The key to presenting successfully at an international meeting is your ability to translate information in a manner that everyone understands. That applies whether you’re addressing a conference with an audience in the thousands, or a sales presentation before a handful of execs around a table. But don’t let your presumed mastery of the lingua franca of the business world–English–lull you into a false sense of security.

First, there’s the overall tone of your presentation. An Anglo-American audience will respond better to a presentation that is short, concise, and forward-thinking. You may be reporting on financials that were less than impressive, but an Anglo- American audience will want to hear about the future…and how you’re planning to do better. I’ve noticed that the reverse can be true in continental Europe where scholarly, hierarchical presentations are more often used and anticipated. The problem is, today’s increasingly Anglo-American-style international business audience can become bogged down in details, and lose interest in a lengthy presentation–which can result in far too little time for the most vital part of a presentation: q & a.

Then there’s the matter of the amount of animation you put into your presentation. I’m not referring to graphics, but the physical and vocal energy the audience will perceive. Too much positive energy and too many effusive adjectives (a trap Americans often fall into) can be off-putting and considered bombastic, whereas the conventional French penchant for modesty or the British propensity for understatement can lead the audience to think you’re not really convinced of the message you’re delivering, no matter how much factual information you’ve packed into your presentation.

Gauge your audience before stepping in front of them, and pay attention to your body language, a topic I’ve covered in a previous Forbes blog post, which you can access here.

Using The World’s Second Language

The language you use to present in international business circles today is almost always English. It is the language an increasing number of people around the world use in their daily working lives. It is the language of business, science, technology… and it is probably the number one second-language in the world. But rather than the use of English being an asset to communications, the state of affairs we find ourselves in is often more in line with the words of the CEO of an international banking group whose members include Italians, Germans, Luxembourgeois and Austrians: “The official language of our group is not English; it’s BAD English!”

Good or bad, English is well-suited to more precise expression: there are about 170,000 words in English compared to about 100,000 in French, which means you will likely find far fewer culturally-related idiomatic expressions to wade through in the English language. But that doesn’t mean the language itself isn’t full of pitfalls. As novelist George Bernard Shaw reportedly said, “The United States and Great Britain are two countries separated by a common language.”

Some linguists pinpoint the separation to the American “Revolutionary War” (which the British still refer to as the “war of the colonies”): Americans were happy for their English to differ from that of the “old country,” and there were plenty of American non-native-English-speakers butchering the King’s English as well. So the English language adapted, and it should be no surprise that Noah Webster, who published the first dictionary of American English in 1828, chose spelling that was simpler and more phonetic. That’s resulted in a car park becoming a parking lot; a boot becoming a trunk, a lift becoming an elevator, etc., while American spellings for the same word also changed (labor vs labour, for example). This is also something to keep in mind when creating power points.

These differences today are also waiting to trap you in ridiculously ambiguous expressions. My favorite is the idea of “tabling” an issue at a meeting. When a British business person “tables” an idea, he or she will haul out notes and start talking; however, when an American exec “tables” something, he or she puts away those notes because the issue has been pushed away, to be dealt with at a later date. When in doubt, it’s best to ask.

Golden Rules

And there are a few golden rules to keep in mind: regardless of your linguistic skills, humor and sports generally do not translate well culturally, despite the Internet’s globalization of popular culture. The Americans will be caught up in baseball’s (misnamed) World Series, and the rest of the world will be caught up in football’s more-aptly-named World Cup–though the American will still refer to the game as “soccer.”

It’s important to be aware of these nuances of cross-cultural presentations, even when using the same language, as you will boost your chances for success. And in more far-reaching, philosophical terms, the use of a common language could lead to better understanding and global alliances that can exist beyond the transactional business world.