You're learning with nine to five English - business English for the workplace
Hi Tim here with another
nine-to-five English lesson
Today we're going to learn how to make generalizations in English
don't you hate it when people say things like
Americans are rude. I mean not all
Americans are rude and people in other countries are rude, too. It's simply not helpful to say
Something is true of a whole group of people
When it's negative like that, it feels wrong
But it can be helpful to describe a group of people as long as we're clear that it's not
Everyone we're talking about
we call this a
generalization
for example many of my friends work in finance
I'm making a generalization
about my friends and
It doesn't have to be people if I say
Most of our online sales come from Europe. I'm
generalizing about sales
Let's try making a few
generalizations like this
Listen to each example then repeat it for yourself
Ready, let's get started
Very little of our business comes through online sales actually
Many of the customer concerns are about delivery times
Most of the people i've talked - like the new website on
The whole our employees are pretty happy with their jobs
Did you hear that expression on the whole
That's a useful phrase. That means in general
you're not talking about everything or
everyone
just overall or
mainly
besides phrases like on the whole you can make this type of
generalization with words like most and
little
now we don't only generalize about how much or how many
we also
generalize about what happens
For example, you might say something like the department budget is normally reviewed by our manager
that word
normally tells us that it doesn't always happen, but
It usually does
let's practice some examples of
generalizing about things that happen
Remember to repeat the examples after you hear them
Generally speaking. We see higher sales in the summer months
Nine times out of ten customers. Give us great feedback
Normally our new employees go through a training program
In most cases we finish our projects ahead of schedule
So besides normally you can use expressions like in most cases and
Generally speaking and the other expression we heard is
Nine times out of ten. That sounds pretty exact. Doesn't it?
But it really just means in most cases
We don't really mean exactly ninety percent of the time
This leads me to talk about how often
something happens
that's something we can generalize about as well and
It's very important. Which words you use you want to be
Somewhat accurate for example, are you late for work usually?
sometimes
or
rarely
these are
frequency words
If you don't use a frequency word
Then you are
suggesting that something always or
never happens and
That might not be true
Let's try some of these expressions for generalizing about how often something happens
Once again, repeat the examples after you hear them
People don't usually buy something on their first visit
More often than not we run out of paper before the end of the month
It's pretty rare that people complain about our service
Our staff meetings often lasts more than 90 minutes
You probably already know the word often but what do you think more often than not
means
It actually just means more than 50% of the time
We also heard the adjective rare that's made from the word
rarely meaning not often
some other frequency words have adjective forms such as
usually which becomes
usual but others such as
often don't
Okay, so we've practiced some expressions for generalizing
about how many about how things happen and
how often
But how does this sound in a?
conversation
Let's listen to a short
dialogue between
justine, and andy they're talking about andy's customers and
products
Let's listen
So, where are your customers located
Most of them are in Canada and the US and are they happy with your products? Well, it's pretty rare that we get any complaints
That's pretty simple, right
When justine asks about the location of andy's customers
he says that most of them are in canada and
the US
he's
generalizing about how many
Then he says that it's rare that they get complaints about their products. That's
generalizing about how often something happens
Makes sense, right?
Now it's your turn to practice
Will repeat the dialogue but this time we're going to be out the second speakers words
You will have to say those parts
yourself
Remember to say that most of the customers are in Canada and the US
Then say it's pretty rare to get complaints
So, where are your customers located
And are they happy with your products
Alright that's all for this lesson
we've learned some great ways to generalize about how many about what happens and
About how often things happen
We'll be back soon with some more
useful English expressions
Until then so long and happy learning