Do the British mean what they say?
A Spanish friend recently sent me the link to an article published online. This “guide” explains to the rest of Europe what British people really mean when they say certain things, and what others understand by what has been said.
For example, according to this article, when a British person says “You must come to dinner”, the real meaning is “It’s not an invitation, I’m just being polite”, whilst the listener will think “I will get an invitation soon”. Obviously, this is an extreme generalisation, but I have to admit, it does ring some bells. If you accidentally bump into someone and they say “we must do lunch” or “we must get a coffee one day”, chances are you won’t set eyes on them again until you accidentally bump into them again… (more…)
New EU language Regulations for Pharmaceutical and Medical Device manufacturers
Latest EU regulations demand that all packaging and instruction leaflets for pharmaceutical products and medical devices are translated into the official language of the country they are being exported to.
American companies in this sector who intend to export their products to Europe must comply with these regulations, and indeed should embrace multilingual packaging in order to compete with their European counterparts.
UK housewives addicted to Internet
A study of more than 27,000 web users in 16 countries has shown that the Chinese spend the largest fraction of their leisure time online.
The survey also showed, however, that UK housewives spend even more of their free time online – a surprising 47%.
A total of 27,522 people aged 18 to 55 years old were interviewed online by TNS Global Interactive in the following countries: Australia, Canada, China, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Korea, Netherlands, Norway, Spain, Sweden, the United Kingdom and the United States. 2,500 were surveyed in the UK. The questions focused on online behaviour and, interestingly, also raised the issue of trust in traditional versus online media.