Helping Professionals Strengthen Everyday Business Communication
Yakov Friedlander of FluenTalk
Throughout the workday, supervisors give instructions, employees ask questions, and business owners speak with clients and vendors — the conversations that keep businesses moving.
In workplaces where people speak different languages — or different levels of English — those conversations can become harder to manage.
FluenTalk works with professionals looking to handle conversations more confidently in those situations.
“We help people communicate,” said Yakov Friedlander of FluenTalk. “We’ve helped over 6,000 improve their English.”
The program is built around short, regular conversations with language coaches. Clients speak with a coach twice a week for 15 minutes, followed by an email that reviews the mistakes from the conversation and explains how to correct them.
That structure keeps clients accountable — something self-paced courses often lack — helping them steadily build confidence in everyday communication.
Lessons are tailored to each client’s level and goals. Some come in needing help with basic situations — how to describe a medical issue or handle a routine workplace exchange. Others are further along.
“We have people who are CEOs of large corporations in Israel who want to perfect their pitch,” Friedlander said. “They work with higher-level teachers on industry-specific vocabulary.”
The company started by helping Yiddish-speaking professionals strengthen their English. Bentzi Elkouby joined early as an employee and later became a partner, helping grow the team to close to 30 people.
The language offering has expanded as well. Today FluenTalk teaches English, Spanish, Hebrew, and Yiddish — driven by demand from clients who found the model worked and wanted it for other languages.
Spanish is the most recent addition, and it brought the team to OJBA this year with a larger presence than usual. Business owners in construction have been asking for help communicating with Spanish-speaking employees. On job sites, clearer communication matters; from the first set of instructions.
The Spanish program runs as a cohort: groups of six to eight meet twice a week for half an hour over 20 weeks.
Watch Yakov Friedlander explain how FluenTalk helps professionals communicate more clearly at work.
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