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When communicating in English in a business context and you are not a native speaker, your interlocutors are willing to forgive any mistakes. Being able to speak two languages already speaks well of your skills, and no one will worry about minor grammatical errors. However, if you want to refresh your skills and continue improving your English, here are some common mistakes to avoid.

What Are the Most Common Mistakes in Business English?

If English is not your native language, these are among the most common mistakes that are made:

• Personal vs personnel. The term personnel refers to staff, that is, a company’s workforce, and is pronounced “per-so-NEL”. It is often confused with “personal”—used as an adjective—which has a very different meaning. Personal, in this case, refers to everything concerning the individual and is pronounced with the stress on the first syllable: “PER-son-al”. Given the radically different meaning of these two words, it is important to ensure you use the correct term.
• ‘Presentate.’This word is often used, but in reality it is always wrong because it does not exist. It is coined based on the word “presentation“, but it is not correct. Instead of using “presentate“, it is better to say “present information” or “give a presentation“.
• The pronunciation of the word “executive“. Stressing the wrong syllable of this word can radically alter the meaning. For example, a very common mistake is stressing the “u”, which can create the impression that you are saying “execute“, which means to put to death.
• Using uncountable nouns. Words like “advice, knowledge and information” are all uncountable nouns—which do not have a plural form. One of the most frequent mistakes is adding an s when using them in the plural. Therefore, saying “he gave me advices” is incorrect; the correct form would be “he gave me lots of advice“.
• “Headquarters” always has an s. Non-native English speakers often use the word “headquarter” without the s. This is a very common mistake and is easy to avoid—just remember to always include the s.
• Conclude your emails or letters in the right way. The last word of a letter or email is the impression you leave on your reader. One of the most common mistakes is concluding like this: “I look forward to hear from you“. In this case, you need to use “hearing“. Although it may seem like a negligible difference, this is a common expression and must be used precisely as indicated.

If you are learning English, these mistakes are very common and are not even noticed by native speakers, especially since almost none of them speak Italian. However, if you want to start perfecting your English, then these are mistakes you can easily avoid.