Interactions with American clients - Useful tips

1. Do not write "the same" in an email - it makes little

sense to them.
Example - I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you of
the same when it is done

This is somewhat an Indian construct. It is better written simply as:

I will try to organize the project artifacts and inform you when that is
done

2. Do not write or say, "I have some doubts on this issue"

The term "Doubt" is used in the sense of doubting someone - we use this
term because in Indian languages , the word for a "doubt" and a
"question" is the same.
The correct usage (for clients) is: I have a few questions on this issue

3. The term "regard" is not used much in American English. They

usually do not say "regarding this issue" or "with regard to this".
Simply use, "about this issue".

4. Do not say "Pardon" when you want someone to repeat what they
said. The word "Pardon" is unusual for them and is somewhat formal.

5. Americans do not understand most of the Indian accent immediately -

They only understand 75% of what we speak and then interpret the rest.
Therefore try not to use shortcut terms such as "Can't" or "Don't". Use
the expanded "Cannot" or "Do not".

6. Do not use the term "screwed up" liberally. If a situation is not

good, it is better to say, "The situation is messed up". Do not use words
such as "shucks", or "pissed off".

7. As a general matter of form, Indians interrupt each other constantly

in meetings - DO NOT interrupt a client when they are speaking. Over
the phone, there could be delays - but wait for a short time before
responding.

8. When explaining some complex issue, stop occasionally and ask

"Does that make sense?". This is preferable than "Do you understand
me?"

9. In email communications, use proper punctuation. To explain

something, without breaking your flow, use semicolons, hyphens or
parenthesis.
As an example:
You have entered a new bug (the popup not showing up) in the defect
tracking system; we could not reproduce it - although, a screenshot
would help.
Notice that a reference to the actual bug is added in parenthesis so that
the sentence flow is not broken. Break a long sentence using such
punctuation.

10. In American English, a mail is a posted letter. An email is electronic

mail. When you say "I mailed the information to you", it means you sent
an actual letter or package through the postal system.
The correct usage is: "I emailed the information to you"

11. To "prepone" an appointment is an Indian usage. There is no actual

word called prepone. You can "advance" an appointment.

12. In the term "N-tier Architecture" or "3-tier Architecture", the word

"tier" is NOT pronounced as "Tire". I have seen many people pronounce
it this way. The correct pronunciation is "tea-yar". The "ti" is
pronounced as "tea".

13. The usages "September End", "Month End", "Day End" are not
understood well by Americans. They use these as "End of September",
"End of Month" or "End of Day".

14. Americans have weird conventions for time - when they say the time
is "Quarter Of One", they mean the time is 1:15. Better to ask them the
exact time.

15. Indians commonly use the terms "Today Evening", "Today Night".
These are not correct; "Today" means "This Day" where the Day stands
for Daytime. Therefore "Today Night" is confusing. The correct usages
are: "This Evening", "Tonight".
That applies for "Yesterday Night" and "Yesterday Evening". The correct
usages are: "Last Night" and "Last Evening".

16. When Americans want to know the time, it is usual for them to
say, "Do you have the time?". Which makes no sense to an Indian.

17. There is no word called "Updation". You update somebody. You wait
for updates to happen to the database. Avoid saying "Updation".

18. When you talk with someone for the first time, refer to them as
they refer to you - in America, the first conversation usually starts by
using the first name. Therefore you can use the first name of a client.
Do not say "Sir". Do not call women "Madam".
19. It is usual convention in initial emails (particularly technical) to
expand abbreviations, this way: We are planning to use the Java API For
Registry (JAXR).

After mentioning the expanded form once, subsequently you can use
the abbreviation.

20. Make sure you always have a subject in your emails and that the
subject is relevant. Do not use a subject line such as HI .

21.Avoid using "Back" instead of "Back" Use "ago". Back is the worst
word for American. for Days use "Ago", For hours use "before")

22.Avoid using "but" instead of "But" Use "However".

23.Avoid using "Yesterday" hereafter use "Last day".

24.Avoid using "Tomorrow" hereafter use "Next day".