So there you are on the phone, you ask a question, and suddenly there's silence. What is this, the phone's gone dead, the person you're talking to is dead? Possibly. But there could be another reason -- the other person could be Finnish, or Japanese. According to a handy new booklet from British Telecom (BT) for business people, in countries such as Britain and Italy "conversation is a form of entertainment. There is a continuous flow of talk...". But in other countries especially Finland and Japan, "it is not only impolite to break in, but listeners will think over what has been said in silence". It also points out that English, when spoken by foreigners, is likely to include plenty of "false friends", where word-for-word translation fails. If a Frenchman says something is "interesting", he probably means it's profitable.If he "demands" something, he's actually just asking. If an American says your proposal is "quite good", you  should be pleased, because "quite" means "very". But if he tells you to "table" a proposal, then things are not good  at all. Whereas an English person would understand tabling a proposal as putting an idea forward, to an American it means shelves it. According to the booklet, British people are not "explicit" like the Americans, the Dutch, the Germans or the French. "If a Dutchman says an idea is interesting, he means that it is interesting. If an Englishman says it is interesting, you have to deduce    from the way he says it whether he means it is a good or a bad idea." The Japanese, the Russians and the Arabs on the other hand, live in the land of true dioplomatic subtlety ."If they say an idea is interesting, it may simply be out of politeness". It is safest to stick with plain speaking whenever possible, BT advises its British readers. And whatever you do, be careful to limit the use of the famous British sense of humor. While speaking in English, a foreigner seems  _  .
to use the words "false friends" quite often to have a strong foreign accent to have difficulty in expressing himself clearly to keep on forgetting English words