effective speakers make conscious choices about their pace, their intonation, and where they place emphasis. Their pauses are purposeful. There’s no confusion whether they’re asking a question, stating a fact, making a request or inviting further ideas.
Quick win: Pay attention to where you place emphasis when you speak. Highlighting the most important ideas in a sentence carries just as much meaning as the words you choose.
If you want to develop your vocal leadership, consider private spoken Business English training.
Executive presence is not just about looking or sounding confident. It is about giving other people confidence in you: your thinking, your judgment, and your ability to stay steady when the situation becomes difficult.
That starts with having a point of view. Senior professionals are expected to assess a situation, identify what matters, and make a recommendation. Compare “Maybe we should consider…” with “I recommend…” The second does more than sound confident. It tells your listener where you stand and gives them something clear to respond to.
Good judgment does not mean pretending to know everything. In fact, strong communicators are clear about the difference between what they know, what they think, and what they still need to find out. Phrases such as “Based on what we know now, I recommend…” or “I don’t have that figure yet, but I can tell you…” communicate appropriate certainty without bluffing or unnecessarily weakening the message.
Composure matters just as much. Executive presence is often most visible when something goes wrong: your proposal is challenged, someone interrupts you, you are asked a question you cannot immediately answer, or a meeting becomes tense. Rushing, becoming defensive, overexplaining, or filling every silence can undermine an otherwise strong message. A pause, a measured response, and the ability to stay focused on the issue signal that you can handle pressure without losing your footing.
Posture, eye contact, a steady pace, and calm, measured language reinforce these qualities, but they cannot replace them. The goal is not to perform confidence. It is to communicate in a way that gives other people good reason to trust your judgment.
Quick win: Before an important meeting, ask yourself two questions: What do I think? What do I recommend? Be ready to state both in one or two sentences. Then, if you are challenged, pause before responding rather than immediately defending or elaborating.
When a speaker seems uncertain, the listener unconsciously picks up the slack — second-guessing the message, looking for reassurance, wondering whether to trust what they're hearing. Confidence signals reduce that uncertainty and make it easier for your listener to simply receive what you're saying.
These signals include posture, eye contact, a steady pace, and calm, measured language. That means avoiding unnecessary hedging — phrases like "I'm not sure but maybe..." or "this might be wrong..." that introduce doubt before you've even made your point. It also means finishing your thoughts (not trailing off and hoping your listener can fill in the rest).
Not all hedging is the same, though. Phrases like "in my experience" or "off the top of my head" serve a different purpose — they tell your listener how to weigh what you're saying, which is important. The hedging to watch for is the kind that simply softens your stance out of habit, rather than adding any real information.
This also applies to word choice more broadly. Compare "maybe we should consider…" with "I recommend we…" The meaning may be similar, but the second version tells your listener exactly where you stand. It removes the interpretive work of figuring out how seriously to take your suggestion.
Quick win: Notice your hedges. Record yourself in a meeting or practice conversation and count how often you qualify statements that don't need qualifying. Reducing unnecessary hedging immediately makes your message easier to act on.
All four elements above become significantly more effective when they are calibrated to your specific listener. What makes a message easy to receive depends on context: who you're speaking to, what they already know, what they need from the conversation, and what their expectations are.
Interpersonal intelligence means reading that context and adjusting accordingly. For a job interview, it might mean being more concise than you naturally would be. For a client presentation, it might mean more warmth and less technical detail. For a cross-cultural conversation, it might mean making explicit things you would normally leave unsaid.
This kind of adaptability can feel uncomfortable at first. Some professionals resist it, feeling that adjusting their style means presenting a false version of themselves. But consider how naturally most of us shift between contexts already: you speak differently with a close colleague than with a senior stakeholder, differently at a networking event than in a one-to-one.
These are not false versions of you. They are what we might call personas — context-appropriate expressions of who you are. Your English work persona is still authentically you. It is simply calibrated to what your listener needs in order to receive you clearly.
We will explore this idea in much more depth in an upcoming post in this series.
Interpersonal intelligence is not only about preparing for your audience. It is also about noticing what is happening while you are speaking with them.
Strong communicators listen for more than words. They notice hesitation, resistance, confusion, enthusiasm, and changes in tone. They answer the question that was actually asked rather than the one they expected, and they adjust when their message is not landing as intended.
This requires active listening. Instead of using the other person’s speaking time to prepare your next point, stay with what they are saying. Clarify when necessary. Acknowledge a concern before responding to it. If someone challenges your position, first make sure you understand the challenge.
Executive presence is partly visible in this responsiveness. A person who can listen carefully, absorb new information, and adjust without becoming defensive or losing direction comes across as more composed, credible, and effective.
Quick win: Before your next important conversation, take thirty seconds to consider your listener. What do they already know? What do they need from this conversation? What is their communication style? That brief moment of preparation will shape everything that follows.
You do not need to be naturally charismatic, extroverted, or a native English speaker to communicate with presence. The common thread running through all five elements is the same: awareness of your listener, and a sincere commitment to making their job easier.
Executive presence inspires confidence in your ability to think clearly, communicate effectively, make sound judgments, and stay composed under pressure. It affects whether people trust your recommendations, act on your ideas, look to you for direction, and see you as ready for greater responsibility.
The five elements are clarity, structure, vocal leadership, confidence, judgment and composure, and interpersonal intelligence. Together, they shape how clearly you communicate, how easy your thinking is to follow, how effectively you use your voice, how others perceive your judgment and steadiness, and how well you understand and respond to the people around you.
Yes. Executive presence does not require a native accent, perfect grammar, or an enormous vocabulary. For professionals working in a second or third language, English skills may affect clarity and ease of expression, but the broader skills involved — structure, vocal leadership, judgment, composure, and interpersonal intelligence — can all be developed through awareness and practice.
Because fluency is only one part of effective communication. A fluent speaker can still ramble, bury the main point, over-explain, hedge unnecessarily, rush, speak without enough vocal variation, or fail to read the room. Executive presence depends not simply on speaking English easily, but on using communication deliberately.
Start by identifying which of the five areas is limiting your impact: clarity, structure, vocal leadership, confidence, judgment and composure, or interpersonal intelligence.
Recording yourself in a meeting, presentation, or practice conversation can reveal habits you may not notice while speaking. Feedback from a trusted colleague or coach can also help. Then work deliberately on one or two high-impact behaviors at a time — for example, leading with your main point, reducing unnecessary hedging, using pauses more purposefully, or listening more actively.
Executive presence develops through practice, feedback, and greater awareness of how your communication affects the people around you.
Developing these skills takes time, but you can speed up the process with private, personalized training with a native English trainer.
Ready to take the next step? You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
It's one of the most common questions in language learning — and one of the hardest to answer honestly. The truth is that there is no single number, no universal timeline, and no shortcut that works for everyone. But there are real factors that shape how quickly you progress, and understanding them can help you make smarter decisions about how you learn.
Let's start with the word itself.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published July 2026
At The English Center, we see fluency as being about flow. Fluent English moves easily and naturally, even when minor mistakes are made along the way. It's not the same as accuracy or correctness. A fluent speaker gets their message across without losing momentum. An accurate speaker may know every rule in the book, but still hesitate, stumble, or lose the thread under pressure.
Linguists and language educators often use the CEFR scale (Common European Framework of Reference) to describe language ability. It runs from A1 (complete beginner) to C2 (near-native mastery). Most people use the word "fluent" to describe something around B2 and above: comfortable, independent communication in most situations.
The gap between "can have a conversation" and "sounds polished and professional" is significant — and it's exactly where many intermediate speakers get stuck.
Another reliable marker is internal: are you still translating from your first language, or are you beginning to think directly in English? That shift (gradual and uneven as it tends to be) is one of the clearest signs that you are genuinely internalizing the language rather than just performing it.
The most widely cited data comes from the U.S. Foreign Service Institute (FSI), which trains American diplomats in foreign languages. Their research suggests that English speakers need roughly 600 to 750 hours of study to reach professional working proficiency in a language like Dutch or French — and significantly more for languages like Arabic or Mandarin.
The reverse also holds: native speakers of languages closer to English tend to reach fluency faster. A Dutch professional, for example, already has a considerable head start; not just because of their many years of English in school, but simply because our languages are both in the Germanic language family.
But FSI figures are based on full-time, immersive study under structured conditions. For most working professionals, that kind of intensive schedule is not realistic. Which brings us to the more useful question.
This is the most obvious factor, but it's worth being direct about: progress is directly tied to meaningful exposure and practice. Fifteen minutes a day on a language app will not get you to professional-level fluency in any reasonable timeframe. Consistent, quality practice — ideally involving real speaking and listening — compounds over time in a way that passive study does not.
An hour of focused conversation with feedback is worth more than five hours of watching TV in English. Not that passive exposure has no value — it does — but it shouldn't be mistaken for the kind of deliberate practice that moves the needle. If you are rarely challenged, you are rarely improving.
A professional who already uses English at work every day is in a very different position from someone who rarely encounters the language. Many of The English Center's clients are already at B2 or above — they communicate effectively, but they want to sound more natural, more precise, or more confident in high-stakes situations. For them, the question isn't fluency from scratch; it's refinement. That's a different journey, and often a faster one than people expect.
Fluency for a software developer presenting at international conferences looks different from fluency for a manager running weekly team meetings. The more clearly you define what you actually need English for, the more efficiently you can work toward it. Vague goals produce vague progress.
It is entirely possible to speak English for years and quietly reinforce the same mistakes again and again. Linguists call these fossilized errors — ingrained habits of grammar, pronunciation, vocabulary, and delivery that have gone uncorrected for so long that they feel natural to the speaker, even when they sound wrong to native ears. These mistakes and habits have become habituated. They are automatic behaviors that we do not think about. Common examples include consistently mispronouncing certain sounds, misusing prepositions, applying the wrong stress pattern to words, and hesitation. Stopping to look for words – to think and rethink what to say next – is a fluency downgrade. Fluent speakers are smooth and fluid.
Fossilized errors are not a sign of low ability. They are extremely common among intermediate and advanced speakers, and they are precisely the kind of thing that standard language apps and passive self-study cannot address. Without a trainer who listens carefully and gives targeted feedback, these patterns tend to persist indefinitely — and in professional settings, they can quietly undermine how you're perceived.
Structured coaching, especially with someone who understands your specific professional context, accelerates progress because it targets what actually needs work rather than moving through a generic curriculum.
Some people pick up languages more naturally than others. Factors like working memory, phonological sensitivity, and comfort with ambiguity all play a role. That said, aptitude is far less important than consistency and the quality of your input. Most people significantly underestimate what they can achieve with the right approach.
And the right approach starts with motivation. Research in language acquisition consistently shows that learners who are intrinsically motivated make faster and more sustained progress than those driven purely by external pressure. But motivation isn't always something you simply have or don't have. For many professionals, learning English isn't a personal passion — it's a requirement.
This is where ownership of the process matters. Psychologist Daniel Pink, in his research on what actually drives human performance, found that for complex tasks, autonomy — control over how you approach something — is a more powerful motivator than rewards or incentives. Applied to language learning: if you have to improve your English regardless, giving yourself agency over how you do it changes the experience significantly. That might mean choosing material that connects to something you already care about, setting your own benchmarks, or defining what "good English" means for your specific life and work rather than working toward someone else's idea of it.
This is also one of the reasons that private, personalized coaching tends to produce better results than a fixed curriculum. It isn't only that the content is more relevant — it's that the learner becomes an active participant in the process. A good trainer doesn't just deliver lessons; they build a collaboration in which the student's goals, preferences, and pace actively shape the direction of the training. That sense of ownership tends to make the work feel less like a requirement and more like something worth doing well.
Private coaching produces faster results than self-study, largely because it is personalized, accountable, and efficient. But it costs more. Group classes are more affordable but less tailored. Self-study tools — apps, podcasts, graded readers — are low-cost but require strong self-discipline and don't replicate real conversation. There is no objectively right answer for everyone; it depends on your goals, your timeline, and what you can realistically sustain.
For most professionals, English learning happens in the margins — a lesson here, some podcast listening on the commute, the occasional meeting in English. Progress is real but slow, and the gaps between practice sessions mean that a lot of consolidation time is also lost to forgetting.
Intensive training works differently. By concentrating a significant number of hours into a short period — days or weeks rather than months — it creates a kind of immersion that is difficult to replicate through weekly lessons alone. You are not just learning more; you are learning in a way that maintains momentum, builds on each session while it is still fresh, and forces you to operate in English for sustained periods rather than in short, isolated bursts.
We've written in more detail about how intensive English courses work and who they're best suited for.
This matters particularly for professionals who have a specific deadline — a new role, an upcoming presentation, a move to an English-speaking environment — or for those who have been at the same level for an extended period and want to push forward more deliberately.
If this sounds like you, consider an Intensive English Course, or an Intensive Business English Course.
To make this more concrete: take a Dutch professional at B2 — comfortable in English, using it regularly at work, but aware that their communication could be more natural, more precise, more confident, and more fluent. As we mentioned before, Dutch speakers have a significant head start with English; the two languages share enough structure and vocabulary that the underlying groundwork is already solid. From that starting point, with regular private coaching and consistent daily use, reaching C1 within six to nine months is a realistic expectation. In practical terms, that typically means around 40 to 60 hours of trainer-led sessions — roughly one to two hours per week — alongside daily professional use and a few additional hours of focused independent practice each week. It won't happen automatically, but it is well within reach for someone who engages seriously with the process.
For someone at the same starting point but taking a general group course with limited personal feedback — and with little English exposure outside of class — the same journey is likely to take considerably longer. Two to three years is not unreasonable, and without targeted correction and meaningful challenge, progress may plateau well before C1.
It's also worth knowing that language learning is not linear. Plateaus are a normal part of the process, and a period of apparent stagnation can precede a genuine leap forward. That said, if you have been at roughly the same level for a long time despite consistent effort, it may be worth examining whether your current approach is still challenging you enough.
So, if you're wondering how long it will take to become fluent in English, the more useful questions to ask yourself are: What does fluent English actually look like for my work? And what's the most effective way for me to get there?
At The English Center all of our training is private and personalized to your goals, so you can make meaningful progress right now. Browse our business English courses to learn more about improving your fluency at work, or general English training to help your English flow in everyday life.
It depends on your starting point, how consistently you practise, and what you mean by fluent. For a professional already working at B2, reaching C1 within six to nine months can be realistic with regular private coaching, daily use of English, and focused independent practice. Starting from a lower level will usually take considerably longer.
There isn't a universal number. While research often refers to hundreds of hours of structured study, the quality of those hours matters far more than the total. Speaking regularly, receiving expert feedback, and using English in real situations generally produce faster progress than passive study alone.
Yes. Adults often have clear goals, strong learning strategies, and plenty of opportunities to apply English in professional settings. While children may acquire languages differently, adults can make excellent progress with consistent practice and the right support.
Many people would describe B2 as fluent because you can communicate independently in most everyday and professional situations. However, if your goal is to sound polished and confident in high-level business communication, C1 is often a more appropriate target.
The quickest progress usually comes from regular speaking practice combined with personalised feedback. Real conversations, targeted correction, and deliberate practice help develop fluency much more effectively than simply consuming English through apps, videos, or podcasts.
Language apps are useful for building vocabulary and maintaining a daily learning habit, but they cannot replace real conversation or personalised feedback. Most learners make faster and more lasting progress when apps are combined with speaking practice and expert coaching.
Many learners reach a plateau because they continue using familiar language without being challenged. Targeted feedback helps identify fossilised errors and habits, allowing you to focus on the specific changes that lead to further improvement.
Fluency is the ability to communicate smoothly and naturally without constantly stopping to search for words or translate from your first language. Accuracy is about using correct grammar, vocabulary, and pronunciation. Strong communicators develop both, but fluency does not require perfection.
I also have one SEO suggestion. Since your article targets "How long does it take to become fluent in English?", I'd add one more FAQ that directly targets another common search:
Yes. Research does not suggest that adults lose the ability to become highly proficient in another language. While adults may learn differently from children, consistent practice, meaningful conversation, and expert feedback are far more important than age.
Ready to take the next step? You can work with an experienced English trainer online or at one of our locations:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
Yes—intensive English courses can accelerate language learning. Research in language acquisition and cognitive psychology suggests that concentrated, immersive learning helps learners retain more, retrieve language more automatically, and build speaking confidence faster than lessons spread over long intervals. That doesn't mean intensive courses are the best choice for everyone, but they are particularly effective when learners have clear goals and need rapid progress.
Intensive English learning is effective because it aligns more closely with how the brain acquires and retains language than the way language is traditionally taught. This helps explain why so many professionals come to us after studying English for years, sometimes even decades. They use English regularly at work, yet something is still missing. They hesitate before speaking, lose confidence in business meetings, and know exactly what they want to say but can't produce it naturally in the moment. The problem usually isn't ability. It's the way the learning has been structured.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
Published June 2026
Intensive English learning is a concentrated period of immersive language study—typically several hours a day over one to several weeks—designed to accelerate progress in spoken fluency, confidence, and real-world communication. Unlike regular weekly lessons, the intensive format prioritizes sustained exposure and repeated language retrieval, giving learners more opportunities to consolidate new language while reducing the forgetting that often occurs between lessons.
There's a meaningful difference between knowing a language and being able to use it fluently in real time. Weekly lessons, spread over months or years, are good at building knowledge — vocabulary, grammar rules, reading comprehension. But fluency requires something different: the ability to retrieve language automatically, without stopping to think.
Psychologists call this automaticity. It's what happens when a skill moves from conscious, effortful processing to something fast and instinctive. Think about learning to drive. At first, every action requires deliberate thought. With enough practice, it becomes second nature. Language works the same way — but reaching that point requires a type and volume of practice that occasional lessons rarely provide.
One of the most important insights in language acquisition research comes from linguist Stephen Krashen, whose input hypothesis argues that we acquire language most effectively when we are exposed to it at a level just slightly above our current ability — consistently, and in volume. It's not just about how many hours you study in total. It's about how often, and how intensively.
This is where intensive English learning has a significant structural advantage. A learner who studies for three hours a day over one week is not doing the same thing as a learner who studies for one hour a week over three months — even though the total hours are similar. The concentrated exposure keeps the language active in working memory, builds momentum, and creates the conditions for real acquisition rather than surface retention.
That said, intensive learning isn't the right fit for everyone. Some people genuinely thrive with slower, more consistent practice — a lesson or two per week over several months, with time in between to absorb and reflect. For certain learning styles, that rhythm works well. Practical factors matter too: not everyone can step away from work for a full week, and not every employer's training budget is structured to support a concentrated course. A weekly program spread over time can be a better fit when time or budget constraints make an intensive format difficult to arrange.
Where intensive English learning tends to make the most difference is when motivation is high, the goal is clear, and there is a natural window of time to invest. In our experience, the participants who get the most out of an intensive course tend to share a few common traits: they have a specific reason to improve quickly, they are willing to make mistakes in the service of progress, and they are able to commit their focus fully for the duration of the course.
The profiles we see most often are telling. Many participants are new expats in the Netherlands who need to raise their spoken English quickly — for a new role, or to strengthen their business communication in a competitive job market. Others are Dutch professionals whose workplace is shifting to English, or who simply want to perform with greater confidence and precision in meetings, presentations, and client conversations. Some are between jobs or on a career break, and recognize a rare window of time to invest seriously in their own development. Others are visiting the Netherlands on holiday and choose to combine their trip with an intensive course — a particularly satisfying way to spend a summer week in Amsterdam. What these learners have in common is not a particular background or level, but a readiness to engage fully and a clear sense of what they want to achieve.
For professionals who need to improve workplace communication, presentations, meetings, negotiations, or executive fluency, our intensive Business English course can be fully tailored to their role, industry, and communication goals.
In the 1880s, German psychologist Hermann Ebbinghaus mapped what he called the forgetting curve: the rate at which new information is lost when it is not reinforced. His research showed that without review, people forget a significant portion of new material within days — sometimes within hours.
Intensive English learning works partly because it naturally defeats the forgetting curve. When you are immersed in English for several hours a day, you are constantly reinforcing what you learned in the morning during the afternoon session. There is no week-long gap in which new vocabulary or structures can fade. The brain receives the signal, repeatedly, that this information matters — and retains it accordingly.
There is another factor that doesn't always make it into discussions of language learning methodology, but which we see clearly in practice: emotional engagement accelerates memory.
Research by applied linguist Zoltán Dörnyei on motivation in language learning consistently shows that learners who are personally invested in their goals — who have a clear reason to improve, and who feel supported rather than judged — make faster and more lasting progress. A private intensive course creates exactly these conditions. The learning is personal, the feedback is immediate, and the environment is one of encouragement rather than performance anxiety.
When a learner feels psychologically safe, they take more communicative risks. They try out new structures rather than retreating to what feels safe. And it is precisely those moments of productive stretching — what linguists sometimes call pushed output — that drive real progress.
At The English Center, our intensive courses are built around these principles, even if we don't always use the academic language to describe them. Our trainers work with participants for several hours a day, entirely in English, at a level calibrated to challenge without overwhelming. Feedback is immediate and constructive. Every session builds directly on the last.
Participants don't just learn more English — they start to think in English, which is when the real shift happens. By the end of a week, many describe a feeling of having broken through a barrier that years of occasional study hadn't moved.
That's not magic. It's what concentrated, personalized, immersive practice does to the brain.
It's worth being realistic, though: one intensive course, however successful, is rarely the end of the journey. Language learning is a long-term process, and fluency develops over time. What intensive English learning does is accelerate you to a new level — meaningfully and quickly. Alongside the linguistic progress, most participants experience a significant boost in confidence. And confidence, as Dörnyei's research suggests, is itself a powerful motivator. Learners who feel they are making real progress are far more likely to continue — whether through follow-up courses, regular practice at work, or simply engaging more willingly in English conversations they might previously have avoided. The momentum the course creates is real; the goal is simply to keep it going.
There is no universal answer. Your progress depends on your starting level, the number of training hours, your willingness to speak English throughout the course, and how much you continue practicing afterwards. Most learners notice improvements in speaking confidence, fluency, speed of response, and overall ease of communication rather than a dramatic change in grammar knowledge. An intensive course is designed to help you make meaningful progress quickly—not to make you fluent overnight.
Intensive English courses are particularly effective for motivated learners with clear goals. This includes professionals preparing for new responsibilities, expats adapting to an international workplace, managers who regularly communicate in English, and anyone who wants to overcome hesitation when speaking. The strongest results usually come when learners are ready to engage actively and make English a priority for a short period.
Neither approach is inherently better—they simply serve different purposes. Weekly lessons support gradual, long-term development, while intensive courses are designed to accelerate progress over a shorter period. Because learners use English repeatedly over consecutive days, they reinforce new language before it is forgotten and build greater momentum. For many professionals with an urgent goal, this concentrated approach is especially effective.
The ideal length depends on your goals, starting level, and availability. Some learners choose a one-week intensive course to prepare for an immediate challenge, while others benefit from two or three weeks of concentrated training. If your objective is lasting improvement in spoken fluency, pronunciation, or Business English, a longer program generally allows more practice, feedback, and consolidation. During your intake, your trainer can recommend a realistic number of hours based on your needs.
Yes. Beginners often make rapid progress because they are immersed in English from the start and receive constant guidance and feedback. However, expectations should be realistic. A beginner will build a strong foundation in communication, vocabulary, and listening skills, but fluency develops over time. Intermediate and advanced learners often experience the greatest gains in confidence, speed, and natural communication.
Yes. Intensive pronunciation training allows you to identify recurring habits and replace them through repeated practice and immediate correction. Many learners improve not only individual sounds but also word stress, rhythm, intonation, and overall clarity. The goal is not to sound like a native speaker, but to communicate more naturally, confidently, and effectively.
Absolutely. A private intensive Business English course can focus entirely on your professional communication needs, including meetings, presentations, negotiations, networking, interviews, telephone conversations, and email communication. Because the training is fully personalized, you spend your time practicing situations that are directly relevant to your work rather than following a generic textbook.
Yes. Online intensive courses offer the same personalized instruction, speaking practice, and immediate feedback as face-to-face training. The same experienced trainers teach both our online and in-person courses, and many learners choose a hybrid format that combines the two. Online and hybrid training also eliminate travel time and make it easier to fit intensive English learning into a busy schedule. The quality of the learning depends far more on the interaction with your trainer than on the location.
Research consistently shows that learners make faster progress when they receive frequent practice, immediate feedback, and instruction that matches their current level. Private intensive courses make this possible because every lesson is tailored to your goals, profession, and communication challenges. Rather than following a fixed syllabus, your trainer focuses on the language and situations that will have the greatest impact on your confidence and performance.
If you've been studying English for years without reaching the level of fluency you want, the answer is probably not more of the same. What tends to make the difference is a sustained period of intensive English learning — with an experienced trainer who understands business communication and can give you immediate, honest feedback. The research is clear: concentration, immersion, and emotional engagement are not just helpful additions to language learning. They are the conditions under which real and lasting progress happens.
That's exactly what a private intensive English course is designed to provide.
You can work with a professional native-speaker trainer and get real-world practice online and at our locations in:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
Further reading
After 17 years of coaching international professionals, I've reached one clear conclusion: most workplace communication problems are not language problems. As AI tools transform business communication across every industry, this has never been more apparent — or more important.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
June 2026
Not long ago, business English writing courses focused heavily on grammar, vocabulary, and email structure.
That made sense. Writing a clear, professional email in English required a significant amount of skill and effort. Many professionals worked hard to sound more polished, more concise, and more confident in writing.
Then AI arrived.
Today, AI business communication tools such as Claude, ChatGPT, Copilot, and Grammarly can draft an email in seconds. They can improve grammar, suggest vocabulary, adjust tone, fix typos, and even rewrite a message for a specific audience. If you want to get the most out of these tools, our guide to writing effective AI prompts is a good place to start.
This raises an important question:
If AI can write the email, what skills still matter?
The answer may surprise you. The most difficult communication challenges at work were never really about writing. They were about people.
Imagine you are a personal assistant supporting a senior executive. A colleague requests a meeting with your manager. Unfortunately, the executive's schedule is already full for the next three weeks.
At first glance, this seems like a simple writing task. You could ask AI to draft a response:
"Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson is unavailable during the requested period."
Grammatically, the email is fine. But communication is not simply about transferring information. The colleague requesting the meeting may already feel ignored. The project may be politically important. The person making the request may be a key stakeholder whose support will be needed later.
Suddenly, the challenge is no longer writing an email. The challenge is preserving a relationship while delivering an unwelcome message. A skilled communicator might choose a different approach:
"Thank you for reaching out. Unfortunately, Mr. Johnson's schedule is fully committed over the coming weeks. I understand the importance of this discussion and would be happy to explore alternative dates or another way to move the conversation forward."
The information is largely the same. The relationship outcome may be very different. AI can help generate either version. Only a human can decide which one is appropriate.
Many professionals think emails exist primarily to exchange information. In reality, most workplace communication serves two purposes simultaneously.
The first is obvious: to communicate information.
The second is less obvious: to manage a relationship.
Consider these examples:
"We need the report by Friday."
"This report is becoming urgent."
"Could you please prioritize this report? It would help us stay on schedule."
All three messages communicate roughly the same information, yet they create different emotional reactions.
One sounds directive. One sounds concerned. One sounds collaborative.
None of them are necessarily wrong. The question is which response is most likely to achieve the desired outcome with this particular person in this particular situation. That is not a grammar question. It is a judgment question.
One of the most remarkable things about human communication is that the same sentence can mean different things depending on who says it, who receives it, and what has happened before.
Imagine receiving this message:
"We need to talk."
How would you interpret it? Most people answer: "It depends."
Exactly. It depends on whether the sender is your manager, a colleague, a client, or a friend. It depends on whether your last interaction was positive or negative. It depends on the history of the relationship. Human beings naturally interpret messages through context.
AI struggles with this. An AI system can analyze words on a screen. It cannot fully understand years of trust, frustration, loyalty, disappointment, office politics, or personal history unless those details are explicitly provided.
This limitation becomes especially important in leadership support roles.
Personal assistants and executive assistants often communicate on behalf of other people. They are not simply sending emails. They are managing expectations, protecting relationships, representing leadership, and helping organizations function smoothly. Success often depends on understanding factors that never appear in the email itself.
As AI becomes better at producing language, the value of purely technical writing skills may decline. The communication skills AI can't replace, however, become more important than ever.
These include:
For Dutch professionals working internationally, this can be particularly important. Dutch communication is often admired for its clarity and efficiency. At the same time, international business environments sometimes require a broader communication range. The goal is not to become less Dutch — it's to develop more options.
A skilled communicator knows when to be direct, when to be diplomatic, when to push, and when to pause.
The future of AI business communication is unlikely to be humans competing with AI. Instead, it will be humans using AI to handle language while focusing their attention on the things that matter most:
Relationships. Context. Trust. Judgment.
AI can help you write an email. It cannot tell you whether that email will strengthen a relationship, damage one, or miss the point entirely. That remains a uniquely human skill.
In a world where everyone has access to the same technology, understanding people may be the most valuable communication skill of all. This is equally true for professionals working at the cutting edge of AI itself. Even those building and deploying these tools need to remember that technology operates within human systems — systems built on trust, relationships, and judgment. For IT professionals working in global teams, the communication skills AI can't replace are just as critical as technical expertise.
If you are looking for personalized, private training to improve your professional English, our Business English course is perfect for you!
You can work with a professional native-speaker trainer and get real-world practice at our locations in:
Amsterdam (near Vondelpark or Central Station)
Amstelveen (easy parking, quiet setting)
The Hague (Zuid-Holland’s choice for English training)
Hoofddorp (close to Schiphol, central, accessible, modern)
Prefer a virtual course? Contact us about English Center courses online
About the authors:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA is the founder and director of The English Center. For more than 17 years, she has coached international professionals, executive assistants, managers, and business leaders to communicate more effectively in English.
Edited by A. Roberts, Trainer with The English Center. She holds a BA in English Literature.
With thanks to DJ Human, Head of AI at Raw Power Labs, for his generous input on this piece.
To celebrate The English Center's 17th birthday this May, we've put together exactly 17 tips — one for every year we've been helping professionals find their voice in English. They're practical, targeted, and based on real patterns we see in professionals every day.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
May 2026
If you take only one piece of advice from this entire list, make it this one.
Speaking more slowly than feels natural is the simplest and most immediately actionable change we give our students — and it works fast. The moment you slow down, you become easier to follow. Your words sound clearer, your ideas sound more structured, and you give your listener time to process what matters.
Many professionals believe fluency equals speed. In reality, speed often reduces impact. When you speak quickly, you compress sounds, swallow word endings, and rush transitions — even if your grammar and vocabulary are strong.
What to do instead:
Slow down most at structure points:
A well-placed pause does two things: it signals to your listener that something important is coming, and it gives you a moment to compose your next thought.
Pausing feels unnatural at first, especially if silence makes you uncomfortable. But if you take note of what makes a great speaker so effective, you’ll notice how consistently they use pauses to build anticipation and drive home the point.
What to do: Before you make a point, take a breath. One second of silence before a key message can make it land twice as hard. Giving a presentation? When you step onto the stage, pause and look at the audience before you begin speaking.
English is a stress-timed language. That means intonation — the rise and fall of your voice — carries meaning, not just emotion. Flat intonation makes it harder for listeners to follow you. Misplaced stress can actually change the meaning of what you say.
In the example below, we see one sentence which can convey 5 very different meanings, depending on intonation.
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
“I didn’t say he stole the money.”
Using intonation effectively signals confidence, not just in your speaking ability but in the truth or value of what you’re saying.
What to do: Identify the key word in each sentence and stress it. Let your pitch fall at the end of statements. Rising intonation on a statement makes it sound like a question (and that quietly undermines your authority).
Waiting until your English is "perfect" before speaking confidently is a trap. Perfection is not the goal. Impact is.
The question to ask yourself is not "Was that grammatically correct?" but "Did my message land?"
What to do: Shift your benchmark. After a meeting or presentation, ask yourself: Was I clear? Was I understood? Did I move things forward? That's what matters.
Long, complex sentences are hard to deliver fluently and equally hard to follow. When you're speaking, shorter sentences give you more control, and they're easier on your listener.
What it often sounds like: "So what I wanted to say is that I think we should probably try to move forward with the plan, but of course there are still a few things we need to look at before we can really commit to anything."
What works better: "I think we should move forward. There are a few things to check first. But the direction is clear."
What to do: Aim for one idea per sentence. If a sentence has more than two clauses, consider splitting it.
Writing out and memorizing a full script feels safe, but it rarely works in real conversations. You can't predict what others will say, and if you lose your place, you lose your confidence.
Instead, think of phrases as Lego blocks you can use to build your points appropriately in any situation.
What to do: For your next meeting or presentation, prepare three to five phrases for each stage: opening, making points, handling questions, and closing. Practice them until they feel natural — not scripted.
Over-explaining is one of the most common spoken English habits we see in professionals. It often comes from wanting to sound thorough or precise. In practice, it dilutes your message and tests your listener's patience.
What to do: Lead with your point. Pause. Add detail only if your listener asks for it. Resist the urge to qualify everything.
Try this: Answer a question in one sentence. Stop. Let the silence work for you.
Broad, flexible words like thing, stuff, get, do, make, or good are useful when you’re still getting to grips with English. But for advanced speakers, vague language is a limitation. It can make you sound less decisive and less professional than you actually are.
At an advanced level, the goal is conciseness: to say more with fewer words. One of the fastest ways to achieve this is by upgrading to stronger verbs.
Compare these:
"We need to deal with the things that are causing the delay." (11 words, vague)
"We must resolve the bottlenecks." (5 words, precise and professional)
What to do:
Instead of "making it better," try “optimizing”. Instead of "giving a talk," try “delivering a presentation”. Specific verbs reduce your word count while increasing your authority. Precision in your language signals precision in your thinking.
The beginning and end of any conversation or meeting carry disproportionate weight. A strong opening signals confidence and sets the tone. A clear close ensures people leave knowing what happens next.
These moments are also highly predictable, which makes them easy to prepare ahead of time.
What to do: Build a personal set of phrases for opening and closing. Practise them until they feel automatic. A few examples:
Disagreeing in a second language is uncomfortable for many professionals. Without the right phrases, you may stay silent when you shouldn't — or come across as more blunt than you intend.
Useful phrases:
What to do: Choose two or three phrases that feel natural to you. Practise them out loud until they're ready to use.
Signposting means guiding your audience through your presentation with clear verbal markers. It tells people where you are, where you're going, and what's most important.
Without signposting, even well-prepared content can feel hard to follow.
Examples:
What to do: Map out your next presentation and add a signpost at every transition. Your audience will thank you.
Asking for clarification may be uncomfortable, but in professional settings it’s essential that everyone is on the same page. The problem is that many non-native speakers either avoid asking altogether, or ask in a way that sounds unsure, or gives the impression they weren’t paying attention.
Professional phrases:
What to do: Replace vague responses like "Sorry?" or "What do you mean?" with structured clarification questions. It sounds more confident and assures the other person that you’re taking their point seriously — while avoiding misunderstandings.
Direct translation from your native language into English, word for word, often produces sentences that are technically understandable but not quite right. Over time, this can become a persistent habit that limits your fluency.
This is particularly common for Dutch speakers, where sentence structure, word order, and idiom often differ significantly from English.
For example: 'Ik heb het rapport geschreven" translates word for word to "I have the report written," which is of course incorrect.
What to do: Instead of translating, learn English in chunks — fixed phrases, collocations, and sentence patterns that you can use directly. The more you train yourself to think in English, the more natural your spoken English will become.
Many learners focus on individual sounds — the th, the short i, the v versus w — and while these matter, they're not the main reason communication breaks down. Rhythm, stress, and spoken patterns have a much bigger impact on how natural and clear you sound.
What to do: Instead of drilling isolated sounds, practice full phrases and sentences with natural stress and rhythm (ie. prosody, the music of language). Shadow native speakers. Focus on how English flows, not just how individual words are pronounced.
You can read more about prosody here.
Strong spoken Business English is built on a foundation of well-chosen phrases. These are the expressions that come quickly, sound natural, and make you sound like someone who knows exactly what they're doing.
Categories worth building:
What to do: Start a phrase bank — a simple document or notebook where you collect and review useful expressions. Add to it regularly. Review it before important meetings or presentations.
Recording yourself is one of the most effective — and most avoided — self-improvement tools available. It's uncomfortable, but it's also invaluable to your progress in spoken English.
Listening back lets you hear what others hear: your pace, your filler words, your intonation patterns, and the moments where your message loses clarity.
What to do: Record a one-minute spoken summary of something work-related. Listen back. Notice what you'd change. Repeat weekly.
Most feedback non-native speakers receive focuses on grammar. While grammar matters, it's rarely the main reason communication breaks down in professional settings. Clarity, structure, and delivery matter far more.
Asking specifically for feedback on clarity — not just correctness — gives you much more actionable insight.
What to do: After a presentation or important meeting, ask a trusted colleague: "Was my message clear? Was anything hard to follow?" That kind of feedback is where real improvement starts.
You don't need to work on all 17 of these at once. Pick one. Practice it deliberately for a week. Then move to the next.
Small, consistent changes to your speaking habits will take you further than any amount of grammar study. The goal is clear, confident, impactful communication, not perfection.
If you are looking for personalized, private training to improve your professional English, our Spoken Business English Course is perfect for you!
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About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, BA, English Trainer.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
People mumble when speech loses physical clarity — the mouth barely moves, consonants lose definition, vowels become compressed, and words blur together. It is one of the most common communication problems in modern English, and it affects native and non-native speakers alike. The causes are usually physical and behavioral, which means they are also trainable.
Brenda de Jong-Pauley, MA
Director, The English Center
May 2026
Most people assume mumbling is caused by a strong accent, poor English, shyness, or nerves. In many cases, the real problem is simpler than that. And some native English speakers are dramatically harder to understand than advanced second-language speakers.
Understanding why people mumble usually comes down to a combination of low mouth movement, weak consonants, compressed vowels, excessive speed, and weak rhythm. Small changes in articulation, pacing, and vocal clarity can dramatically improve intelligibility — often within weeks.
Mumbling is not the same as having an accent. It is also not the same as natural connected speech.
Many highly intelligible speakers use connected speech constantly — "gonna," "wanna," linked sounds, reduced sounds, fast rhythm. That is normal spoken English.
Mumbling is different. Mumbling happens when speech loses clarity, articulation, energy, and structure. The result is speech that sounds muddy, swallowed, compressed, and difficult to process.
As communication coaches, we often hear comments like:
"I know he's intelligent, but I can barely understand him."
That is an intelligibility problem, not an intelligence problem.
If you're not sure whether this applies to you, our post on why you're hard to understand in English covers the broader picture — including delivery, language choices, and communication intelligence.
Mumbling usually comes from physical and behavioral speaking habits — not from lack of intelligence or English ability. In some cases, it may also reflect a deliberate — if unconscious — choice of register. Speaking in a relaxed, low-energy way can signal ease and informality, the linguistic equivalent of showing up in jeans and sneakers. In certain British social contexts, compressed and understated speech signals class and insider status. And anyone who has spent time around teenagers will recognise the performance of disengagement — vocal energy withheld as proof of not caring. In all three cases, withholding clarity is a kind of social signal. The problem is that it transfers the burden to the listener, which is the opposite of good communication. Here are the most common reasons why people mumble.
This is one of the biggest causes of unclear speech. Some speakers barely move their lips, jaw, or tongue. As a result, consonants and vowels are never fully formed.
Signs to watch for: speech that sounds trapped in the mouth, weak consonants, blurred word boundaries, low vocal projection.
Fix: Use slightly more physical energy when speaking. Focus on opening the mouth more, shaping vowels clearly, and allowing consonants to "pop." A mirror can help — many people are surprised by how little their mouth actually moves. You don't need exaggerated stage pronunciation. You simply need clearer sound formation.
Consonants carry a huge amount of intelligibility information. If they disappear, listeners lose critical sound cues.
Common problems: weak final consonants, softened T and D sounds, disappearing consonant clusters, blurred word endings.
Example: Compare "projec" with "project," or "nex week" with "next week." Small consonant losses can dramatically reduce clarity.
Fix: Think about lightly energizing consonants rather than hitting them aggressively. Clear speech is not harsh speech.
Some speakers reduce nearly every vowel toward a neutral "uh" sound, creating speech that sounds flat and indistinct.
Example: When vowels lose contrast, "ship," "sheep," "chip," and "cheap" can begin to sound dangerously similar.
Fix: Good articulation is not about sounding dramatic — it is about preserving useful sound contrast. Listeners need acoustic contrast to process speech efficiently.
Fast speech reduces precision, articulation, and listener processing time. Many professionals speed up unconsciously when they feel nervous, think quickly, or speak passionately.
Fast speech often feels fluent to the speaker but exhausting to the listener.
Fix: Slightly slower speech almost always sounds clearer, calmer, and more authoritative — especially in meetings and presentations.
English depends heavily on stress patterns. Listeners use stress to identify important words, key ideas, and sentence structure. When stress disappears, speech becomes harder to follow.
Example:
Flat rhythm: "we need to review the numbers before friday"
Clearer rhythm: "We NEED to review the NUMBERS before FRIDAY."
Fix: Don't try to stress every word equally. English is a contrast-based language — some words carry more communicative weight than others.
Stress and intonation are so central to intelligibility that they deserve their own deep dive. Our post on prosody in English is a good next step if you want to go further on this.
Some people are difficult to understand not because of pronunciation, but because they overload listeners with information. Long, tangled explanations reduce clarity quickly.
Example: "So basically what happened was after we reviewed the timeline and spoke with the client and looked at the previous report…" — the listener gets lost before the main point arrives.
Fix: Lead with the conclusion first, then explain. In professional communication, clarity usually improves when structure improves.
Modern communication habits may actually be encouraging unclear speech. Possible reasons include constant online meetings, poor microphones, multitasking while speaking, reduced face-to-face communication, and compressed social media speech patterns.
Many people now speak with less projection and less physical energy than previous generations. This becomes especially problematic on Zoom and Teams calls, where microphones already reduce speech clarity.
Different English-speaking cultures often prioritize different speech habits — pace, articulation, rhythm, vowel clarity, consonant precision. Understanding why people mumble in some contexts and not others often comes down to these cultural and phonetic differences:
Insight: Good intelligibility is usually less about accent and more about articulation, pacing, rhythm, and listener awareness. A strong accent can still be extremely clear if those foundations are stable.
Once you understand why people mumble, the fixes become much more straightforward. Improving clarity usually doesn't require perfect pronunciation — it requires better speaking habits.
Move your mouth more — use slightly more physical energy when speaking.
In general, pop your consonants — especially T, D, K, P.
Shape your vowels clearly — preserve sound contrast.
Slow down slightly — especially in professional communication.
Use pauses — pauses improve structure and give listeners time to process.
Improve sentence stress — help listeners identify the important information.
Record yourself — most people are unaware of how unclear they sound until they hear themselves.
Watch great speakers — notice their mouth movement, pacing, pauses, consonant clarity, and vocal energy.
The goal is not perfect pronunciation. The clearest speakers are not always the most "native sounding." They are usually the most listener-aware.
Mumbling is not just a pronunciation issue. Or a second language issue. Understanding why people mumble reveals a combination of physical speech habits, weak articulation, poor pacing, low speech energy, and unclear communication structure.
The good news is that these are trainable skills. Small changes in mouth movement, consonant clarity, pacing, rhythm, and structure can dramatically improve intelligibility — often within weeks.
If you'd like personalized help with any of the above, our English Accent Training is designed specifically for professionals who want to communicate with more clarity and confidence.
About the author:
Brenda de Jong-Pauley is the founder of The English Center in the Netherlands, where she has worked with international professionals since 2009. Originally from the United States, she lives and works in the Netherlands, supporting professionals in developing clear, confident English for real business situations.
Brenda holds a Master’s degree in Psychology (focused on persuasive communication) and a Bachelor’s in Education. She specializes in high-level business communication and spoken English.
Edited by A. Roberts, BA, English Trainer.
The English Center is a CEDEO-recognized training provider, working with professionals and teams from international and Dutch companies and municipalities.
