Hi, my name’s Ed.
Welcome to Ed explains English!
One very useful skill, is the ability to describe the ups and downs in the economy, for example
sales-turnover, prices and inflation.This video will show you how to use the appropriate
tenses and prepositions, when you describe trends.
To avoid confusion, it is very important to use the correct tense when describing trends.
Let us start with the present simple, which describes a general fact, which is true at
the time of speaking or a repeated action.
Let us look at two examples:
The turnover of staff always increases after the summer.
Attendances at football matches often decline in the winter months.
Moving on to the present continuous, also known as progressive, which describes actions
that are happening around the time of speaking.
Here are two examples:
The oil price is decreasing at the moment.
Currently, the price of gold is rising dramatically.
Next, we have the present perfect, which describes an action, that started in the past and continues
up to the present.
Here are two examples:
The number of app downloads has rocketed over the past 5 years.
Sales of compact disc albums have fallen steadily, since the advent of mp3 files.
To describe actions which took place in the past, that have no connection to the present,
we use the past simple.
Here are two examples:
Sales of flowers fell for the first time in a decade.
After an initial loss, the share price recovered at the close of trade yesterday.
The final tense that we will deal with, is the future, which we use to describe forecasts
or predictions, that we think will happen in the future.
The ‘will’ future describes more spontaneous actions, whereas the ‘going to’ future
is for more certain actions.
However, for future predictions, both will and going to are very similar.
Here are two examples:
We expect the number of smokers will decline over the next 20 years.
We believe that following our latest marketing campaign, our sales are going to soar.
Finally, let’s look at some prepositions we use when we describe trends.
There was a decrease in unemployment.
Unemployment decreased to 2.75 million people.
Unemployment decreased by 2.5% The sales peaked at € 9,500 in October
Inflation started at 2% and peaked at 2.75%
The sales of mobile phones dipped in April.
During the summer months, ice cream sales rocket.
Overtime hours increased slightly between August and November.
House prices have increased dramatically since 2001.
The material costs have fallen for seven months in a row.
Production increased from 400 to 475 hours.
I hope that you will feel more confident to use the correct tenses and prepositions.
Check out my other three videos connected to describing trends, that explain how we
use verbs and nouns, adjectives and adverbs, as well as reasons and causes, plus visual
representations of trends.
Click on the thumbnails below.
Cheerio for now!