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  

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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