I was teaching the International Business Communication course
last week and we did a negotiation simulation, which involved
the course participants looking at a case study and then
performing a negotiation in the classroom. Before the
simulation, we talked about what a negotiation is and how it
affects our daily lives, both in and outside work. We didn’t
draw any solid conclusions but we did look at some negotiating
expressions and talked about being diplomatic in business
negotiations and I thought I’d mention some of the features of
diplomatic English. You can use the following techniques to
sound more diplomatic in English. 1. Use the past continuous to
sound more distant e.g. We were hoping to hammer out the details
today. / We were thinking of offering you a three month
trial.Using the past continuous helps the speaker to sound more
tentative and not overly direct. 2. Use negative questions to
make suggestions e.g. Wouldn’t it be better to…..? / Don’t you
think we could.....? / Couldn’t we.....? These q