I used to write English emails that were grammatically correct and carefully worded — sometimes spending twenty minutes on a single reply. It took an unusually direct Australian colleague to tell me they read as "overly formal." And then it took another year of paying close attention to understand exactly what was happening and why.
The problem was not grammar. It was that I had carried over the politeness logic of Cantonese business writing into English without realising it. In Hong Kong corporate culture — and broadly across Japanese, Korean, and Mandarin professional contexts — the level of deference in your writing signals respect. The more senior the recipient, the more hedged and formal the language. That is the convention, and it makes complete sense within that context.
In Australian professional writing — and broadly in Western business English — that same level of hedging reads not as respectful, but as uncertain, lacking in confidence, or oddly apologetic. This article maps the specific patterns so you can spot them in your own writing.
The Deference Stack
The pattern I see most often is stacking multiple deferential phrases into a single request. Each phrase individually is a legitimate English expression. Together, they compound into something that reads as excessive.
Example of a deference stack:
"I humbly request that you would kindly take a moment at your earliest convenience to consider reviewing the attached document, which I have prepared to the best of my ability for your valuable feedback."
Every marker in there — humbly, kindly, at your earliest convenience, to the best of my ability, valuable — is borrowed from formal business English conventions. They feel right when you are writing in the register you learned in Hong Kong. In an Australian inbox, they read as either very old-fashioned or unintentionally ironic.
Calibrated version:
"Could you review the attached when you get a chance? Your feedback would be really helpful."
The request is direct, the gratitude is genuine, and neither is buried under six layers of politeness framing.
Excessive Apology for Normal Contact
Another common pattern: apologising at length for making contact, even when the contact is entirely expected.
Before: "I am very sorry to trouble you with this matter, as I am sure you are extremely busy, and I apologise in advance for any inconvenience this request may cause. However, I was wondering if it would be possible to..."
After: "Quick question when you have a moment —"
When I was still working in Hong Kong, opening a message to a senior colleague with a brief apology felt like the right way to signal respect. To an Australian reader, it signals something different — that you believe your own request is an imposition. If the request is legitimate, there is nothing to apologise for. One "sorry for the late reply" when you have genuinely delayed is fine. Pre-emptive apologies for normal professional contact are not.
"I Think" Used for Facts
In Cantonese and other East Asian professional communication, stating something directly as a fact can read as arrogant if the speaker does not have clear authority over the topic. So "I think" gets added even to things the writer is completely sure about — to leave room, to soften, to be careful.
In English, "I think" signals genuine uncertainty. When you use it for things you actually know, you appear less confident than you are.
Before: "I think the deadline is next Friday."
After (if you are certain): "The deadline is next Friday."
Before: "I think this approach would be more efficient."
After (if you believe this firmly): "This approach would be more efficient — here's why."
Use "I think" in English when you genuinely are uncertain, are giving an opinion that others might dispute, or are inviting disagreement. Not as a general softener for things you know to be true.
Over-Formalised Vocabulary
Formal equivalents of simple words — "commence" for "start," "endeavour" for "try," "utilise" for "use" — appear frequently in writing shaped by formal Hong Kong business English. In most Australian workplaces, the simpler word is preferred at every level.
Before: "We would like to take this opportunity to inform you that the commencement of the project has been scheduled for the 15th of next month, and we would be most grateful if you could endeavour to attend the inaugural meeting."
After: "The project kicks off on the 15th — hope you can make the first meeting."
The Fix Is Not "Be Rude"
It is worth saying clearly: the goal is not to stop being considerate. The goal is to understand what consideration looks like for the audience you are writing to. An Australian reader finds directness warm. Over-hedging reads as cold precisely because it puts distance between you and the reader behind a wall of formal phrases.
The direct request — "Can you review this by Friday?" — feels warmer to an Australian reader than "I humbly request that you might find an opportunity to consider reviewing..." because it treats the other person as a colleague, not a bureaucratic authority to be carefully appeased.
How Local Tone Handles This
Local Tone's analysis identifies deference stacks, excessive apology patterns, and "I think" applied to confident statements. The Australian and other regional presets calibrate the output toward the directness norms that feel natural in Western professional contexts. The pattern dashboard shows how frequently these habits appear across your sessions, so you can track them over time rather than just fixing individual emails.
For related reading, see why "just" and "actually" undermine your credibility and the article on L1 transfer patterns for Mandarin speakers.
Quick Reference: Over-Hedged Asian English Patterns
| Original phrasing | How a native reader interprets it | Improved version |
|---|---|---|
| "I humbly request that you would kindly consider reviewing the attached at your earliest convenience." | Very old-fashioned, possibly ironic. The writer seems unsure they are allowed to ask. | "Could you review the attached when you get a chance?" |
| "I am so sorry to trouble you, I know you must be very busy, but I was wondering if possibly..." | The writer thinks the request is an imposition. Easy to deprioritise. | "Quick question —" or just open with the question directly. |
| "I think the budget is approximately $40,000." | The writer is uncertain about the figure. | "The budget is $40,000." (if you know this) |
| "Please allow me to take this opportunity to share some thoughts which may or may not be useful." | Excessive preamble. The reader skips to the content anyway. | Skip the preamble. Start with the first thought. |
| "I would be most grateful if you could endeavour to attend the meeting on Friday." | Overly formal. Reads as either stiff or satirical in an Australian workplace. | "Hope you can make Friday's meeting." |
| "This is just my personal opinion and I may well be wrong, but perhaps the timeline could be reconsidered?" | The writer does not believe their own view is worth hearing. | "The timeline looks tight — worth revisiting before we commit." |
In Practice
Yuki joined a Sydney marketing agency from Tokyo, where she had spent eight years in client-facing roles. Her English was fluent and her instincts about client needs were sharp. In her first three months, though, she noticed her draft emails were regularly edited before being sent to clients. The edits were not about facts or strategy — they were about phrasing. Her manager trimmed her openings, removed apologies, and simplified her vocabulary.
What was happening was a direct transfer of Japanese business writing conventions. Yuki's original drafts showed deference to clients by layering formal phrases, softening every recommendation with qualifiers, and opening each email with an acknowledgment of the client's time and patience. In Tokyo, this would signal professionalism. In a Sydney agency context, the same patterns read as overly cautious and slowed down the communication.
Yuki started keeping a personal checklist: remove the opening apology, cut the deference markers, state the recommendation directly before the rationale. Within two months, her drafts were going out unchanged. The content had not changed — only the framing.
How to Self-Check Before You Send
- Read your opening sentence. If it contains an apology or a phrase like "I hope this finds you well" followed by another preamble sentence, cut it and start with the actual subject.
- Search for "I think" in your draft. For each instance, ask whether you actually are uncertain. If you are stating a fact or a firm view, remove it.
- Count how many deferential markers appear in any single sentence — words like "kindly," "humbly," "at your earliest convenience," "if it would not be too much trouble." One is fine. Two or more in one sentence is a stack worth reducing.
- Check your vocabulary choices. Replace "commence" with "start," "endeavour" with "try," "utilise" with "use," "prior to" with "before." The simpler word is almost always the right choice in Australian professional writing.
- Identify any pre-emptive apologies — phrases that apologise for a request you have not yet made. Delete them. If the request is legitimate, no apology is needed.
- Read the email aloud. If it sounds like a formal letter from a government department, it is over-calibrated. If it sounds like how you would talk to a colleague you respect, it is about right.
Frequently Asked Questions
Will Australian colleagues think I am being rude if I write more directly?
No. In Australian professional culture, directness is read as confidence and respect for the other person's time. The over-hedged, heavily deferential style reads as distant rather than polite. When you write "Can you review this by Friday?" rather than "I humbly request that you might find an opportunity to consider reviewing this document at your earliest convenience," the Australian reader experiences the first version as warmer and more collegial — not ruder. The discomfort you feel writing directly is a calibration issue, not an accuracy issue. You are not being less polite; you are being polite in the way the reader actually recognises.
These patterns feel natural to me. How do I unlearn them?
You do not need to unlearn them entirely — they are appropriate when writing to audiences who share those conventions. What you need is a switch: the ability to write in the Australian register when your audience is Australian, and in the more deferential register when your audience expects that. The most effective approach is to write your draft naturally, then do a specific edit pass focused only on these patterns: remove the stacked deference markers, check "I think" usage, simplify vocabulary. Over time, the direct version starts to feel natural first, and the edit pass becomes less work.
Is this only a problem for people from Hong Kong and Japan, or does it apply more broadly?
The specific patterns vary by language background, but over-hedging in professional English writing is common among professionals from most East and Southeast Asian contexts — Korean, Mandarin-speaking, Vietnamese, Thai, and others — as well as from South Asian contexts where formal British English conventions carry strong influence. The underlying cause is similar: politeness and respect are signalled through deference in the L1 culture, and that logic transfers into English writing. The calibration required for Australian English — and broadly for Western business English — is the same regardless of which specific language the habit came from.