Cultural Barriers to Business Negotiation- page 8 The effect of cultural barriers on the negotiation process Cultural barriers affecting negotiation process is firstly reflected in the process of language communication between two parties. Especially in international business negotiations, firstly both parties should have a good knowledge of the language of other party, language differences are obvious in international business negotiations [9]. But language problem is not a big problem, you can hire a qualified translator who has a good knowledge of the cultures of the two parties to solve this problem, secondly, in the process of nonverbal communication due to cultural differences between different countries, negotiators’ body languages showing very much different meaning, which will generate barriers during the communication. For example, a Beijing company are going to have an international business negotiation. Seven foreign negotiators are coming, two are from Germany, two are from the United States and the rest three are Chinese translators. Time is very tight, only having two weeks before assessment. Negotiation time has been booked at the morning 8:30. It costs only 10 minutes from negotiators’ hotel. If there is a little traffic jam, they may arrive after 15 minutes. According to western habit, when going to attend meeting or negotiation and so on, they always will be present 5 minutes in advance. In the first two days, Xiao Li feel everything is going smoothly. On the third day, when Xiao Li enter into the hotel lobby, they all are already there, she can obviously feel that they are unhappy for her late arrival. Everything is arranged according to western customs, in order to avoid unnecessary misunderstanding, Xiao Li has to communicate with one of the translators. The translator told her that four experts have been waiting a long time in the lobby, because according to Chinese customs, Chinese people like early arrival, especially for negotiation or important meeting, Chinese people will always be present 20 or 30 minutes in advance. After hearing the explanation, Xiao Li suddenly understand, obviously they respect the habits and customs of Chinese people, do in Rome as Rome does. It also shows that they are aware of the cultural differences, both sides respect to each other's habits, but at the end difference stil happens due to mismatching of time.