Vanessa: Hey, I'm in the market
for a new gig. My day job is in sales, but it's not my dream job so I'm looking for something
in the medical field. Do you think you could help me? Would you know how to respond to this?
Well, let's talk about it. Vanessa:
New gig, day job, medical field. Today we are going to practice speaking together
about your job. You are going to learn some important vocabulary,
questions, and a sample conversation. Plus a chance to practice speaking with me
about your job today. I hope that this lesson will boost skills because talking about your job is an
extremely common daily conversation topic, so with today's lesson, you'll be on your way to success.
To help you remember everything that you learn in this lesson, I've created a free PDF
worksheet that you can download and use all of the vocabulary, expressions, questions, conversations,
and you can answer Vanessa's challenge question at the end of the worksheet. You can click on
the link in the description to download it. All right, let's get started with some common
vocabulary about jobs. Vanessa:
The first category have to do with employment. We'll talk about unemployment later. You might
say, my day job is in an office, but I'm taking some night classes to become a nurse.
This expression, my day job usually means your primary job. The way that you make the most money,
it could imply that it's during the day. But if you happen to work a night shift, you can still
say my day job. This is my main job and how I make money. It's my day job. Another way to talk about
your main job is to say my nine to five is in a marketing firm. My nine to five, this talks about
the hours that you work, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You might work different hours. You might work 7:00 AM
to 4:00 PM. You might work in the afternoon or the evening, but we still use my nine to five to talk
about your primary job, my nine to five. Vanessa:
There is kind of a new movement talking about this expression and it's often about how people don't
like their nine to five, that this is something that they're not satisfied with. And people who
are not enjoying their nine to five might find some articles online that say, "Want to ditch
your nine to five? Here's how to find your dream job." An expression we'll talk about in a moment,
but sometimes in this modern age, nine to five implies that it's just a job. I don't really care
about it, it's my nine to five. It's the way that you make money, but it's not really your passion,
it's my nine to five. Vanessa:
What about jobs that are not your primary money making job? You can use a lot of different
expressions. We could call those jobs a gig, a side-gig, a hustle, a side-hustle. Or you might
just say I do it on the side. So let's imagine that you make earrings, but it's not your nine
to five. It's not your primary job. Well, you might say, I do it on the side. I make earrings
on the side. Or you could say, I have a side gig making earrings. This is not your primary job,
but it's something that you do and you still make some money, but it's not your primary job.
Vanessa: If you don't work 40 hours a week at a job,
then you have a part-time job. In the US, 40 hours per week is considered a full-time job.
But a lot of jobs are part-time jobs. So you might say, yep, I work a part-time job on the
weekends at a restaurant. I work a part-time job. Maybe it's your main way of making money,
you just work less hours or maybe it's just a side thing, or maybe you're also a student
and you have a part-time job at the same time. That's a great way to describe something that you
work less than 40 hours a week on. Vanessa:
Now let's talk about unemployment. Unfortunately, over the last few years, a lot of people
became unemployed. This is really scary. You don't know how you're going to survive, feed you family,
take care of your future. You might be laid off, laid off means you didn't personally
do something wrong, but the company either cut your position, they couldn't pay for you anymore
and it's not something personal. It's usually a problem within the company. So when a company
is suffering usually financially, or they change their whole system, their whole model,
and they don't need some people anymore. They might lay you off. This is a great phrasal verb.
Of course you don't want it to happen to you, but it's a great phrasal verb to know, to explain
the situation, because it's not that you were fired, to be fired means you did something wrong
and they said, "sorry, you can't work here anymore." And there was a problem.
Vanessa: Maybe you were late to work too many times,
you got fired. This is different than being laid off. When you're laid off,
it's not your fault. And it's not embarrassing to say, ah, man, I was laid off during the pandemic.
That's not embarrassing. That's fine. It's not your fault. But if you say, I was fired,
usually there's a little bit of embarrassment to talk about that because it means there was a
problem. We can also say, I lost my job. This is a little more indirect than being fired.
It might be because you did something wrong. I was late to work so many times that I lost my job.
This means you were fired, but you didn't directly say that. But it could also mean that you were
just laid off. During the pandemic I lost my job. Vanessa:
That's not your fault, you didn't do anything wrong, there were just problems with the economy,
problems with the world in general. So you lost your job. So this expression to lose,
my job can be used either way. It can be used if you get fired or if you get laid off. Now, let's
talk about how you feel about your job. Let's imagine that you are a waiter at a restaurant.
Well, you might say, I'm a waiter, but it's just a job. I'm looking for something else. It's just
a job. This is a common expression to talk about a job that you don't really love. It's not your
dream job. This is the opposite. If you love your work, for me, I love being your
teacher. I love being able to be your teacher online, too. It's really a great combination.
Vanessa: Great for you, I can touch a lot of people
and also my life can have a lot of flexibility. Working online as your English teacher is my dream
job, but there can also be some problems with work. You might say, it's hard to find a good
work/life balance. This expression, a work life balance is often used when you're working so much,
or maybe like me you work from home. So it's hard to have a good line between your personal
life and your work life. So maybe if you've been working a lot, you might say, I just need to take
a break and find a better work/life balance. That's really important. If you've been working
a lot, maybe you've even been studying a lot, you might face burnout, burnout. This doesn't
have to do with fire, but it kind of has the sense that your figurative flame and love of your job
has gone out. Vanessa:
So if you experience burnout, it means the thing that was your dream job, the thing that you felt
passionate about, you no longer feel passionate about. This might be temporary. This happens to
a lot of people like me who create content on YouTube. You have to be creative and come up
with a lot of ideas and sometimes there aren't many good ideas. Maybe I just have some kind of
temporary writer's block and don't come up with a good idea. And I feel overwhelmed.
Well, that might mean I am burnt out. I am experiencing burnout, or we might say,
I'm burnt out. I'm burnt out on my job, I've been working for 12 hours a day for the last three
weeks, I'm burnt out. I need a break. I hope that you can avoid this before it gets too serious,
but it's something that's really common if you are working too much or if you're studying too much.
Vanessa: Now let's talk about four common
phrases for describing your job. And just a little note, a while ago, I made this video a hundred
jobs in English. So if you would like to learn how to pronounce your personal job, or if you would
like some more information about specific jobs in English, you can check out that video and get
some more details about that. But let's talk about four common phrases to talk about what you do. You
might say, I am a teacher. I am a doctor. I'm a healthcare worker. I'm a construction worker. I'm
a designer, whatever you might be, I am. But we could also say I work in... Plus a field.
I work in education. I work in healthcare. I work in business. I work in marketing. So here
we have a general term. It doesn't talk about your specific position, but it's a common expression
used when you're describing your job. Vanessa:
I work in education. Maybe you're not specifically a teacher, maybe you help to create a curriculum
or maybe there's something that's a little complex that you don't want to explain.
You might just say, I work in education. Cool. You could also talk about the company you work
for. I work for Amazon. I work for Google, especially if this is a well known company,
even if it's just well known locally, this is a common expression you might use. Yeah,
I work for Samsung. I work for Duke Power, which is the power plant in my city. If I said this to
somebody who lived in France, they would have no idea what I was talking about because this is a
local business. But if I said that to someone locally, they would understand exactly. So it's
kind of all about the context here. Vanessa:
What if you have your own business? What if you run your own business, you can use that
expression, to run. For me, I run my own business. We could say I run an online education business.
Well, that means that I teach online, but it means I'm the CEO, the boss,
I wear all the hats. I run a business. So we could use this for a lot of different situations as
long as you are the entrepreneur, you're the one who's in charge of the business. I run a business.
Vanessa: Before we get to our
sample conversation, of course, we need to talk out some common job questions. This is essential
for daily conversation because usually these are the questions we use in small talk. So that's why
this topic is really important to know about. One of the most common small talk questions after you
say, hey, my name's Vanessa. Oh, nice to meet you. What do people say next? What do you do?
What do you do? The full expression for this is possibly, what do you do for work? But we
often just say, what do you do? And this doesn't mean I'm sitting here right now talking to you,
what are you doing right now? This means what's your job. What do you do?
Vanessa: So you might use one of
those expressions as we talked about earlier and say, oh, I work for Google. I work in marketing.
Awesome. What do you do? Or what do you do for work? When you tell someone what you do, if they
are a good conversationalist, they might ask more questions. Or you could ask this question too.
What's that like? What's that like? So you're asking about their experience. What's it like to
be a nurse in the hospital these days? Well, you might say, well, I like the doctor I work for, but
it's just been really intense lately and it's not my dream job. I really want to be a photographer
for foster and animals and help them to find a new home. That's what I would love to do. I'd love to
get into photography. Vanessa:
Okay. Well, here, you just answered the question, what's that like, with a lot of juicy details
that can further the conversation more. So when you ask someone what's that like, if they give
you some details, don't miss that opportunity, you can pull any of those details and say, oh,
you like foster animals. Have you ever had any foster animals? Oh, I have a dog too.
And you can kind of snowball the conversation. So this is a great way to get more information and
learn about someone else. If you're talking with someone who you already know, maybe you kind of
think you know what work they do, but you're not sure or you haven't talked with them for a while.
You might ask this question, where are you working these days? Where are you working these days?
Vanessa: These days means
now. But if you haven't seen someone for five years, maybe you knew what their previous job was
and you're trying to make small talk conversation again and get to know maybe something's changed
in their life. So you could ask, where are you working these days? And you might say,
oh yeah, actually I'm still working at Google. I've had the same job for the last five years,
I feel really lucky that I didn't get laid off, so that's where I'm at. And let's say you're
talking with someone and you know what job they have. Well, you could ask this question. How's
work going? This is similar to asking, how's your family? Oh, how was your vacation? This is just a
common, small talk question about someone's job. Vanessa:
How's work going? And maybe they'll just say, oh, it's going fine. Okay, that's fine. But if
they give you more information, they might say something like, oh, it's going okay, it was kind
of my side-gig for a while and then I got hired full time, but I'm having a hard time finding a
work/life balance, so I think I'm going to look for something in a different field soon. Oh,
well, you just had a great conversation there and you've got lots more information to be able
to have more conversation with someone, just from the simple question, how's work going?
Vanessa: All right. Now it's time to see a sample using all
of these expressions or many of these expressions that we just talked about. You'll see my husband,
Dan and I having a little chit chat about our jobs. And I hope that you recognize some of these
expressions and questions that we talked about because in a moment after the sample conversation,
it will be your turn to use them and to have a conversation with me. Are you ready? Let's watch.
Dan: Hey Vanessa, where are you working these days?
Vanessa: Oh, Hey Dan. I run an online business so
I can work from anywhere, it's pretty great. Dan:
Wow. What's that like? Vanessa:
Well, I help students learn English and speak with confidence. It's my dream job,
but I have to be careful to avoid burning out. Dan:
Oh, that's awesome, but I understand. Vanessa:
What about you? Dan:
Well, unfortunately I just got laid off at the coffee shop when they closed,
but I got a job working part-time at a hotel. Vanessa:
Oh man, that's a bummer. Have you ever worked in marketing? I'm looking for someone to help
if you want a side-gig behind the scenes. Dan:
That'd be great, tell me more about it. Vanessa:
I wonder if Dan will get the job in marketing, working for Vanessa. All right, now it is your
turn. And what I want to tell you is I will be asking you some questions and having a little
conversation, but I recommend going back and reviewing this. You're welcome to pause the
video and answer longer if you would like, this is a great chance to have kind of a structured,
no pressure conversation in English. All right, are you ready to get started? Let's imagine we
were at a gathering and the host said, oh Vanessa, this is your name. And we get introduced to each
other. And then the host leaves. Here we need to have some small talk. So I ask you,
so tell me what do you do? And now it's your turn to talk. Go ahead.
And what's that like, do you enjoy your work? Vanessa:
Oh, me? Oh, I run an online English business where I teach English online to students around
the world. It's really my dream job. I feel pretty lucky. Well, good luck with your work. I'm so glad
to meet you. And I'll talk to you later, bye. How did you do? Did you have a chance to speak out
loud and practice with me? Feel free to go back and review that last segment or this whole video
as many times as you would like to boost your confidence because
when you have small talk in English, you will absolutely encounter this conversation topic.
Vanessa: Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet
for today's lesson, with all of the important vocabulary, questions, sample conversation,
and Vanessa's challenge question at the end of the worksheet. And now I have a question for you. What
is your dream job? Let me know in the comments, I would love to see what it is. Maybe it's your
current job. Maybe it's a job you would love to have in the future. Let me know, what's your dream
job and I will see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel, bye.
Vanessa: The next step is
to download the free PDF worksheet for this lesson. With this free PDF, you will master
today's lesson and never forget what you have learned. You can be a confident English speaker.
Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel for a free English lesson every Friday, bye.