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Paul Johnston

Ambassador to Ireland

Part of UK in Sweden

31st March 2014

Decoding the English Language: Sense and Sensibility

When I was learning Swedish in London I studied in a language training centre, where post pupils were European business men and women seeking to improve their English. While I tried to do my Swedish homework, my thoughts often strayed to what I could overhear of the classes in the neighbouring rooms. Hearing the teachers explain that what British people say, eg in business meetings, was often rather different to what they meant or meant you to understand was a valuable lesson.

I was reminded of this when a friend sent me the following table. Enjoy!

Translator of British

1 comment on “Decoding the English Language: Sense and Sensibility”

  1. Dear Paul,
    yr. report has immediately reminded me of the times in the very early “seventies”- when I started to learn English. Plus one thing was surely similar to yr. above described situation: For business or/and airline English was often enough very difficult to learn ´cause of sometimes complete different meanings. I always thaught : “Well, it ´s OK. You ´ve understood the teached message. But esp. at the 1st. two years it was all but sureley NOT sthg. like “message understood”. So I just had to smile ´bout yr. last word.
    “ENJOY!”.

    Best wishes & have a fine weekend, liebe Grüßle, Ingo-Steven ,Stuttgart

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About Paul Johnston

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially. He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide…

Paul Johnston joined the UK Civil Service in 1990, working for the Ministry of Defence initially.

He has served in Paris and New York and has also had a wide range of political and security roles in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in London. Paul joined the Foreign and Commonwealth Office in 1993 as Desk Officer for Bosnia. As part of this role he was also Private Secretary to EU negotiator Lord Owen and his representative on Bosnia Contact Group.

His first foreign posting was to Paris in 1995-99 as Second Secretary Political. He was Private Secretary to the Ambassador and latterly part of the UK delegation to the Kosovo Rambouillet negotiations. Then he returned to London as Head of the Kosovo Policy Team, leading work on post-conflict policy in the EU, NATO, UN and G8.

Before his second overseas posting to New York in 2005, Paul held a variety of other EU policy and security appointments in London, such as Head of European Defence Section between 2000-01 and Head of Security Policy Department between 2002-04.

As Head of the Political Section in UKMIS New York, he advised on major policy issues for the UK on the Security Council and the UN World Summit, including the UK EU Presidency in 2005.

Paul returned to London in 2008 as Director, International Security for the FCO. He was responsible for policy on UN, NATO, European Security, arms control and disarmament, human rights and good governance.

Paul was British Ambassador to Sweden from August 2011 to August 2015 and then was Deputy Permanent Representative to NATO.

He was UK Ambassador to the EU for Political and Security affairs from 2017 to January 2020 and became Ambassador to Ireland in September 2020.

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