“Picture- Kind courtesy Brainy Quote”
Living in a global village has given us the advantage of getting exposed to an array of cross cultural dimensions, culminating into a multilingual & multicultural work environment. Fortunately, to bridge the obvious resultant gaps, there came to our rescue the “Anglo-Saxon” language, which we now know as the one and only, English Language.
Although, English is being embraced readily by many of the developed and developing nations, we are all still working towards perfecting this foreign language, thus going against the flow of the popular adage, “perfection is a myth”. Anyone who wishes to either take up a job, in the English speaking countries like the UK, USA, Australia, Canada etc., or to climb higher up the corporate ladder, one needs to clear a host of tests from the likes of IELTS, OPIc, TOEFL, MELAB, ECPE, etc., which goes to show that even though perfection is a myth, we do give our best, to be the best, amongst the best!
As a Communication Skills Trainer, I have come across the globe trotting trainees, from across the national & international boundaries. IELTS & OPIC Training Delivery were also the two programs that I was engaged in. Ranging from the college students to the senior executives, and the directors of the global multinational giants, in the age group of 18-56 years, they all came with their own set of requirements and training needs. If some were really good with English Grammar, their challenge was, the limitation of the vocabulary of just 1000 words. On the other hand, some had a good hold over their word power and grammar; however, needed guidance in excelling in their writing skills, as the would be director of an MNC, the editor of a well known daily, a budding author, or a radio jokey. Further on, to first have them unlearn what they had already mastered (erroneous, from the grammatical point of view), and to get them on to the correct forms, the responsibility has been challenging, if not the mammoth of a task.
The interesting part in my journey as a Corporate Trainer, lies in the fact that each training program, gave me an insight to devise up methodologies, which have proven to be effective, and quicker to grasp. The icing on the cake definitely has been our fun filled learning atmosphere, due to which it all gets retained and subsequently gets applied at work. Therefore, be it the Parts of Speech, Writing Skills, Business Writing Skills, Spellings, Pronunciations, Accent Neutralization, or the American Accent, we have been able to satisfy our trainees, in the whole gamut. Our trainees could actually feel the paradigm shift in their very approach to the English language, consequently leading to the repeat training orders from our clients.
To give you an instance, let us talk about a word that has various synonyms. To be more effective we would use them in a suitable sentence.
If we take the word lessen, we would have the synonyms as reduce, diminish, lighten, dilute, mitigate.
Now let us take a look at the sentences below:
Example 1- Synonym says it all!
- Could you reduce the volume, please?
- Could you mitigate the volume, please? (Could you mitigate the problem?)
- Could you diminish the volume, please? (Could the value of the currency diminish with time?)
- Could you lighten the volume, please? (It is better to lighten you mood.)
- Could you dilute the volume, please? (You have diluted all my efforts of teaching you English.)
Could you notice how absurd the other sentences sounded when we took the synonyms of reduce, for the same sentence? On the contrary, do the new sentences formed with those synonyms sound better, right?
Alternatively: Placement of a word in a sentence
- Could you please reduce the volume? (Our first request!)
- Could you reduce the volume, please? (Here, the degree of pleading goes higher!)
- Please reduce the volume! (Did you note that this sentence, though has a “please”, is actually a command!)
Example 2- Adjectives Administered
Let us take another examples of words, and their relational adjectives. What are the words that come to your mind, when you think of Water?
The adjectives could be either positive or negative, and how we use them in our sentences, would bring out our intended message.
Pure, Clean, Clear, Crystal clear, Murky, Dirty, Potable, Contaminated
- The murky water seems to be far from potable, and therefore, could be contaminated.
Here, we have used murky as the adjective (negative).
- The pure water cascading down the hill, was a mesmerizing sight.
- The crystal clear water cascading down the hill, was a mesmerizing sight.
- The clear water cascading down the hill, was a mesmerizing sight.
Doesn’t the second sentence sound impactful, when using the positive adjectives of water?
Example 3- Punctuation plays a powerful part
- The pure water cascading down the hill, was a mesmerizing sight.
- The pure water, cascading down the hill was a mesmerizing sight.
- The pure water, cascading down the hill, was a mesmerizing sight.
- Please, reduce the volume! (Absolute command!! Please compare with example 2)
Read the above sentences, emphasizing on the punctuation, “comma”, and see how it changes the effect of what you are trying to portray.
Therefore, sometimes despite having a good command over the grammar, we need to be little experimental with the synonyms & antonyms, the adverbs & adjectives, or the punctuation, and the likes.
I truly feel from my 20+ years of work experience as a former Corporate Employee, and now as an IAF accredited certified and experienced Corporate Trainer that English Language is the time tested melting pot of cultures, which has been resonating saliently, across the man made boundaries, binding people in thought, mind and camaraderie.
We make it simpler and easier to learn with our self developed unique methodology of learning English, as a complete language. CorpMantra Academy, wishes to give a gentle nudge to the adult minds, in boosting up their skills towards strengthening their hold on this language, of the New Age World!!
❝Language is the blood of the soul into which thoughts run and out of which they grow.❞
‒Oliver Wendell Holmes
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Priya Gajamer
Founder & L&D Principal Consultant, CorpMantra Academy
An artistically inclined, health enthusiast, holding a degree in Bio Science, with 20+ years of work experience, spanning across industries. An IAF Certified Corporate Trainer in Soft Skills, and a Strategy Consultant for Global IT Services, she also dons the hat of an ardent blogger for Health & Wellness, IT & Retail, and is a Social Change Activist.