False Friends - Taschen Guide

other departments to optimize IT's services. …
Professional requirements:
IT study at university. Five years experience in a similar position. Great and sovereign knowledge of standard office IT systems. …
Personal requirements:
Excellent analytical skills. Excellent communicator. Because of different nationalities in teams must be sensible to different cultures. …
What needs to be corrected?
    This was written:
But this is meant:
leader
    Führer
head (Head of IT)
    Leiter
company direction
    Firmenrichtung
company management
    Direktion
announcement
    Ankündigung
advert
    Annonce
actual goals
    tatsächlichen Ziele
current goals
    aktuelle Ziele
controlling processes
    Prozesse steuernd
examining processes
    Controlling-Prozesse
IT study at university
    Studieren der IT an der Uni
university degree in IT
    IT-Studium an der Uni
great and sovereign knowledge
wide-ranging, expert knowledge
großartige und adlige Kenntnisse
große und souveräne Kenntnisse
sensible
    vernünftig
sensitive
    sensibel
    You may already have seen some of these false friends in the other sections of this book. The alphabetical list of falsefriends in the second part of this book contains (page 58) many more examples which relate to a range of different business and personal areas.
    Logistics
    If your goods and/or services are supplied physically to the customer, then the main purpose of logistics is to deliver those goods and services to their destination without delay.
    Effective communication is therefore of paramount importance.
    Example: email containing false friends
    Jürgen is still waiting for a consignment of office furniture that he ordered for his company two months ago.
    From: Jürgen Mann
    To: Jeff Jones
    Sent: 25.11.2010
    Subject: Reclamation – Order Number 5789614
    Dear Mr Jones,
    This is about our order of ten desks and ten office chairs on 20 September 2010.
    Last Monday I spoke on the phone with your lager. I told them that the furnitures had not arrived yet. They controlled all our order dates and said they knew what had happened. They told me that the furnitures were on the way to our city by train but a wagon was defect.
    They said I should become everything yesterday but nothing has arrived.
    Please could you find out where our furnitures are and call me with informations as soon as possible, because my colleagues do not want to work on the floor!
    Thank you.
    Regards,
    Jürgen Mann
What's not right?
    This was written:
But this is meant:
reclamation
    Rückgewinnung
complaint
    Reklamation
lager
    helles Bier
warehouse
    Lager
control
    steuern
check
    Kontrolle
order dates
    Bestelltermine
order data
    Bestelldaten
become
    werden
receive
    bekommen
    Important
    It is incorrect to say ‚furnitures‘ and ‚informations‘ in English. Neither of these terms has an s at the end. The plural forms are simply ‚furniture‘ and ‚ information‘.
    Finance and accounting
    If you work in the finance department of a large, international company, perhaps you have a lot of contact with colleagues in offices in different parts of the world, and no doubt English is your company language for all communication with these colleagues.
    Example: phone conversation containing false friends
    Julio is Spanish and works in accounting in the London office of a global company. Kirsten is a German colleague working in the company's Frankfurt office.
    Kirsten: Hello Julio, it's Kirsten from the Frankfurt office. How are you?
    Julio: Hello Kirsten, fine thanks. How are you?
    Kirsten: A bit stressed. I'm calling to ask about a booking on one of our cost centers that was done in the London office. We are making an internal revision at the moment and the controller wants to know more details about the post.
    Julio: ( Wonders what is being changed internally. In addition, he is accustomed to hearing the term ‚Controller‘, though in Britain, people in these jobs are called ‚management accountants‘. ) So it's about some post? Was it a courier delivery? We normally only charge big amounts to projects if they are higher than 100 pounds, otherwise the amount goes straight to general administration costs.
    Kirsten: No I don't mean post like sending letters; I mean the booking that was made on the cost centre. It is for 2000 pounds.
    Julio: A booking? Do you mean a reservation? Perhaps it's to do with an event then. Can you tell me the cost centre code and the month and I will look at it in the system.
    Kirsten: It's ACY24.60 and it was July. But it isn't a