You're learning with nine to five English - business English for the

workplace.

Hi Tim here with another nine-to-five English lesson. In today's lesson we're

going to learn how to talk about differences life and business is full of

choices and anytime you make a choice you have to compare the options you

might think about how they are similar as we did in our last lesson and you

might look at how they are different often we compare things using an

adjective like cheap or beautiful comparing with short adjectives like

cheap is easy we just say cheaper in the same way we say bigger hotter and nicer

but long adjectives are a bit different we have to say more beautiful how about

giving this a try let's practice comparing with adjectives

and some other expressions listen to each example then repeat it yourself

ready let's give it a go Fiona is definitely more experienced than Henry

the new office is larger than our old one

laser and inkjet printers differ in terms of price

unlike Thomas Charles has a background in engineering

great so we heard some comparisons with adjectives and we also heard that two

things can differ in some way that's the same as saying they are different things

might differ in terms of price or in terms of size or in terms of any other

quality and one more way to show difference is with the word unlike for

example unlike Tom I live in Chicago that just means that Tom doesn't live in

Chicago but sometimes we want to say that two things are very different not

just a little different but a lot well if you're comparing with adjectives you

can add the word way or far before the adjective for example Tom is way smarter

than me another way to say the same thing is I'm not nearly as smart as Tom

in other words I'm not even close to being equal to him in terms of being

smart let's try a little practice with describing big differences once again

repeat the examples after you hear them the x500 is not nearly as powerful as

the X mm

steel is way heavier than wood

my brother Gus is nothing like me

Google and IBM are completely different as organizations

so we heard way heavier and not nearly as powerful as but did you hear any

other expressions for showing a big difference one way is to say something

is nothing like something else that means they are not similar in any way

it's the same as saying two things are completely different which we also heard

but what if we want to show exactly what it is that is different for example I

might want to say Tom lives in Chicago and I live in New York well this is

really easy to do you just need a little word to connect these ideas a little

word that says these ideas are different if you want to keep it simple you can

use the word but between your ideas you could also use where as or while let's

try using some of these connecting words for making comparisons here we go

Saturdays are always busy whereas Mondays are usually quiet

you

the canon camera is automatic while the codec is manual

the Mercedes looks good but it's too expensive

in contrast to John's reports Ronaldo's are very confusing

so that last example we heard was a little different wasn't it the

connecting words weren't in the middle but at the start that's possible with

the expression in contrast to so I might say in contrast to Tom I live in New

York now that we've practiced some examples let's hear how this sounds in a

conversation we're going to listen to a short dialogue between Anna and Sam Anna

is asking Sam about two people who have applied for a job John and Byron and Sam

is talking about how John and Byron are different let's listen so what did you

think of the two job applicants well John is not nearly as confident as Byron

yeah but what about their experience Byron has lots but John is new to the

business now it's your turn to practice will repeat the dialogue but this time

we're going to be bout the second speakers words you will have to say

those parts yourself remember to start by saying John is not nearly as

confident as Byron then you'll compare their experience with the word but here

we go so what did you think of the two job applicants

yeah but what about their experience

you

all right that about does it for this lesson

we've learned some great ways to talk about differences in our next lesson

we'll look at using superlatives such as best and most to make comparisons until

then so long and happy learning