This week sees the final presentations for the 2018 Winter Olympic bids in Durban, South Africa and the Korean team representing the beautiful resort of PyeongChang will be there delivering their final presentation.
Among the honoured members of the team will be Olympic Figure Skating Champion, Yuna Kim and President Lee Myung Bak. And they, together with the other members of the Korean Olympic Team will have the hopes of the entire Korean nation on their shoulders when they present their final presentation.
So, why should they present this presentation in English?
The main reason is that 99% of the International Olympic Committee do not speak Korean. Yet, almost all members of the IOC do speak English. If the presentation is done in Korean the presentation will have to be translated and when a translation takes place live, all emotion, enthusiasm and passion is lost. What might sound brilliant in Korean will sound dead and boring in English if it is translated. This is one area that the type of audience the presenters have must take priority over everything else, and the audience for the PyeongChang team do not speak Korean.
The PyeongChang team must connect with they audience and the only way to do that is to speak in a language all members of the IOC understand. Presenting their message in Korean is not going to connect them with their audience in this situation.
Finally, the rival teams from Germany and France will almost certainly present in English. The Germans and the French are all too aware of the importance of communicating on the international stage and whether they like it or not, they do accept that the international language is English.
So for the PyeongChang team to have the best chance possible of giving the nation of South Korea something to be proud of this week, they must prepare and deliver their final message to the IOC in English.
Good luck guys, my fingers are crossed for you.
