How many languages are spoken in your team meetings?

Question

Running global teams is fascinating but challenging. Had a meeting yesterday with three different languages!

Some use translators, others stick to English. What's your approach to multilingual meetings?

**Late night meetings with Asia, early calls with Europe - how do you cope?**

Started tracking meeting schedule across time zones:

- 7AM calls with London
- 11PM sessions with Singapore
- Everything in between

What's your strategy for staying effective? Share your time zone hacks! 🌍

Hamza Afzal Butt · Accepted Answer

I prefer to have meetings in English  :)

Michael Vavilov · Answer

1. All recorded text is in English. 
2. Small group meetings may be conducted in any convenient language. 
3. Minutes from meetings held in other languages - follow point 1.

Answer

For me, it's a mix of English, Portuguese, and Korean during meetings.

Edward Turner · Answer

Mostly English for us too. But sometimes discussions drift into Mandarin or Spanish depending on who's in the meeting. Using a common language like English helps keep things efficient though.

David Carter · Answer

We've got a global team so there's always a mix - usually English, Hindi, Mandarin, and a bit of Spanish and Russian thrown in! As long as everyone on the call can understand each other, we go with whatever works best. 🌐

Janak Patel · Answer

For me, Hindi and English.

Olivia Jane Mitchell · Answer

2 for English, 1 for Chinese, and 1 for silent awkwardness as everyone tries to figure out which language to speak 😅 But yeah, defaulting to English helps keep things simple, even if not everyone is fully fluent.

Answer

We stick to English in most meetings, but I sometimes switch to Spanish when talking with certain teammates it keeps things personal.

Answer

I use translation tools for our English, japanese and German meetings they're a huge help

Answer

In our meetings, I hear English, Hindi and Mandarin a lot . I find that having a clear agenda really helps us stay on track.

Answer

English is our default, but I sometimes join smaller breakout discussion in my native language, which feels more natural.

Loic Thirion-Lopez · Answer

Would you all benefit from having an AI assistant that records/transcribes and summarises your meetings regardless of the language spoken? @hamza_afzal_butt @oliviajanemitchell @edwardturner @davidcarter @ra__jesh @michael_vavilov

Answer

Most of the time, I use English in meetings, but I love that we include subtitles for non native speakers it’s awesome.

How many languages are spoken in your team meetings?

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