Receptive language use is a form of multilingual communication in which participants continue to speak their own language and can still listen to and understand each other. For example, someone may understand Dutch but find it difficult to speak, in which case they can answer Dutch questions in English.

When using parallel languages, you can choose to speak another language, such as English, in a meeting with international colleagues. This depends on how well you speak English – if your native language is Dutch – and whether you feel comfortable speaking English. International colleagues can then respond more quickly: there is no delay between translating, understanding what has been said and formulating a response.

As well as providing flexibility in language use, it promotes inclusiveness within a project group, team, department or participation body.

Receptive language use and using languages in parallel both have their advantages:

• Less anxiety about speaking. You can understand English, but you may not feel confident enough to speak it yourself. The same goes for colleagues who do not speak Dutch but can understand it. One person’s discomfort is no more important than another’s.
• Better-quality debates. You speak better in languages you know well. Your arguments are stronger and more nuanced than when you have to search for words in a second language.
• More effective and efficient conversations and meetings. It saves time if people don’t have to search for words.

If all colleagues are able to understand Dutch and English, switching to receptive language use is recommended. If this is not possible, switching to parallel language usage can make a meeting more accessible to international staff. Sometimes it may be better to use an interpreter or another translation service.

If you have decided to hold multilingual meetings for your team, it helps to adapt to the language used. Although people know that it is important to be considerate in multilingual meetings, they often forget this during the meeting itself.

Here are some tips to help:

1. Repeat agreements: check that you understand each other and repeat agreements to make sure.
2. Structure the meeting: stick to the agenda to avoid confusion.
3. Adjust your speaking pace: speak slowly and check that others can follow you.
4. Be careful with sayings and expressions: avoid jargon and sayings, or explain them clearly.
5. Use humour carefully: jokes are difficult to translate, so it is better to explain them.
6. Proactively introduce abbreviations and specific terms: you can provide your international colleagues with a list of commonly used abbreviations in advance.
7. Send meeting documents well in advance: this will give international colleagues enough time to translate the documents (or have them translated).
8. Put multilingual meetings on the agenda regularly: are everyone’s needs being met, and what could be improved? Multilingual meetings are a learning process in which you gradually discover what works and what doesn’t.   
9. Make internal agreements within your team, department or board so that everyone is clear about which language is used: for example, presentations can be given in Dutch, but the slides can be shown in English. Or agree to hold staff meetings alternately in Dutch and English.