Hello everyone and welcome back to Love English I'm Sabrah your British
University English teacher now I have a little bit more of a serious lesson for
you today but one that is going to be very very helpful if you're using
English in your working life or if you're using English in an academic
context so perhaps you need a more formal style of English now when it
comes to business English there are so many specific phrases that are very
relevant and very used just in the workplace or again in an academic
context so for example with your professor with your classmates at
university at college and things like that although I'm a teacher I have a
background in marketing and PR as well so I've put together a list of
12 of some of the most common expressions used in a business or a
formal context as always guys if you haven't already then don't forget to
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right let's get down to it number one is something is on the back burner or to
put something on the back burner and this means that something has been
delayed or postponed because circumstances have changed
so at work frequently your priorities will change because you get new work in
and the thing you were working on at the time is not as urgent as the new
assignment perhaps that has come in or the new customer that has come in so you
will put the work you were doing before on the back burner so an example
sentence would be since we spend all the money on designing a new office we've
had to put plans to get more staff on the back burner number two is to be up
against it or to be under the cosh and both of these means that you're under
pressure you're working to a deadline so you might hear people at work saying oh
I'm really up against it with this report I've got two days I need to
finish it I'm really up against it so you're facing a challenge or you're in a
slightly difficult situation particularly where pressure is involved
so if you hear a friend of yours saying sorry I haven't been in touch recently
I've just been really up against it or I've been under the cosh at work they
mean they'd be really busy they just haven't had a lot of spare time they've
been quite pressured number three is booming if we say that business is
booming we mean business is doing exceptionally well it's doing really
well there's a boom it means things have really taken off however if we say
something has gone bust this is the opposite so you'll often hear business
analysts and read in the Financial Times and things like that
phrases like boom and bust so bust is where a business has actually gone
bankrupt so it's no longer operating as a business because it hasn't worked out
and sadly it's had to close so it's gone bust now an example sentence using
booming would be we can afford to spend more on new franchises at the moment
because business has been booming we're in the Nazi killing business and that
business is a booming number four is to close the deal
which means to formally finish negotiations to reach an agreement so
many people in business will talk about the need to close the deal and this
means the need to finalize negotiations to reach a final agreement contract
signed and then it's done the deal is done so often businesses will describe
members of their team if their particularly good at getting the
contract signed and getting everything finished they will call that person a
good closer somebody who's very good at closing the deal get them to sign on the
line which is dotted always be closing always be closing number five is to have
many irons in the fire to have many irons in the fire this often describes
Leila and I's working life this means to have several projects running
simultaneously so running at the same time
and means you're very busy and you have to divide your attention between those
different things so people often talk about having too many irons in the fire
so to have monopoly means to actually have dominance in a particular market or
in a particular area for example you could say McDonald's still have the
monopoly in the fast food restaurant area they're probably still the most
popular they're a market leader if you like and they probably still have the
highest revenue share when it comes to burgers and fries and those kind of
restaurants I think they probably still have the highest revenue share in that
area which means they have the monopoly and in some ways the other restaurants
have to copy them copy their prices copy the kind of things that they are doing
and try to compete with them but they will still have the monopoly a monopoly
is a business and marketing term which describes a particular kind of market if
the opposite to an oligopoly I want to go into these specific terms in another
video I am making on business and marketing terms so that's a good
incentive guys for you to wait and watch the next one to find out what they
actually mean in terms of economics and business number eight is to touch base
and if we say we want to touch base or I'll touch base with you we mean I'll
catch up with you very very common in work to hear
somebody saying okay we'll touch base tomorrow can we touch base tomorrow
about that meaning can we catch up about that can we speak about that so it's
kind of a business way or a work way of saying let's catch up to touch base can
be quite brief because to touch base is like to check in almost with someone an
example sentence would be I touch base with Leila a couple of times a week to
talk about our plans for love English and things like that but also to see how
she is we touch base a couple of times a week number nine is it to be on track to
be on track now the track is something that a train goes across so if you're on
track you're going in the right direction
imagine the train going along that track in the direction it's intending to go
I'm not behind nothing's going wrong so I'm on track I'm heading in the right
direction we can also say something is on the right track meaning it's going
very well it's going in the right direction if we say something is off
track of course this means that something's gone a little bit wrong or
got a bit delayed so if we say hmm we've gone a bit off track here meaning we've
kind of lost a bit of the project or we perhaps got a bit behind something like
this so an example sentence would be the development work for the new housing
project is on track number 10 this is such a common work expression to learn
the ropes to learn the ropes and this means to learn how to do your tasks your
job or an activity so to learn how to do it really so of course when you first
join there's a lot to learn and you need to learn how to do it what how things
operate who to speak to about certain things to learn the ropes it of course
comes from the Navy and sailing where you had to learn your different rope
ties and how to operate the ropes and everything like that so your boss might
say don't give the new intern too much to do she's still busy learning the
ropes number 11 is again super common it is to be brought up to speed or to bring
someone up to speed so it can be active or passive depending who is doing the
the bringing up to speed now to bring someone up to speed means to fill
someone in on everything that's been going on up until the current point so
imagine they were on holiday or they haven't been at work for a while or
they've been working on a different project they will need to find out what
has been going on with that project in the time that they have missed all of
the background of the project and everything they need to know in order to
to take off from that point in order to begin from that point so your boss might
say can you bring him and her up to speed on that can you fill her in on
everything we've been doing so she's ready to continue from there number 12
the last one is a learning curve a learning curve which of course would go
like this when you start a new job or you start University or college or
something like that at the beginning there is a lot to learn so we will talk
about something being a learning curve meaning usually the learning continues
and goes upwards if you have to learn a lot in a short period of time we can
often say that something has a big learning curve or a steep learning curve
so at the beginning you might say I'm learning a lot I feel it's quite a
challenge it's a steep learning curve or a big learning curve meaning you're
finding it a little bit hard but you're getting there day by day you're learning
more and you're adding to your skills so a learning curve well it's I think the
best way to put it it's a steep learning curve for our players so learning these
idioms guys is going to really increase your understanding of phrases that are
used in the workplace but also you're going to improve your speaking because
if you use them you're going to sound more natural and a bit more professional
because you're using the right kind of phrases the specific phrases that are
very useful in the workplace or in formal situation, right everybody we have come to
the end of our business English expressions I hope this was useful
please do tell me if you would like to learn more about business English and
perhaps more specific terms in business and things like that and of course guys
please try and use any of these phrases in a sentence
in the comments and I will check those for you I wish you all a great week I
hope that business is booming and I'll touch base with you soon thank you for
watching bye bye