Chinese presentation do's and don'ts

[Scoobyqueen]

Another phrase that I find useful is 与日俱增. This is a chengyu.

[Scoobyqueen]

Kdavid - just realised you have pulled a lot of the points together. Thanks for doing that.

[Scoobyqueen]

deleted

[imron]

but obviously quoting Deng Shao Ping which always goes down well

Just make sure you spell his name correctly - Deng Xiaoping ;)

[Scoobyqueen]

A few more standard phrases that might come in useful:

今天，很高兴同各位xxxx (再)次相会，就 xxxxn 问题同大家交换看法

[Kenny同志]

A few more standard phrases that might come in useful:

今天，很高兴同各位xxxx (再)次相会，就 xxxxn 问题同大家交换看

An alternative to 相会: 共聚一堂

再次 or 在此？

Should be 交换看法 (法 was missing)

year 年对于your company 是极不平凡的一年 (if your company experienced positive and odd events)

Apparently, this is officialese / cliché. It seems to the speaker that all the years from 1949 down to 2011 are 极不平凡 (extremely usual!) but most of us may not share this view.

Those high officials really should be more creative in their speeches.

[Scoobyqueen]

Cheers for your information. It is always useful to have your comments.

[Kenny同志]

You're welcome, Scoobyqueen.

As background information, he is speaking about 2008 which was unusual compared to any other year as the Olympics were celebrated but at the same time there were several natural disasters.

Well, I have to admit the year 2008 was indeed 极不平凡. But as for most of the rest years, I don’t think so.

Could you though not use it if a major company was affected in similar ways: Record financial results but weather creating havoc with crop (which creates other problems) for example?

There’s nothing wrong with the expression 极不平凡 itself. Problem arises only when it is used in a mismatching context. If a company went through a huge upheaval and/or something very remarkable in a certain year there’s no reason we couldn’t call it 极不平凡.

[Scoobyqueen]

More standard phrases that may be useful (if a similar situation applies)

xxx 在力所能及的范围内为应对subject 作出了重大努力，采取了一系列举措 (for crisis communications issues

[Scoobyqueen]

A few more standard phrases

[Scoobyqueen]

In looking for this thread on Google, I came across a website on Chinese Etiquette and Ethics (2002) which may or may not be useful.

[Scoobyqueen]

I wanted to add some more expressions that might be useful for formal presentations. I am currently working on another presentation and will post as and when I add something.

[Scoobyqueen]

I found out you can only use 民以食为天 if the subject matter actually relates to that.

[Scoobyqueen]

As mentioned above, Chinese tend to make use of rhetorical questions in presentations/news reports which I think is an excellent way of keeping the audience on its toes.

[Scoobyqueen]

I have just successfully completed a challenging half hour presentation in Chinese.

[li3wei1]

Congratulations. I went through a similar experience years ago, and at a point where I hadn't been using Mandarin for a few years so it was very rusty. I got through it. People laughed in the right places, the questions were relevant, and the other English speakers told me that the translators had apparently been able to understand me. I didn't do as much prep as you, but it wasn't a terribly technical topic and I didn't have 25 slides.

It makes you wonder, doesn't it, why we put so much emphasis on live presentations. With the amount of work you put in, you could have written something that conveyed many times as much information, and included diagrams, animations, whatever, that could be read by any number of people, at their convenience, as many times as they liked. Instead, everyone has to be in the same room at the same time, and the chances of the speaker making a mistake, or someone having a distracting coughing fit, or the fire alarm going off, or people dozing off or needing the toilet, are very high. The only advantage is the ability to ask questions on the spot, and often that's wasted because people are too polite.

[Scoobyqueen]

LiWei - Thanks for your Feedback. I agree with you about the live presentations. One speaker did do that exactly. He just read off his English speech and sent everyone to sleep. So I was ordered to liven up stuff as the moderator knew I was not going to just read. I think though live presentation should be like a book that opens up. Everyone can read the book but with a presentation you make the material come alive. Hence some acting skills are required. I did get quite a few tough questions but luckily I was able to answer on the basis of my preparation.

[alanalian]

大家都是翻译之中的战斗机啊，我这个屌丝对强人们表示膜拜，不像网上那些直译机器那么坑爹。

If you completely understand what I‘m talking， your level is close to a native Chinese speaker.

[Scoobyqueen]

A useful investment is a handheld recording device that can slow down or speed up the recording as needed.

[Scoobyqueen]

Often Chinese speeches starts with the history of something, then go onto describe the present situation and after that the future.

For the history bit, this might be a useful 套话 structure