English for Engineers

Catherine Stagg-Macey has spent the last ten years coaching international tech teams through exactly the kind of friction that comes from mixing cultures, personalities, and one too many assumptions about what "that's interesting" actually means.

In this episode, she and Olivia get into why logic alone can't hold a team together, why a South African can get told off for being "too direct" in England and then find the Americans even more direct (just nicer about it), and the string exercise Catherine uses to show teams the tension nobody can see. They also cover why empathy is a skill you build rather than a personality trait, what a rotating finger can teach you about perspective, and the question Catherine leaves every client with: do you want to be right, or do you want a relationship?

CONNECT WITH CATHERINE STAGG-MACEY — executive and team coach, founder of Conversations at the Edge. Website: conversationsattheedge.co.uk · LinkedIn: Catherine Stagg-Macey

CONNECT WITH OLIVIA AUGUSTIN — civil engineer and certified English as a second language teacher. With her one-on-one lessons and group courses, she teaches non-native English-speaking engineers the kind of English that gets the job done.

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Christian Urich and Olivia went to school together in Austria. Twenty years later, they catch up on how differently engineers actually work once they leave the classroom. Christian's early structural engineering reports were built around pages of calculations, some done entirely by hand — numbers and drawings speaking for themselves.

His clients now expect a one-page executive summary before anyone reads a single number. They also get into why Scrum and Agile are standard on Dutch infrastructure projects and almost unheard of among Austrian engineers, how remote work has cut down on unnecessary flights but quietly increased professional isolation, and Christian's advice for anyone who doesn't feel confident speaking English: talk anyway.

CONNECT WITH CHRISTIAN URICH Christian Urich is a civil and environmental engineer based in Melbourne, Australia. He spent years researching water-sensitive cities and teaching groundwater modelling at Monash University before moving into environmental engineering consulting, where his projects now range from water policy work with governments to AI-driven irrigation systems. LinkedIn: Christian Urich

CONNECT WITH OLIVIA AUGUSTIN Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English as a second language teacher. With her one-on-one lessons and group courses, she teaches non-native English-speaking engineers the kind of English that gets the job done.

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Last week: why a fast email reply reads as hasty in Japan and a slow one reads as incompetent in Germany. This week, it gets personal.

Ama Zbarcea tells the story of a Slovakian colleague who spun around in a quiet London office and shouted "I love you, you're SO rude" — meant as the nicest thing she'd ever heard. We get into why American kids raise their hand high in school and British kids raise one finger near their shoulder, why interrupting reads as confident in the US and pushy almost everywhere else, and the two words ("rubber" and "pants") a red-faced British boss once begged Ama to retire before her first day at the office.

We close with Ama's actual rule for staying out of trouble in a new culture — know your audience, every time — and where to grab her free contract cheat sheet.

Connect with Ama Zbarcea
Through her company On Your Own Terms, Ama gives small business owners plain-English legal help without the scare tactics. Grab her free contract cheat sheet, or say hi on Instagram.

Connect with Olivia Augustin

Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English as a second language teacher. With her one-on-one lessons and group courses, she teaches non-native English-speaking engineers the kind of English that gets the job done.

⁠Work with me⁠ | ⁠Get the newsletter⁠ | ⁠LinkedIn⁠ | ⁠Instagram⁠

A German engineer replies to an email in five minutes. His Japanese counterpart takes a week to answer the same kind of question. Neither one is lazy. They're just working from two completely different rulebooks — and nobody handed either of them a copy of the other's.

This week I'm talking to Ama Zbarcea: legal expert, polyglot, and someone who has collected cultural mishaps the way other people collect stamps. Ama grew up Romanian-American, then moved to London for what was supposed to be a three-month internship. She never really left. Along the way she picked up a British legal degree, a British accent nobody quite believes, and a first-week Secret Santa gift that should have been a warning: "English Humour for Beginners."

In part 1, Ama and I talk about the phrase that means the exact opposite thing depending which side of the Atlantic you say it, why she never introduces herself by email anymore, and what the book The Culture Map gets so right about German and Japanese engineers misreading each other completely.

Part 2 lands next week. Ama and I go deep on US vs UK project communication, and the time someone called her "so rude" — and meant it as the biggest compliment of her career.

Connect with Ama Zbarcea

Through her company, On Your Own Terms, Ama offers understandable, affordable, and non-boring legal help for online small businesses so they can grow without legal stress.

• Website: onyourownterms.net
• Free contract cheat sheet: onyourownterms.net/freebie-legally-legit-digital-product-checklist/
• Instagram: @on_your_own_terms_
• Facebook: On Your Own Terms

Connect with Olivia Augustin

Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English as a second language teacher. With her one-on-one lessons and group courses, she teaches non-native English-speaking engineers the kind of English that gets the job done.

Work with me | Get the newsletter | LinkedIn | Instagram

Travis Kalanick once said engineers "don't think a lot about storytelling." I'd like to challenge that — because if you work on international projects, the story you tell in an email or a meeting is the whole job. In this episode, I untangle Business English, Technical English, and Simplified Technical English (yes, that's a real thing, born in 1980s aviation manuals) — three terms that get thrown around constantly and rarely explained. Then I tell you why I mashed all three into a hybrid I call English for Engineers.

CONNECT WITH OLIVIA AUGUSTIN

Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English teacher turned corporate trainer, her specialty is dissecting the intricate structures of the English language and only putting back the pieces engineers really need to become skilled communicators.

• LinkedIn: Olivia D. Augustin
• Instagram: @_marcode_
• Website: marcode.org

This is the very 1st episode of Olivia's ENGLISH FOR ENGINEERS podcast, where she introduces herself and tells you a little bit about her background in engineering. She's also sharing 4 language learning tips that you can easily introduce into your daily routine. Olivia's mission: helping you master your Business English, Technical English, and conversational skills so that talking English will become your new superpower.

What can you expect from this podcast in the future? 

The primary reason for this podcast is that Olivia wants to provide you with interesting language input. She's going to share tips and tricks regarding Technical English, Business English, and English Business communication across cultures, but she also wants to share scientific research that backs up language learning techniques. Olivia is interviewing international experts so you can get used to different accents and get used to different ways of seeing the world. Her guests will always have a connection to engineering in general, construction, technical English, or business communication.

To download the pdf resource mentioned, go to https://www.marcode.org/unstuckyourenglish

MORE RESOURCES AND LINKS:

1. Read more about why engineers are good at learning English here: https://www.marcode.org/blog/052

2. Check out the Emails for Engineers template package to help you simplify your international project communication. 

3. Here, you can get the eBook "How to Write a Report and present it too."

CONNECT WITH OLIVIA AUGUSTIN

Olivia Augustin is a civil engineer and certified English teacher turned corporate trainer, her specialty is dissecting the intricate structures of the English language and only putting back the pieces engineers really need to become skilled communicators.

LinkedIn: Olivia Augustin

Instagram: @_marcode_

Podcast: English for Engineers

Website: marcode.org