Improving business English without sounding like a textbook.

I came to teaching English after eight years inside the corporate communications team of a North American bank. I write this fully aware of the irony — I now spend my evenings undoing the textbook English that the banks themselves helped to install in adult learners.

The most-used business English textbooks teach phrases that sound technically correct but feel strange in a real conversation. Worse, when a Malaysian professional uses them, native colleagues sometimes assume the speaker is more formal — or more hesitant — than they actually are. The English then makes the speaker sound less, not more, confident.

Below are four phrase swaps I run in the first week of the Skyforma Business Sprint. They take a few hours to learn and a few weeks to install. Together they remove most of the textbook stiffness.

Swap 1: "I would like to" → "I want to" / "I'd like to"

What the textbook says: "I would like to discuss the budget revision."

What people actually say: "I want to talk about the budget revision." Or, when softer is preferred, "I'd like to walk us through the budget revision."

"I would like to" feels formal to a native ear. It signals that you've prepared what you're going to say. Sometimes that's exactly the effect you want, especially when opening a senior meeting. Most of the time, "I want to" or "I'd like to" is closer to how people speak.

Swap 2: "Kindly find attached" → "I've attached..."

What the textbook says: "Kindly find attached the revised quote for your perusal."

What people actually say: "I've attached the revised quote — let me know if anything looks off."

"Kindly find attached" comes from a slightly older era of British business writing and survives in email templates. It still works, but it gives the message a polite-but-distant flavour. The replacement is plainer, friendlier, and sounds like a colleague rather than a representative.

Swap 3: "Do the needful" → "Please go ahead" / "...and you can take it from there"

What the textbook says: "Please do the needful at your earliest convenience."

What people actually say: "Please go ahead with the next step." Or, "Once the legal review comes in, you can take it from there."

"Do the needful" is widely used in Malaysian and South Asian business English. It's a recognisable phrase to anyone working in the region. To North American and Western European colleagues, however, it lands as awkward or unclear. If you're writing across markets, swap it.

Swap 4: "Revert" (meaning reply) → "Get back to you"

What the textbook says: "Will revert by EOD."

What people actually say: "I'll get back to you by the end of the day."

"Revert" in modern global English means "to go back to a previous state" — "the building was reverted to its original use". Using it to mean "reply" is common in Malaysia and India but causes brief confusion in other markets. "Get back to you" is unambiguous everywhere.

The wider habit: write like you'd talk to a colleague.

The above four swaps aren't a complete list. They are examples of a single broader habit we install: write like you'd talk to a colleague you respect. The textbook style overcomplicates verbs, multiplies politeness markers and treats the reader like a customer of formality. Modern business English is closer to how good colleagues speak when they're not nervous.

If you'd like to drill this with a mentor over twelve weeks — with real emails, decks and meeting recordings from your own job — the Business Sprint is the place to do it.