Australia

Read the text. Complete the table using the information about doing business in Australia.

Planning a business trip	Conducting negotiations	Business entertaining

• Try to schedule business trips to Australia during the months between March and November. Avoid December through February, popular vacation months. Avoid the week before and the two weeks after Christmas and the week before and after Easter.

• Be sure to make business appointments about a month in advance of your visit.

• To make a good impression, take some time to learn about Australia and its cultural background before you go there. Australians will delight in discussing their country with you.

• Know that the Australians are not at all class-conscious and can be approached very easily, no matter what their position*. They will almost always make time to give a visitor an appointment.

• Bring business cards, although not all Australians use them.

• Be sure to be on time for your appointments.

• Be prepared to find most businesspeople easy-going and friendly. Recall that personal relationships are just as important to Australians as productivity. Try to develop a friendly relationship, especially by partying with people in the evening (but never discuss business while partying).

• Be aware that Australians also tend to be cynical, laconic, and understated in their conversation*. They also feel free to express negative opinions about people and situations. Don't be put off by such directness.

• To gain Australians' respect, don't try to avoid taking a position on an issue. Take a definite stand*. But don't take a position in which you don't believe just because you think it will please others and make them more likely to accept your company. Be sincere. Australians see through — and dislike — any display of phoniness*.

• Never behave in any way that could be interpreted as patronizing. Don't expect compliments on a good presentation or a job well done. Australians don't usually give such positive reinforcement*.

• Expect Australians to be more interested in major issues than in fine points and minuscule details*.

• Never give orders to an Australian. Always negotiate.

Entertaining

Expect to do business over drinks. Be sure to buy your round of drinks in turn. Don't however use entertainment as an opportunity to talk business. During their free time, Australians want recreation. If an Australian brings up business, you can feel free to discuss it.

Notes

very easily, no matter what their position — не показывают своей классовой принадлежности, и к ним можно свободно обращаться независимо от занимаемого ими положения;

cynical, laconic and understated in their conversation — циничные, немногословные, не открываются до конца в беседах (разговорах);

Take a definite stand. — Займите определенную позицию.

any display of phoniness — любое проявление лжи (фальши);

don't usually give such positive reinforcement — обычно не выражают положительную оценку;

more interested in major issues than in fine points and minuscule details — более заинтересованы в основных вопросах, чем в тонкостях и мелких деталях.

KEYS

Ex. 1, р. 7 Famous names...

Possible answers:

1. Mao-Tse Tung

2. Nelson or Winnie Mandela

3. Pope John Paul II

4. Luciano Pavarotti

5. U2

Ex. 2. Newspaper headlines.

1. Frenchman

2. Britons

3. Vietnamese

4. Dane

5. Pakistani

Ex. 3. World quiz.

1. Malays, Chinese.

2. If we take Scandinavia as strictly as the geographical peninsula, then Sweden and Norway are the only countries completely in Scandinavia. If we consider it more as a language family, then Denmark and Iceland can be added, and if as a cultural family, then Finland can be added too.

3. Approximate populations are China: 975,000,000; India: 638,000,000; USA: 218,000,000; Indonesia: 141,000,000; Brazil: 116,000,000. The former Soviet Union used to be the third, with

260,000,000.

4. A difficult question! However, most linguists seem to agree on around 5,000 mutually incomprehensible tongues. There are, of course, many, many more dialects.

5. Kiribati is an independent country in the middle of the Passific Ocean. It has only about 57,000 people.

6. Inuit is an Eskimo language, and its speakers may be found in Nothern Canada.

7. Languages most widely spoken, in the following order, are Chinese, English, Spanish, Hindi and Arabic.