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  • Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. If you work internationally or want to work internationally, you need

  • to be able to answer many basic business English questions. Now, of course, there are hundreds

  • of basic business English questions, but in this lesson, we're going to start with one

  • which is very important, and that's the question: "What do you do?" So I'm going to show you

  • how to answer that question simply, correctly, and confidently. And later, I'll tell you

  • about a resource I've written with over a hundred other business English questions and

  • answers, which you can access and download for free. But for now, let's start with the

  • first important question: "What do you do?"

  • Okay, so at the top here, I've shown you three easy, simple ways to answer the question.

  • All right? Let's look at what they are. And down here, there are some other options. But

  • first, we'll focus on these. So, the first one is you could simply say when someone asks

  • you: "What you do?" you could simply say: "I'm" plus your profession. For example:

  • "I'm a doctor.", "I'm a lawyer.", "I'm an accountant." Okay? That kind of thing. So, that's one way

  • to answer.

  • A second way to answer is to talk about the field that you work in. For example, I could

  • say: "I'm in education." Somebody could say: "I'm in finance." Okay? So that's the field

  • or the area of work. All right? The professional field. So right now, for yourself, think:

  • How would you answer this? What would you say? "I'm a teacher.", "I'm an engineer."

  • Okay? Or: "I'm in engineering.", "I'm in finance." That kind of thing.

  • Okay, the third way that you can answer is by talking about your employer, talking about

  • the company that you work for. So then you would say: "I work for" plus the name of the

  • company. "I work for Microsoft.", "I work for Sony." Or if you don't want to give the

  • name of the company or if the name of the company is not necessarily known, or it's

  • not important, or you don't feel like disclosing that information, you can simply say something

  • in general, for example: "I work for an airline.", "I work for a law firm." Okay? So, these ways,

  • these three ways are completely correct and you can be sure that if you say one of these,

  • you will be answering the question: "What do you do?" correctly. Okay?

  • So, that's enough, but now I'm going to show you a little bit more that you could say,

  • if it's relevant to you. But if this is enough, then just choose one of these, and use and

  • learn one of those. Okay? But let's look at some other possibilities. For example, you

  • could say: "I'm the CEO of Microsoft." Okay, that would be a very big position. "CEO" is

  • "Chief Executive Officer", the top person, the senior most executive. All right? Or:

  • "I'm the Director of Sales at Sony." All right? So, here, you're giving your position. Okay?

  • So you notice that because it's a particular position, we don't say "a", we say "the".

  • So if you're giving your title, your position, then you'd remember to say "the".

  • Next: If you want to express a little bit more about your field, but in a different

  • way with a little bit more vocabulary, slightly more advanced vocabulary, then you could say:

  • "I'm in the publishing industry." Now, you could also just say: "I'm in publishing."

  • That's fine, too. But if you want to say a little bit more, give a little bit more advanced

  • answer, you can say: "I'm in the publishing industry.", or "I'm in the advertising business.",

  • or "I'm in the energy sector." Okay? "Sector" means a part of the economy. Or:

  • "I'm in the public sector." which means you work for the government, or "I'm in the private sector."

  • Okay? That kind of thing. So you could also say these. Okay? All the answers down here

  • are a little bit more advanced.

  • Now, suppose you work somewhere, but your position is not very high. You've young, or

  • you've just begun, or whatever the reason, it doesn't matter, then you might want to

  • just say where you work in terms of the location, but it's not important of the name of the

  • employer or anything like that. You just want to keep it very general, so then you could

  • say: "I work in a hospital." You don't give the name of the hospital, you don't say: "I'm

  • a doctor", because maybe you just have a job in the hospital, so you can say that, too.

  • You can say that: "I work in a hospital.", or "I work in a store.", or "I work on a farm."

  • There are a few outside jobs where we use the word "on", like "on a farm", "on an oil

  • rig", "on a construction site". Okay? So, again, all of those will be mentioned on the

  • resource that I'm going to tell you how you can access in a little while. But now, let's

  • do a little review to see how well you've learned this.

  • So, let's do the first one. So, here, we're going to use "I'm" and in this column, we'll

  • say "I work". All right?

  • So: "I'm _______ real estate."

  • What do we need to say for "real estate"? So, "real estate" is the field,

  • so what would you say? "I'm

  • in real estate." Very good.

  • "I'm _______ social worker." So that's a profession,

  • so what do we need to say? "I'm

  • a social worker." or "I'm a social worker." Good.

  • "I'm _______ V.P. of Finance." "V.P.", which means Vice President of Finance.

  • Now, that's a specific position, so what do we need to say? "I'm

  • the": "I'm the V.P. of Finance." Good.

  • Next: "I'm _______ pharmaceutical industry."

  • So now we're saying "industry", it's a little more detail, a little more specific, so we

  • need to say: "I'm

  • in the pharmaceutical industry." Good.

  • And last: "I'm _______ architect."

  • That's a profession, so we say: "I'm

  • an architect." In this case... Here, it was "a social worker",

  • but here we needed to say "an architect" because "architect" starts with an "a", which is a

  • vowel. It's also a vowel sound. Okay? So then we have to say "an".

  • Let's go on this side: "I work _______ farm."

  • Remember? Farm is outdoors, so we needed to say:

  • "on a farm". Very good.

  • "I work _______ Intel." So, Intel is the name of a particular company,

  • so what do we need to say? "I work

  • for Intel."

  • "I work _______ private sector." Okay? Again, a little bit more specific, like

  • this, pharmaceutical industry, so:

  • "I work in the private sector."

  • "I work _______ fashion business." So, what can we say? "I work", same way

  • "in the fashion business".

  • And: "I work _______ library."

  • Okay? We haven't got the name of the library or anything; we're just saying "library",

  • so we have to say: "I work in a library." Okay? If you had the name of the library,

  • then it would be different. Okay?

  • Now, one point I want to just make: Even though, here, I said... "Intel", I said "For Intel"

  • and earlier "for Microsoft", right? "For Sony", but nevertheless, sometimes we also say "at"

  • when we give the name of the company. All right? So we say: "I work at Intel." But,

  • I think it's better for you if you learn one way to say things, and the simpler the better.

  • Don't confuse by... Yourself by learning three ways to say something, and then get confused.

  • Instead of that, learn one way and use that confidently. Okay?

  • Now, I told you that I would tell you where you can get this other resource of over a

  • hundred business questions and answers, so for that, please go to our website: www.engvid.com.

  • There, you can record... Sorry, you can download a resource, a free resource of these hundred

  • questions and answers. Okay? Also, you can do a quiz on this subject and see how well

  • you've understood it. Okay? So, bye for now, and good luck with your English.

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. If you work internationally or want to work internationally, you need

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