Hello everyone how are you doing today I'm sure you're here because you want to get
professional and learn business english right well you might think that business english is kind of a
boring subject but it doesn't have to be and today we are going to make it both fun
and memorable for you by teaching it to you with some of your favorite tv series aww yeah
so business english as you might already imagine is an area of english that deals with the context
of business now this is one of the areas of english that receives the most attention and it
business english is just such a broad term you probably think about
it as just the words that you need to learn to be able to use in a business context right but in
fact in many ways it is also about the technique now when you learn words for business english you
probably need to learn them related to meetings presentations job interviews and negotiation
but you also need to learn the technique that is associated with those different areas so for
example if we look at job interviews not only do you need to know the words that you will need if
you have an interview in english but it's also important that you know how to talk about your
past work experience and career goals in english and another common misconception that I hear from
english learners all the time is that they think that they only have to learn formal english to
be able to communicate in business context but business english often is and should be informal
so in this lesson we will teach you different bits of language and give you advice so you know what
to say and how to say it but of course before we jump into the lesson I wanted to let you know that
if you are new here every single week we make lessons like this one to help you understand
fast speaking natives without getting lost without missing the jokes and without subtitles
just like sona who says that our lessons are helping her with her confidence speaking
and even for interviews so we'll help you to reach your goals learning english too
it's really simple just hit that subscribe button and the bell below so you don't miss any of our
new lessons let's begin with the english that you're likely to use at the workplace but first of
all what is the workplace now at the start of the session i'll had you write down an incident that
you found offensive in the workplace now what I'm going to do is choose one and we're going to act
the workplace is the place where people work such as an office or factory similarly the
workforce is all the people who work in a particular industry or company we just
fired one-third of their workforce it's unseemly to go through their pockets as well
let's talk meetings now in companies people arrange meetings to brainstorm
ideas find solutions to problems and figure out courses of action on a certain activity
in this lesson we're including text definitions of some words highly relevant to this topic don't
miss out on them and feel free to pause the video if you need more reading time let's start with the
basic collocations that go with the word meeting some of the main ones are to arrange a meeting
which means to organize one similarly when you call a meeting you decide a meeting is necessary
so that a certain topic can be discussed michael bluth had called a meeting with the family's
long-time attorney to discuss his father's incarceration I am so sorry he was a client
to hold a meeting means to direct a meeting in a more casual tone you can say to run a meeting
would you want me to write a meeting for yourself uh or even better could you mail this letter for
me you can't just give that to a mailman I can't trust a mailman with this this is important
then you attend a meeting which is the formal alternative to simply saying go to a meeting
we said that in meetings people try to figure out or define a course of action this is the set of
actions to be taken people often also say plan of action or poa for short what's your course of
action here saul's guy kooby tracks him down which shouldn't take long and when he does I'm gonna
I'm gonna talk to him
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I look forward to meeting you inside the fluency circle oh yeah
now of course meetings are also the place where people discuss different issues and
agree or disagree on some different ideas now when expressing your opinion in english it can be
a little bit tricky you need to be cautious and polite when you're doing this in a
business context especially if you are trying to communicate some strong idea that you have
so let's take a look at some ways that you can do this in such cases it's always a safe option to
start your statement with in my opinion or from my point of view michael scott here uses this
expression although the general idea is not very business wow what a day feels more like a night
at a party than a day at work well in my opinion business should feel like a night out night at
the there's roxbury to be music if you want to state a strong opinion then you could say
for example to be perfectly frank I think we should terminate this contract
on account of that they've failed to deliver the goods on time
like meetings the realm of presentations is very
wide ranging and we can only hope to scratch the surface with this lesson
now if you're giving a presentation it's really important that you're able to put emphasis on
certain points so that you can kind of drive home the point that you're making that is you can kind
of put strength behind your message now of course one way that you could do this is by using words
like a lot really or very but if you do this too much it can sound very repetitive it can
be ineffective and it can even sound a little bit boring so you'll kind of lose your audience now
we're going to look at some better ways that you can do this but first let's start off with a quiz
which of these can we not use as an alternative to vary or a lot painfully fully heavily
trick question all these are actually great alternatives to use painfully as in it's painfully
obvious clear evident apparent it may be possible that nelson actually believes he didn't have
that much to do with the founding of pied piper either because but it is painfully obvious that
he had a huge hand in it you could say fully in collocations such as fully aware accept understand
fully booked informed etc good news the majority of the nation's networks are fully operational
I hardly call that good news senator and you know full well it wasn't the chinese
I fully believe that a woman should be in charge of what happens to her body in this case the body
is anne's and the woman in charge of it is me you could say heavily in collocations like heavily
involved criticized dependent reliant influenced it seems that as a 13 year old george michael had
been heavily influenced by the star wars films and had endeavoured to recreate his favorite moments
we suspect rex wolf is laying low in a breakaway territory in eastern moldova
this area is heavily dependent on contraband and drug running and
unfortunately the u.s has no intelligence or diplomatic presence there
lastly you could say sharply to describe a rise or drop in a presentation about numbers example
oil prices fell sharply these measures could sharply reduce pollution from road traffic talking
about numbers is another significant component of business presentations we need to become familiar
with ways we can use to describe compare and contrast numbers and interpret and explain charts
to describe a decline or a decrease in numbers you could use drop fall and dip their share of
the market dropped to 50 this year prices fell sharply yesterday profits dipped slightly last
year but if numbers experience a sharp decrease you could say slump crash collapse or plummet 4
28 in the morning here in the oc I'm john beard well there is some more grim economic news today
the housing prices continue to plummet and the economy say it may take swipe some what are
you what are you doing you could also say in the recession the company's profits plunged 60 sales
slumped by 20 last year to describe an increase in numbers you can use climb rise and go up example
inflation climbed two percent last month the divorce rate has risen steadily since the 1950s
to describe a stronger rise you could use surge rocket soar go through the roof jump example
online sales have surged because of the pandemic sales of their new cd have gone through the roof
now of course a job interview is another area where your business english will be
put to the test and as we mentioned earlier it's not only important that you learn the
words necessary that you'll need to use in a job interview but it also requires a lot of practice
and focus and kind of understanding the different kind of questions that you might be asked so as
you can imagine this is difficult even for native speakers and it's going to require
a lot of preparation for you so we will give you some brief tips here but if you would like a more
focused video on english for job interviews then just give us a like down below
to let us know and we'll make that for you alright now at a job interview
you'll be asked about your background previous experience your accomplishments your weaknesses
etc you want to make sure to get a good first impression so seriously do I do I look okay
I'm a little nervous oh yeah you really you look great yeah you know just don't get your hopes up
why not well the interview what about it you know you don't make a very good first impression
what oh you don't know if you're lucky you'll pass the first round of questions and be appointed to
a second round let's start out with a general question what can you say when an interviewer
asks you about your background they'll probably ask you can you tell me a little about yourself
needless to say you don't want to do what this guy did why don't you
tell me a little about yourself peter in japan how to search number one steady head
this one is a little more practical but keep in mind that it's a comedy show
okay eagleton ron tell me a little about yourself well I love the outdoors love nature amen
I'm a big believer in environmental conservation recycling and composting and like I'm a yoga nut
and I'm a nut nut you need to do your homework and have a clear idea of how to respond to each
question that you know you're likely to be asked the key to nailing the question can you tell me
a little about yourself is speaking briefly and relevantly to the job you don't want to give a 10
minute summary of your life so focus on things related to the work and your career objectives
some common phrases people say at job interviews to respond to this question are I thrive on
challenges I work well under pressure I would describe myself as detail oriented and proactive
I always appreciate constructive criticism about my job performance I thrive on it um
are you okay glorious got down to business at the coffee shop finished the poem I worked better
under pressure crawler I like you I could tell from the moment I walked in here that we were
one and the same needs you oriented love crunching numbers however I cannot emphasize this next point
enough do not lie in a job interview just because you think that it's something that sounds good
or that you think will make it more likely that you'll get hired this is not the case
if they catch you lying or if they just feel like you're not very honest they're not going
to hire you for the job so what I recommend that you do instead is that you reflect on what your
real strengths and weaknesses are and actually write those down and think about how you can best
communicate those in the interview and especially important is to think of actual examples of this
from your past work experience or if you haven't worked in the past then just think
about any other projects that you've had or anything else from your life that you can give
that will really kind of show how you will be working in the actual job then
when asked about your interest in the job you could say you want to take on more responsibility
do you know what the phrasal verb take on means avoid delegate undertake
that's right take on means to undertake a task or responsibility especially a difficult one hey stew
you busy just updating my blog because i've got an important assignment for you great I'm really
ready to take on more responsibility around here yeah I applaud that if the interview asks you
why should we hire you you could say I'm a perfect fit for this job because let's see fit used in
some examples well both me and ben are trying to help april find a new job we thought maybe
she could work for you I feel like it would be a perfect fit although I don't know exactly what
you guys do here I'm guessing it's a business maybe there's something for you at glendon hill
that's nice of you to say but I'm not the right fit for a place sure you are 20 years experience
in the nonprofit sphere we coordinate all the time with ngos you'd be a valuable asset to us
and finally when it comes to negotiation there's a lot of technique and even strategy involved so
in this section of the lesson we're going to look at some different vocabulary that
you will need if you're negotiating so in negotiation you might have heard of a compromise
now a compromise means to come to an agreement where both sides kind of lower their expectations
so just to kind of give you an example of this say that you want to sell me something at 100
but I only want to pay 50 for that thing well we could compromise by me paying you 75
for that thing and another expression you might hear that kind of means the same thing
is to meet someone in the middle so I would say hey meet me in the middle i'll pay you 75
I let claire think she's in charge I hide what I want in something bigger and more expensive then
when she rejects that we compromise on what I wanted all along I call my method the trojan
horse now when things are moving along in a negotiation and you make an offer you would
say the ball is in their court which means that it's their turn to either accept the offer or
make a counter offer in other words make an offer that's different example we've made him an offer
but now he has to decide whether to accept the ball is in his court in the context of contract
negotiation if you agree to the terms of said contract you're ready to sign on the dotted line
so as you've seen in today's lesson watching series like the office
suits and mad men can be a great way to pick up on business english vocabulary
so if you need to learn business english a really fantastic place to start is by getting addicted to
a great series like this and of course you'll have a lot of fun doing it and if you want to
learn more of the english that natives really use and learn to understand natives at any speed then
I really highly recommend that you do not miss out on this 51 discount that we're offering on
our fluent with friends course you can learn more by clicking the link down in the description below
and remember to get that 51 discount use the code 3 million at checkout but remember you
only have one more day to take advantage of that discount before it goes back to its normal price