Paul explains some difficult (but useful) words and how to use them in real business English situations. Here are the words mentioned in the podcast, together with their correct spellings (LISTEN TO THE SHOW FIRST!): IndependentAccommodateDefiniteImpeccableEntrepreneurResponsibilityAdvantageGuaranteeSpectacularRhythm  The post Episode 29: Difficult but  Useful Words appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul explains some difficult (but useful) words and how to use them in real business English situations. Here are the words mentioned in the podcast, together with their correct spellings (LISTEN TO THE SHOW FIRST!): <ol><li>Independent</li><li>Accommodate</li><li>Definite</li><li>Impeccable</li><li>Entrepreneur</li><li>Responsibility</li><li>Advantage</li><li>Guarantee</li><li>Spectacular</li><li>Rhythm</li></ol> The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-29-difficult-but-useful-words/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 29: Difficult but Useful Words</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 29: Difficult but  Useful Words

Paul continues with the series on phrases and expressions.  Perfect for business English learners. The post Episode 28: Phrases and Expressions 4 appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul continues with the series on phrases and expressions. Perfect for business English learners. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-28-phrases-and-expressions-4/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 28: Phrases and Expressions 4</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 28: Phrases and Expressions 4

Paul continues with the series on phrases and expressions, helping business English learners to understand how different English phrases can be used in real business situations. The post Episode 27: Phrases and Expressions 3 appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul continues with the series on phrases and expressions, helping business English learners to understand how different English phrases can be used in real business situations. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-27-phrases-and-expressions-3/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 27: Phrases and Expressions 3</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 27: Phrases and Expressions 3

I continue the discussion of useful phrases and expressions for business English learners. The post Episode 26: Phrases and Expressions 2 appeared first on The Business English Community.

I continue the discussion of useful phrases and expressions for business English learners. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-26-phrases-and-expression-2/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 26: Phrases and Expressions 2</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 26: Phrases and Expressions 2

Paul shares some useful phrases and expressions.  Try incorporating them into your business discussions! The post Episode 25: Phrases and Expressions 1 appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares some useful phrases and expressions. Try incorporating them into your business discussions! The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-25-phrases-and-expressions-1/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 25: Phrases and Expressions 1</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 25: Phrases and Expressions 1

Paul shares some tips to keep in mind when attending conference calls in English. The post Episode 24: Conference Calls in English appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares some tips to keep in mind when attending conference calls in English. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-24-conference-calls-in-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 24: Conference Calls in English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 24: Conference Calls in English

Paul shares some positive words and phrases that you can include in your everyday conversations in English. The post Episode 23: Positive Words and Phrases appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares some positive words and phrases that you can include in your everyday conversations in English. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-23-positive-words-and-phrases/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 23: Positive Words and Phrases</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 23: Positive Words and Phrases

Paul shares some really useful phrases to keep in mind when presenting in English. The post Episode 22: Phrases for Presentations appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares some really useful phrases to keep in mind when presenting in English. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-22-phrases-for-presentations/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 22: Phrases for Presentations</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 22: Phrases for Presentations

Paul discusses how to understand your level in terms of different parts of the language, and how to take it to the next level! The post Episode 21: How to Take Your English to the NEXT LEVEL! appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul discusses how to understand your level in terms of different parts of the language, and how to take it to the next level! The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-20-how-to-take-your-english-to-the-next-level/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 21: How to Take Your English to the NEXT LEVEL!</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 21: How to Take Your English to the NEXT LEVEL!

Paul shares and explains some inspirational quotes – great for business English learners. The post Episode 20: Inspirational Quotes I appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares and explains some inspirational quotes – great for business English learners. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-20-inspirational-quotes-i/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 20: Inspirational Quotes I</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 20: Inspirational Quotes I

Take Your Business English to the NEXT LEVEL!

Paul shares some useful negotiation phrases and strategies for learners of business English. The post Episode 19: Negotiation Phrases and Strategies appeared first on The Business English Community.

Paul shares some useful negotiation phrases and strategies for learners of business English. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-19-negotiation-phrases-and-strategies/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 19: Negotiation Phrases and Strategies</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 19: Negotiation Phrases and Strategies

Sharon Schweitzer

In this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Sharon Schweitzer, founder of Access to Culture. And what a fantastic conversation we had! Sharon is an expert in all things intercultural, and kindly shares her expertise here, providing plenty of tips and advice for doing business in today’s global economy. You really do not want to miss this episode! Here it is:  Here are the links mentioned in the show: Access to Culture: https://www.protocolww.com  Sharon’s book “Access to Asia”, https://www.protocolww.com/resources/books/  The post Episode 18: Intercultural Communication and The USA with Sharon Schweitzer appeared first on The Business English Community.

In this episode, I had the pleasure of talking to Sharon Schweitzer, founder of Access to Culture. And what a fantastic conversation we had! Sharon is an expert in all things intercultural, and kindly shares her expertise here, providing plenty of tips and advice for doing business in today’s global economy. You really do not want to miss this episode! Here it is: Here are the links mentioned in the show: Access to Culture: <a href="https://www.protocolww.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.protocolww.com</a> Sharon’s book “Access to Asia”, <a href="https://www.protocolww.com/resources/books/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">https://www.protocolww.com/resources/books/</a> The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-18-intercultural-communication-and-the-usa-with-sharon-schweitzer/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 18: Intercultural Communication and The USA with Sharon Schweitzer</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 18: Intercultural Communication and The USA with Sharon Schweitzer

Your accent can be an incredible accent – and yet many English learners are focused on reducing or changing their accent. Is this necessary? Find out in this week’s episode:  Here is the full transcript: Your accent is awesome. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi there. Paul here, and welcome to episode 17 of the Business English Community podcast. Two things today before we get cracking. The first one is please, if you do like the podcast, take one minute out of your day to go to iTunes and give us a review on iTunes. That’s something that is really, really, really, really, really helpful for us because it helps us to share our message around the globe. It allows us to help more and more and more people with their business English. So, please, if you do have a minute, please just go and give us a review on iTunes. The second thing I wanted to ask or say to you is that I really want to hear your story. What’s your story? What’s your story with learning English, and what’s your story with business English? Where do you live? What challenges do you face right now? Are you looking for a job? Are you trying to get a promotion? Are you trying to improve your business English so that you can get a position in another country? Whatever it might be, please let me know your story. I’m waiting to hear from you, so you can contact me via the website, which is businessenglishcommunity.com. There’s a contact form on the website, which makes it really easy to submit something. Or, you can send me an email if you prefer. You can email me at info, I-N-F-O, @businessenglishcommunity.com. Let me know your story. I can’t wait to hear from you. Okay, well let’s get on with today’s main topic, and that is your accent is awesome. I really wanted to talk about this because I get a lot of questions about accent reduction. How do I change my accent? How do I get an American accent? How can I speak with a British accent? And so on. I can understand where those questions come from. Maybe you’ve seen an actress with a really attractive American, British, Canadian, or some other accent. They’re successful. They’re successful people, and they are completely confident in their use of the English language. So, why wouldn’t you want to copy them or imitate them? It makes sense that you might want to imitate them, and actually, imitating is a really good technique for improving your pronunciation. It’s something I talk about back in episode 15, so that’s episode 15, How to Improve Your Pronunciation in English. But, and here’s the issue. Your accent is amazing. Your accent is awesome, and for me, it’s part of your identity. It reflects who you are, it reflects your experiences, and it reflects your culture. Many people don’t like their own accents, but it’s strange because for every person who doesn’t like their own accent, there seem to be thousands of people out there who love that person’s particular accent and the way that they pronounce things in English. So, is it just you that doesn’t like your accent, or do other people say that they don’t like your accent? Because that would be something completely different. But I’m willing to bet that many, many, many people absolutely love your accent. Over the years, I’ve spoken to people from Mexico, Iran, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Korea, Egypt, China, Japan, Israel, Columbia, Peru, Argentina, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, and many others, people who have awesome accents. So, why would you want to change your amazing accent? If it’s to communicate effectively or to communicate more effectively, then I completely understand. Because unfortunately, some people’s accents or part of their accent … Some people’s accents … It’s really more pronunciation rather than their accent, but some people’s accents can get in the way of clear communication. The way that they say certain or pronounce certain words makes it difficult to understand what they are saying. If that’s the case with your accent, then I think that you would need to work on certain parts, not your whole accent. You don’t need to change your whole accent, but I would advise you to work on those parts of pronunciation in order to make sure that you are getting your messages across effectively. For me, this is what this is all about. It’s about effective communication, but effective communication can definitely take place without changing your accent completely. You don’t need to sound completely British or completely American. I don’t think that should be your goal, really. After all, we’re not robots. We don’t want to all sound exactly the same. Wouldn’t that be a bit boring? Isn’t your accent part of your identity, part of who you are? Therefore, keep that amazing accent. Let’s not try and reduce or eliminate your accent completely. While I’m saying all of this, I really do fully understand that it’s not a clear-cut topic in the sense that you may need to make some adjustments to your accent, and your accent may change naturally over time. If you go and live in an English-speaking country, for example, then your accent is … For sure, your accent is going to change. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, and there’s nothing wrong with your accent becoming more British or Australian or Canadian or American or some other accent. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but what I’m trying to say is if you are looking at the top five goals, let’s say, for learning or improving your English, then reducing or eliminating your accent should not be one of those main goals. One of the main goals should be absolutely to communicate more clearly and more effectively, so that’s what I wanted to say today. Effective communication can normally be achieved by making a series of adjustments rather than by changing your accent completely, which means that you can keep your amazing accent and communicate effectively at the same time. So, that’s what I think about this, but what do you think? What do you think about your accent? Would you like to change your accent? Would you like to communicate more effectively? Let me know, businessenglishcommunity.com. As always, thanks so much for listening. It’s great to have you here. If you would like more personalized feedback on your pronunciation and your accent, then come on over and join us at businessenglishcommunity.com. We have amazing resources on that website, and by joining the members-only area, you get this personalized feedback. I will give you feedback on your pronunciation, on your accent, on your writing, on your presentations and so on. Apart from that, there is an extensive audio and video library and an active forum where you can have all of your business English questions answered. So, what are you waiting for? Come over and join us at the businessenglishcommunity.com. Thanks again. Have a fantastic week. I’ll see you next Tuesday. All the best, and bye for now. The post Episode 17: Your Accent is Awesome appeared first on The Business English Community.

Your accent can be an incredible accent – and yet many English learners are focused on reducing or changing their accent. Is this necessary? Find out in this week’s episode: Here is the full transcript: Your accent is awesome. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi there. Paul here, and welcome to episode 17 of the Business English Community podcast. Two things today before we get cracking. The first one is please, if you do like the podcast, take one minute out of your day to go to iTunes and give us a review on iTunes. That’s something that is really, really, really, really, really helpful for us because it helps us to share our message around the globe. It allows us to help more and more and more people with their business English. So, please, if you do have a minute, please just go and give us a review on iTunes. The second thing I wanted to ask or say to you is that I really want to hear your story. What’s your story? What’s your story with learning English, and what’s your story with business English? Where do you live? What challenges do you face right now? Are you looking for a job? Are you trying to get a promotion? Are you trying to improve your business English so that you can get a position in another country? Whatever it might be, please let me know your story. I’m waiting to hear from you, so you can contact me via the website, which is <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. There’s a contact form on the website, which makes it really easy to submit something. Or, you can send me an email if you prefer. You can email me at info, I-N-F-O, @businessenglishcommunity.com. Let me know your story. I can’t wait to hear from you. Okay, well let’s get on with today’s main topic, and that is your accent is awesome. I really wanted to talk about this because I get a lot of questions about accent reduction. How do I change my accent? How do I get an American accent? How can I speak with a British accent? And so on. I can understand where those questions come from. Maybe you’ve seen an actress with a really attractive American, British, Canadian, or some other accent. They’re successful. They’re successful people, and they are completely confident in their use of the English language. So, why wouldn’t you want to copy them or imitate them? It makes sense that you might want to imitate them, and actually, imitating is a really good technique for improving your pronunciation. It’s something I talk about back in episode 15, so that’s episode 15, How to Improve Your Pronunciation in English. But, and here’s the issue. Your accent is amazing. Your accent is awesome, and for me, it’s part of your identity. It reflects who you are, it reflects your experiences, and it reflects your culture. Many people don’t like their own accents, but it’s strange because for every person who doesn’t like their own accent, there seem to be thousands of people out there who love that person’s particular accent and the way that they pronounce things in English. So, is it just you that doesn’t like your accent, or do other people say that they don’t like your accent? Because that would be something completely different. But I’m willing to bet that many, many, many people absolutely love your accent. Over the years, I’ve spoken to people from Mexico, Iran, Brazil, France, Germany, Holland, Korea, Egypt, China, Japan, Israel, Columbia, Peru, Argentina, Morocco, Ivory Coast, Malaysia, and many others, people who have awesome accents. So, why would you want to change your amazing accent? If it’s to communicate effectively or to communicate more effectively, then I completely understand. Because unfortunately, some people’s accents or part of their accent … Some people’s accents … It’s really more pronunciation rather than their accent, but some people’s accents can get in the way of clear communication. The way that they say certain or pronounce certain words makes it difficult to understand what they are saying. If that’s the case with your accent, then I think that you would need to work on certain parts, not your whole accent. You don’t need to change your whole accent, but I would advise you to work on those parts of pronunciation in order to make sure that you are getting your messages across effectively. For me, this is what this is all about. It’s about effective communication, but effective communication can definitely take place without changing your accent completely. You don’t need to sound completely British or completely American. I don’t think that should be your goal, really. After all, we’re not robots. We don’t want to all sound exactly the same. Wouldn’t that be a bit boring? Isn’t your accent part of your identity, part of who you are? Therefore, keep that amazing accent. Let’s not try and reduce or eliminate your accent completely. While I’m saying all of this, I really do fully understand that it’s not a clear-cut topic in the sense that you may need to make some adjustments to your accent, and your accent may change naturally over time. If you go and live in an English-speaking country, for example, then your accent is … For sure, your accent is going to change. There’s nothing wrong with that, either, and there’s nothing wrong with your accent becoming more British or Australian or Canadian or American or some other accent. There’s nothing wrong with that at all, but what I’m trying to say is if you are looking at the top five goals, let’s say, for learning or improving your English, then reducing or eliminating your accent should not be one of those main goals. One of the main goals should be absolutely to communicate more clearly and more effectively, so that’s what I wanted to say today. Effective communication can normally be achieved by making a series of adjustments rather than by changing your accent completely, which means that you can keep your amazing accent and communicate effectively at the same time. So, that’s what I think about this, but what do you think? What do you think about your accent? Would you like to change your accent? Would you like to communicate more effectively? Let me know, <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. As always, thanks so much for listening. It’s great to have you here. If you would like more personalized feedback on your pronunciation and your accent, then come on over and join us at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. We have amazing resources on that website, and by joining the members-only area, you get this personalized feedback. I will give you feedback on your pronunciation, on your accent, on your writing, on your presentations and so on. Apart from that, there is an extensive audio and video library and an active forum where you can have all of your business English questions answered. So, what are you waiting for? Come over and join us at the <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Thanks again. Have a fantastic week. I’ll see you next Tuesday. All the best, and bye for now. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-17-your-accent-is-awesome/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 17: Your Accent is Awesome</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 17: Your Accent is Awesome

Confidence is so important when it comes to learning and speaking English.  In this episode, I share a few of my tried-and-testing techniques for improve your confidence levels. Try them out and let me know what you think! All the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: How to improve your confidence levels in English? Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to episode 16 of the Business English Community podcast. I hope everything is going really, really well with you. I hope you’re moving your projects forward, and well, I hope you’re improving your business English and I hope this podcast in some way is helping you to get towards those goals. Today I wanted to talk about confidence levels and how really improving your confidence can really help you to get, achieve those goals and how having a lack of confidence is really holding you back. I’ll be talking about that in just a second. First of all, I have a really special request. It’d be really grateful if you could help me with this. And it is as follows. If you like the Business English Community podcast, please take a minute to go onto iTunes and give us a review. It’s really, really important for us to have iTunes reviews because it helps to get the message out further, it helps us to really share the podcast and attract more people and share our information with more people around the globe. So I’d be really, really grateful if you could just take a minute to go onto iTunes and leave us a review. Right, well, let’s get started with how to improve your confidence levels. Okay, well I should probably start out by talking about whom this episode is for, and it’s for you if you have a lack of confidence in certain areas within the English language. If you have a lack of confidence when you’re speaking in front of your boss, if you have a lack of confidence when you’re giving a presentation in English or when you’re writing something in English, if you have that sort of nagging feeling on the inside that someone’s watching you and that you’re just doing something wrong and someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, what are you doing,” if you have that kind of feeling when you’re managing issues or when you’re communicating in the English language, then this is definitely the episode for you because I’m going to help you really try and improve your levels of confidence and as a result of that, as a direct result of that improve your levels of business English. The first thing I wanted to say is it’s really important to understand that a lack of confidence in English is only going to hold you back, it’s definitely not going to help you in any way at all. This is not something that is okay to have. It’s not something that is good to have. It’s something that really we need to address. If you lack confidence it will stop you from taking action. It will stop you from reaching your goals. It will also affect you. It’s not really going to affect other people. This is you. This is your English. This is your career. This is your life that this lack of confidence is going to affect. Many people seem to accept that it’s okay to have a lack of confidence when speaking English or communicating in English, and well to a certain point I can understand that. If it’s not your native language, then of course you’re going to have a slight or certain lack of confidence. But I don’t agree that it’s acceptable to maintain that lack of confidence for any period of time. I think you should be focused on improving your confidence levels, on getting better, on making things easier for yourself. The first point is to understand that a lack of confidence in English is only going to hold you back and we really want to change that. The next thing I wanted to mention is that I really, really want you to clear any ridiculous situations from your mind. I mean is this you? Do you have a sort of unreasonable sense of fear when you are speaking in English? Let’s say you’re going to give a presentation in English or you’re going to talk to your boss in English. Do you have … Yes, it’s an unreasonable level of fear. Of course, we’re all apprehensive in certain situations. We are all slightly nervous. Some nervousness is often good. It gets the adrenaline going. But if you could analyze your own situation, would you say that your reaction is a little bit over the top? Are you just filled with fear when you have to speak in English or do something in English? Well, if that’s the case, I want to really highlight that nothing bad is going to happen when you try things in English. It’s really not. You’re not jumping off a cliff, you’re not participating in something really, really dangerous. You’re just speaking in English. You’re not going to lose your job. People are not going to laugh at you because you make a couple of mistakes in English. Other people have bigger things to worry about. They’re really not concerned about you making one or two mistakes in English. So I think you need to put this whole thing into perspective and realize that nothing crazy is going to happen if you make a few mistakes in English because I think that’s one of the things that holds people back is this idea, this fear that something terrible is going to happen. Once you can establish that nothing terrible is going to happen, you’re only going to learn, you’re only going to progress, you’re only going to get better. Then the next thing to consider or the next point I would like to recommend is to actively seek out situations in which to improve. Lots of times in life and in business these situations are not going to simply appear on our doorstep or come to us. We need to go out and find these situations that are going to help us to move forward. The type of situation that I’m talking about in terms of improving your confidence levels in English would be situations such as the following: giving a presentation in English, talking on a conference call in front of your boss, booking a hotel room in English or writing a report in English. Those are the types of situation that I want you to actively seek out. I want you to ask yourself is there a situation like that that you can actively seek out this week, and if there is then go and seek it out, go and actively pursue it, sign up to speak at that conference, volunteer to help your colleague or boss with something in English. Now a lot of people when they actively seek out such situations, they misunderstand me and they think that I’m talking about a big situation, a massive conference in front of 500 people. Well, it doesn’t need to be like that. You can look for what I refer to as quick wins or easy wins, quick wins or easy wins. Start with something small and use those small tasks to build up your confidence in English. So it could be something as simple as writing a short email in English. It could be something as simple as writing a short email in English, or even writing a list or even having a chat with someone on LinkedIn or some other social media network in English. Those would be examples of quick wins or easy wins. Why are quick wins so great, why are they so amazing? Because they help to build up your confidence and quick wins or easy wins take you on to bigger and bigger and bigger wins, and before you know it, if you set off down this path, then you are going to be giving that conference in English in front of 500 people and doing it successfully, doing it with confidence. The other point that’s worth mentioning here is that for many of these situations it is possible to prepare beforehand. Many students have that fear, have that lack of confidence, because they think that they’ve got to be this natural superstar or this natural genius in order to succeed. But the reality is quite different. The reality is that behind every superstar, behind every or most geniuses there is an awful lot of preparation that has gone on behind the scenes. So preparation is the key to success. And you don’t need to put yourself in these situations without preparation. You can prepare beforehand. But because many people don’t prepare, that only makes things worse because then when they get into the live situation they’re going to make mistakes. That knocks their confidence and then they don’t want to do it again. Don’t let that happen to you. You can practice presentations. You can prepare likely questions for a meeting and you can have someone check your emails before you send them. Those are all examples of preparation that you can do in advance. And you don’t need to do this on your own. There are many, many people out there who can help to review your work in order to give you the confidence that it’s correct. Imagine having a presentation checked by a native speaker. You then have the confidence that you don’t have any misspellings in there or you don’t have any grammatical errors in there. That should give you the confidence to focus on your presentation. There are many, many things that you can do in order to prepare beforehand. If you want some help with preparation, then come and join us over at businessenglishcommunity.com. We offer feedback to students on their presentations, on their pronunciation, on their writing and so on. That’s a great way to get feedback. And finally, another way of improving confidence is to employee a feedback loop. What do I mean by that? Sounds a bit complicated, employee a feedback loop. Well, what I’m referring to essentially is the idea of correcting mistakes and then trying again and obviously the second time trying to improve. So the feedback loop goes essentially as follows. Try something, make some mistakes, review those mistakes, correct those mistakes, and try again. The second time you try something you’re still probably going to make some mistakes but hopefully you’re going to make fewer mistakes but go through the same process. Try something the second time, review the mistakes, correct the mistakes, and then try again. It’s kind of an iteration where you are getting better and better at something. If you can imagine writing a text, having someone correct it for you, trying to write a similar text, having someone correct it for you, then you’re only going to get better and better. But unfortunately many people don’t employee any kind of feedback loop in what they do, and therefore they don’t get any better. Driving is a fantastic example because many people are afraid to criticize or monitor their family members when it comes to driving. People tend to be quite sensitive about their driving skills and people don’t like to be criticized. That really has led to many people not saying anything about other people’s driving, at least not when you’re in the same car. I think it’s very easy to criticize people in other cars, but when you’re actually in the car it’s more difficult to criticize people. You don’t want to become a backseat driver after all. But what is the effect of that around the world? And this happens all around the world. The effect of that lack of feedback is that most people when they get to a certain level do not get any better at driving. Sure, they get a bit more experienced over the years, but people don’t really improve that much because there is no constant, continuous, ongoing feedback loop for people’s driving. But in English and in business English there is a feedback loop. You can find people to help you improve your business English, to help correct the mistakes that you are making and then have another go and then improve. Of course, this is all related to confidence, because if you can see yourself improving, then your confidence is going to improve. And as your confidence improves, you’re going to improve your level even more. So it’s this kind of amazing circle of improvement if you like. But really, really important to have some kind of honest feedback. That’s pretty much what I wanted to share with you today. Don’t let a lack of confidence hold you back. Don’t let it affect you. Work on your confidence and your level will improve. Understand that it is possible to improve your confidence levels over time. Many people just think that they are either confident or lacking in confidence and that’s the way that they are. Well that’s not true. You can improve your confidence over time. You can improve your confidence levels by participating in different activities, by putting your name forward for something, volunteering for something, giving it a go, preparing it, doing it, doing it successfully and then doing it again. I hope you find these techniques useful. I hope you can improve your confidence levels over time. Please, let me know if there is any way in which I can help you. I’d be only too happy to help. Of course, you can contact me via the website, businessenglishcommunity.com, or you can send me an email info@businessenglishcommunity.com. There are some amazing resources on the website, so I would really, really recommend that you check those out. And if you’re looking for something a little bit extra, if you’re looking for a little bit of personalized help, if you’re looking for video courses and audio courses, and a forum where you can have all of your business English questions answered, then why not come over and join us at businessenglishcommunity.com? Thanks so much for listening. It’s great to have you here. Once again, please let me know if there’s any way in which I can help you. Have a fantastic week and I’ll be back next week. All the very best. Bye for now. The post Episode 16: How to Improve Your Confidence Levels in English appeared first on The Business English Community.

Confidence is so important when it comes to learning and speaking English.  In this episode, I share a few of my tried-and-testing techniques for improve your confidence levels. Try them out and let me know what you think! All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: How to improve your confidence levels in English? Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to episode 16 of the Business English Community podcast. I hope everything is going really, really well with you. I hope you’re moving your projects forward, and well, I hope you’re improving your business English and I hope this podcast in some way is helping you to get towards those goals. Today I wanted to talk about confidence levels and how really improving your confidence can really help you to get, achieve those goals and how having a lack of confidence is really holding you back. I’ll be talking about that in just a second. First of all, I have a really special request. It’d be really grateful if you could help me with this. And it is as follows. If you like the Business English Community podcast, please take a minute to go onto iTunes and give us a review. It’s really, really important for us to have iTunes reviews because it helps to get the message out further, it helps us to really share the podcast and attract more people and share our information with more people around the globe. So I’d be really, really grateful if you could just take a minute to go onto iTunes and leave us a review. Right, well, let’s get started with how to improve your confidence levels. Okay, well I should probably start out by talking about whom this episode is for, and it’s for you if you have a lack of confidence in certain areas within the English language. If you have a lack of confidence when you’re speaking in front of your boss, if you have a lack of confidence when you’re giving a presentation in English or when you’re writing something in English, if you have that sort of nagging feeling on the inside that someone’s watching you and that you’re just doing something wrong and someone is going to tap you on the shoulder and say, “Hey, what are you doing,” if you have that kind of feeling when you’re managing issues or when you’re communicating in the English language, then this is definitely the episode for you because I’m going to help you really try and improve your levels of confidence and as a result of that, as a direct result of that improve your levels of business English. The first thing I wanted to say is it’s really important to understand that a lack of confidence in English is only going to hold you back, it’s definitely not going to help you in any way at all. This is not something that is okay to have. It’s not something that is good to have. It’s something that really we need to address. If you lack confidence it will stop you from taking action. It will stop you from reaching your goals. It will also affect you. It’s not really going to affect other people. This is you. This is your English. This is your career. This is your life that this lack of confidence is going to affect. Many people seem to accept that it’s okay to have a lack of confidence when speaking English or communicating in English, and well to a certain point I can understand that. If it’s not your native language, then of course you’re going to have a slight or certain lack of confidence. But I don’t agree that it’s acceptable to maintain that lack of confidence for any period of time. I think you should be focused on improving your confidence levels, on getting better, on making things easier for yourself. The first point is to understand that a lack of confidence in English is only going to hold you back and we really want to change that. The next thing I wanted to mention is that I really, really want you to clear any ridiculous situations from your mind. I mean is this you? Do you have a sort of unreasonable sense of fear when you are speaking in English? Let’s say you’re going to give a presentation in English or you’re going to talk to your boss in English. Do you have … Yes, it’s an unreasonable level of fear. Of course, we’re all apprehensive in certain situations. We are all slightly nervous. Some nervousness is often good. It gets the adrenaline going. But if you could analyze your own situation, would you say that your reaction is a little bit over the top? Are you just filled with fear when you have to speak in English or do something in English? Well, if that’s the case, I want to really highlight that nothing bad is going to happen when you try things in English. It’s really not. You’re not jumping off a cliff, you’re not participating in something really, really dangerous. You’re just speaking in English. You’re not going to lose your job. People are not going to laugh at you because you make a couple of mistakes in English. Other people have bigger things to worry about. They’re really not concerned about you making one or two mistakes in English. So I think you need to put this whole thing into perspective and realize that nothing crazy is going to happen if you make a few mistakes in English because I think that’s one of the things that holds people back is this idea, this fear that something terrible is going to happen. Once you can establish that nothing terrible is going to happen, you’re only going to learn, you’re only going to progress, you’re only going to get better. Then the next thing to consider or the next point I would like to recommend is to actively seek out situations in which to improve. Lots of times in life and in business these situations are not going to simply appear on our doorstep or come to us. We need to go out and find these situations that are going to help us to move forward. The type of situation that I’m talking about in terms of improving your confidence levels in English would be situations such as the following: giving a presentation in English, talking on a conference call in front of your boss, booking a hotel room in English or writing a report in English. Those are the types of situation that I want you to actively seek out. I want you to ask yourself is there a situation like that that you can actively seek out this week, and if there is then go and seek it out, go and actively pursue it, sign up to speak at that conference, volunteer to help your colleague or boss with something in English. Now a lot of people when they actively seek out such situations, they misunderstand me and they think that I’m talking about a big situation, a massive conference in front of 500 people. Well, it doesn’t need to be like that. You can look for what I refer to as quick wins or easy wins, quick wins or easy wins. Start with something small and use those small tasks to build up your confidence in English. So it could be something as simple as writing a short email in English. It could be something as simple as writing a short email in English, or even writing a list or even having a chat with someone on LinkedIn or some other social media network in English. Those would be examples of quick wins or easy wins. Why are quick wins so great, why are they so amazing? Because they help to build up your confidence and quick wins or easy wins take you on to bigger and bigger and bigger wins, and before you know it, if you set off down this path, then you are going to be giving that conference in English in front of 500 people and doing it successfully, doing it with confidence. The other point that’s worth mentioning here is that for many of these situations it is possible to prepare beforehand. Many students have that fear, have that lack of confidence, because they think that they’ve got to be this natural superstar or this natural genius in order to succeed. But the reality is quite different. The reality is that behind every superstar, behind every or most geniuses there is an awful lot of preparation that has gone on behind the scenes. So preparation is the key to success. And you don’t need to put yourself in these situations without preparation. You can prepare beforehand. But because many people don’t prepare, that only makes things worse because then when they get into the live situation they’re going to make mistakes. That knocks their confidence and then they don’t want to do it again. Don’t let that happen to you. You can practice presentations. You can prepare likely questions for a meeting and you can have someone check your emails before you send them. Those are all examples of preparation that you can do in advance. And you don’t need to do this on your own. There are many, many people out there who can help to review your work in order to give you the confidence that it’s correct. Imagine having a presentation checked by a native speaker. You then have the confidence that you don’t have any misspellings in there or you don’t have any grammatical errors in there. That should give you the confidence to focus on your presentation. There are many, many things that you can do in order to prepare beforehand. If you want some help with preparation, then come and join us over at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. We offer feedback to students on their presentations, on their pronunciation, on their writing and so on. That’s a great way to get feedback. And finally, another way of improving confidence is to employee a feedback loop. What do I mean by that? Sounds a bit complicated, employee a feedback loop. Well, what I’m referring to essentially is the idea of correcting mistakes and then trying again and obviously the second time trying to improve. So the feedback loop goes essentially as follows. Try something, make some mistakes, review those mistakes, correct those mistakes, and try again. The second time you try something you’re still probably going to make some mistakes but hopefully you’re going to make fewer mistakes but go through the same process. Try something the second time, review the mistakes, correct the mistakes, and then try again. It’s kind of an iteration where you are getting better and better at something. If you can imagine writing a text, having someone correct it for you, trying to write a similar text, having someone correct it for you, then you’re only going to get better and better. But unfortunately many people don’t employee any kind of feedback loop in what they do, and therefore they don’t get any better. Driving is a fantastic example because many people are afraid to criticize or monitor their family members when it comes to driving. People tend to be quite sensitive about their driving skills and people don’t like to be criticized. That really has led to many people not saying anything about other people’s driving, at least not when you’re in the same car. I think it’s very easy to criticize people in other cars, but when you’re actually in the car it’s more difficult to criticize people. You don’t want to become a backseat driver after all. But what is the effect of that around the world? And this happens all around the world. The effect of that lack of feedback is that most people when they get to a certain level do not get any better at driving. Sure, they get a bit more experienced over the years, but people don’t really improve that much because there is no constant, continuous, ongoing feedback loop for people’s driving. But in English and in business English there is a feedback loop. You can find people to help you improve your business English, to help correct the mistakes that you are making and then have another go and then improve. Of course, this is all related to confidence, because if you can see yourself improving, then your confidence is going to improve. And as your confidence improves, you’re going to improve your level even more. So it’s this kind of amazing circle of improvement if you like. But really, really important to have some kind of honest feedback. That’s pretty much what I wanted to share with you today. Don’t let a lack of confidence hold you back. Don’t let it affect you. Work on your confidence and your level will improve. Understand that it is possible to improve your confidence levels over time. Many people just think that they are either confident or lacking in confidence and that’s the way that they are. Well that’s not true. You can improve your confidence over time. You can improve your confidence levels by participating in different activities, by putting your name forward for something, volunteering for something, giving it a go, preparing it, doing it, doing it successfully and then doing it again. I hope you find these techniques useful. I hope you can improve your confidence levels over time. Please, let me know if there is any way in which I can help you. I’d be only too happy to help. Of course, you can contact me via the website, <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>, or you can send me an email info@businessenglishcommunity.com. There are some amazing resources on the website, so I would really, really recommend that you check those out. And if you’re looking for something a little bit extra, if you’re looking for a little bit of personalized help, if you’re looking for video courses and audio courses, and a forum where you can have all of your business English questions answered, then why not come over and join us at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com?" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com?</a> Thanks so much for listening. It’s great to have you here. Once again, please let me know if there’s any way in which I can help you. Have a fantastic week and I’ll be back next week. All the very best. Bye for now. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-16-how-to-improve-your-confidence-levels-in-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 16: How to Improve Your Confidence Levels in English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 16: How to Improve Your Confidence Levels in English

In this episode, I share 5 easy-to-implement strategies for improving your pronunciation in English. I hope you find it useful – and please let know if you have any questions. All the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: How to improve your pronunciation in English. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the business English community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to episode 15. That’s right, episode 15 of the Business English Community podcast. In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about pronunciation, how to pronounce words and phrases correctly in English. But first of all, if you haven’t downloaded your free training yet, then please go to the website, www.businessenglishcommunity.com and get your completely free, completely free training, video training session. So well worth downloading that from the website. Right, well, let’s get started with today’s main topic and it’s all about pronunciation. Well, first of all, why should you improve your pronunciation anyway? You might have heard me talk about accent and how I think you can keep your own accent in many cases. But when it comes to pronunciation, it’s all about communication. And I have spoken with many English learners over the years and in many cases, poor pronunciation really is having an impact on communication. You might understand the words which you are saying. You might understand what the other person is saying in a conversation. But if they can’t understand you, if they can’t understand the way that you are pronouncing these words, then communication is going to be very difficult. And that’s going to lead to confusion, and that’s exactly what we don’t want. So here are my five tips for improving your pronunciation. Number one, be aware of your movements. When you pronounce words in another language or when you pronounce words in English in this case, physically your mouth and your tongue and your teeth move in different ways to the way in which you make sounds in your own language. Let me give you a very simple example. When I say the word the, the, I am positioning my tongue on the lower part of my top teeth to make the T-H sound, the, the. If I don’t have my tongue in that particular position, then I am simply not going to be able to make that sound. And you see this or you hear this a lot from non-native speakers who try to make that sound, the T-H sound, the, but they do it with their tongue or with their mouth in the incorrect position. And what happens, you often hear the sound da, da. So I am going to talk to da, I am going to talk to da, I am going to talk to da boss, I am going to talk to da boss. I’m going to talk to da boss. And it comes out as a D sound instead of a T-H sound, and as we’ve discussed, that can lead to communication issues. So I really recommend, that’s just one example, but I really recommend that you become aware of the way in which you move your mouth. And also, I suggest that you watch other people, so listening is a great exercise. But if you can watch other people either in a live conversation, in a real conversation, or on a video of some kind, watch how native speakers move their mouth and move their tongue when they’re making certain sounds. And then you are going to be able to copy those movements. Because I think this is something that a lot of people don’t realize, if you just don’t have your mouth in the right position, it’s just not going to work. So however much you practice with the wrong physical position, you are never going to get the right sound. You need to have the correct physical position and then practice on top of that. And that brings me on to number two, number two is to read aloud. So this is where the practice comes in. Many students say to me, “Paul, I just don’t have enough of an opportunity to interact with native speakers of English.” And I can understand that because sometimes it is difficult to find the right circumstances on a regular basis. However, one thing that you can certainly do is to read aloud. And if you can read aloud for as little as five minutes every day, that is going to make a huge difference to your pronunciation. Because as I mentioned in point one, correct pronunciation is about having the correct physical position. But if you have been speaking your own language exclusively for, let’s say, 20 years, then you are not going to be accustomed to any other physical position. And that’s why practice is so important. Because as we have a difficult physical position in English, you need to practice that. You need to get your body, particularly those parts of your body involved in the production of speech accustomed to being in a different position. And that’s where reading aloud can really help. So try reading aloud five minutes a day. Try different types of text, try easy texts, try texts that are very complicated and just practice. Just practice on your own or find a quiet space somewhere and read aloud. Reading aloud is surprisingly completely different to reading without reading aloud. It really has a big impact on the way in which your brain works and the way in which your brain works in order to produce the correct sounds. So give it a go. Let me know how you get on but that’s number two to read aloud. Number three, record yourself. Well, this is an amazing exercise and it’s an exercise that nowadays is incredibly easy to do because you have many hand-held recorders on the market. You can also, in most cases, record your voice on a smartphone. You can record your voice on a computer using an application. It’s very, very easy to do. So it’s very easy to record yourself. So why not record yourself reading aloud which was number two. So why not record yourself when you are carrying out those exercises and then play it back. Play it back and listen to yourself. And you can try and identify those words with which you are having some kind of difficulty. Of course, if you can do this in conjunction with a native speaker, then that is going to be much better. If you want to get feedback on your recordings, and that’s something that you can do from within the business English community. I spend a lot of time reviewing and giving tailored feedback to students within the community. And so if you want that kind of feedback, then come along and join us. This exercise really is amazing. There’s something quite surprising about hearing your own voice being played back to you on a recording. The first thing, of course, is that our voice sounds or appears to sound a little bit different but once you got used to that, you can really focus on your pronunciation of the words, what kinds of mistakes are you making, what kind of words are you having some kind of difficulty with? And this is all part of a process of improvement. If you’re going to improve at something, you normally need to identify what the issue or what the problem is. And once you’ve identified that, you can then take action in order to correct it. Well, recording your voice and playing it back is going to absolutely help you identify that issue and then you can work on improving it. So that’s number three, record yourself. Number four, listen to podcasts. Well, you are listening to a podcast right now so you’ve already got that one at least partially covered as well as listening to the Business English Community podcast and I’m really pleased to have you here. I would also recommend that you listen to other podcasts in other areas of business, in areas in which you have some kind of interest. And nowadays, whether you are interested in sales, or in human resources, or in engineering, or in architecture, or in whatever it might be, there is almost certainly a podcast out there for you. So if you go into iTunes or if you go into Stitcher or whichever platform you are downloading podcasts from, you can search for a particular topic and almost certainly you will find a podcast on that topic. Well, listening to podcasts is really going to help you because you are listening to people with different styles, with different accents, with different sets of vocabulary, and all of that can help you when it comes to your pronunciation. How to children learn how to pronounce words in a particular language? Well, they do it first of all, by listening. They will listen and listen and listen, and then they will start talking. So listening is a really great way to build up, of course, your vocabulary, but also to really help you with your pronunciation because you are going to start listening to people and then to start copying them. So that’s number four, listen to podcasts. And finally, number five is to imitate or shadow. Well, this follows on from number four which was to listen to podcasts. Really, when you listen to an English speaker, when you find someone, when you find someone whose style you like, whose words you like, whose accent you like, well, now is the time to copy or imitate that person. Because language is about copying others to a large degree. So if you can copy that person’s voice, you’re not going to sound exactly the same. You’re not going to use exactly the same vocabulary, but if they are a good speaker of English and you would like to speak like them, and it could be a celebrity, it could be someone on television, you can start to try and copy parts of their conversation. Well, how can you do that? You can do that by imitating or shadowing, just try and follow them when they are speaking. Now, how do you do this? Well, you really need a video or an audio and it is preferable if you have an audio or a video with a transcript. So, of course, all of the Business English Community podcasts come with a full transcript available on the websites for free so you can certainly check out that if you want to follow along what I am saying. But whoever you decide to imitate, you want to have the transcript because that is going to enable you to read along at the same time as the other person. So you’re going to try and follow them and imitate their voice and copy them at the same time as they are speaking. So it’s quite a difficult exercise at the beginning. It takes a little bit of time to get used to but it’s a really great exercise. And as you get better at it, you can also leave the text to one side and just try and copy the person without following the text. But that will really help you to copy the way in which they are pronouncing words in English. You can combine some of these techniques as well. You can record your voice at the same time as you are imitating the other person, and then you can play back your voice and you can play back the other persons’ voice, and you can start to identify the differences and identify the words that you are not pronouncing in the same way as them. And that, again, will help you to improve. So these are all techniques that will help you, will definitely help you to improve your pronunciation. I’ve just got a question for you. To wrap up which words do you find difficult to pronounce correctly in English? Which words do you find difficult to pronounce correctly in English? Please let me know. You can email me at info@businessenglishcommunity.com or you can write a comment on the website businessenglishcommunity.com. Either way, please get in touch. Please let me know how I can help you. I really want to help you improve your business English. So thank you so much for listening today. And finally, if you have enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information together with an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. The post Episode 15: How to Improve your Pronunciation in English appeared first on The Business English Community.

In this episode, I share 5 easy-to-implement strategies for improving your pronunciation in English. I hope you find it useful – and please let know if you have any questions. All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: How to improve your pronunciation in English. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the business English community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to episode 15. That’s right, episode 15 of the Business English Community podcast. In today’s episode, I’m going to be talking about pronunciation, how to pronounce words and phrases correctly in English. But first of all, if you haven’t downloaded your free training yet, then please go to the website, <a href="http://www.businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.businessenglishcommunity.com</a> and get your completely free, completely free training, video training session. So well worth downloading that from the website. Right, well, let’s get started with today’s main topic and it’s all about pronunciation. Well, first of all, why should you improve your pronunciation anyway? You might have heard me talk about accent and how I think you can keep your own accent in many cases. But when it comes to pronunciation, it’s all about communication. And I have spoken with many English learners over the years and in many cases, poor pronunciation really is having an impact on communication. You might understand the words which you are saying. You might understand what the other person is saying in a conversation. But if they can’t understand you, if they can’t understand the way that you are pronouncing these words, then communication is going to be very difficult. And that’s going to lead to confusion, and that’s exactly what we don’t want. So here are my five tips for improving your pronunciation. Number one, be aware of your movements. When you pronounce words in another language or when you pronounce words in English in this case, physically your mouth and your tongue and your teeth move in different ways to the way in which you make sounds in your own language. Let me give you a very simple example. When I say the word the, the, I am positioning my tongue on the lower part of my top teeth to make the T-H sound, the, the. If I don’t have my tongue in that particular position, then I am simply not going to be able to make that sound. And you see this or you hear this a lot from non-native speakers who try to make that sound, the T-H sound, the, but they do it with their tongue or with their mouth in the incorrect position. And what happens, you often hear the sound da, da. So I am going to talk to da, I am going to talk to da, I am going to talk to da boss, I am going to talk to da boss. I’m going to talk to da boss. And it comes out as a D sound instead of a T-H sound, and as we’ve discussed, that can lead to communication issues. So I really recommend, that’s just one example, but I really recommend that you become aware of the way in which you move your mouth. And also, I suggest that you watch other people, so listening is a great exercise. But if you can watch other people either in a live conversation, in a real conversation, or on a video of some kind, watch how native speakers move their mouth and move their tongue when they’re making certain sounds. And then you are going to be able to copy those movements. Because I think this is something that a lot of people don’t realize, if you just don’t have your mouth in the right position, it’s just not going to work. So however much you practice with the wrong physical position, you are never going to get the right sound. You need to have the correct physical position and then practice on top of that. And that brings me on to number two, number two is to read aloud. So this is where the practice comes in. Many students say to me, “Paul, I just don’t have enough of an opportunity to interact with native speakers of English.” And I can understand that because sometimes it is difficult to find the right circumstances on a regular basis. However, one thing that you can certainly do is to read aloud. And if you can read aloud for as little as five minutes every day, that is going to make a huge difference to your pronunciation. Because as I mentioned in point one, correct pronunciation is about having the correct physical position. But if you have been speaking your own language exclusively for, let’s say, 20 years, then you are not going to be accustomed to any other physical position. And that’s why practice is so important. Because as we have a difficult physical position in English, you need to practice that. You need to get your body, particularly those parts of your body involved in the production of speech accustomed to being in a different position. And that’s where reading aloud can really help. So try reading aloud five minutes a day. Try different types of text, try easy texts, try texts that are very complicated and just practice. Just practice on your own or find a quiet space somewhere and read aloud. Reading aloud is surprisingly completely different to reading without reading aloud. It really has a big impact on the way in which your brain works and the way in which your brain works in order to produce the correct sounds. So give it a go. Let me know how you get on but that’s number two to read aloud. Number three, record yourself. Well, this is an amazing exercise and it’s an exercise that nowadays is incredibly easy to do because you have many hand-held recorders on the market. You can also, in most cases, record your voice on a smartphone. You can record your voice on a computer using an application. It’s very, very easy to do. So it’s very easy to record yourself. So why not record yourself reading aloud which was number two. So why not record yourself when you are carrying out those exercises and then play it back. Play it back and listen to yourself. And you can try and identify those words with which you are having some kind of difficulty. Of course, if you can do this in conjunction with a native speaker, then that is going to be much better. If you want to get feedback on your recordings, and that’s something that you can do from within the business English community. I spend a lot of time reviewing and giving tailored feedback to students within the community. And so if you want that kind of feedback, then come along and join us. This exercise really is amazing. There’s something quite surprising about hearing your own voice being played back to you on a recording. The first thing, of course, is that our voice sounds or appears to sound a little bit different but once you got used to that, you can really focus on your pronunciation of the words, what kinds of mistakes are you making, what kind of words are you having some kind of difficulty with? And this is all part of a process of improvement. If you’re going to improve at something, you normally need to identify what the issue or what the problem is. And once you’ve identified that, you can then take action in order to correct it. Well, recording your voice and playing it back is going to absolutely help you identify that issue and then you can work on improving it. So that’s number three, record yourself. Number four, listen to podcasts. Well, you are listening to a podcast right now so you’ve already got that one at least partially covered as well as listening to the Business English Community podcast and I’m really pleased to have you here. I would also recommend that you listen to other podcasts in other areas of business, in areas in which you have some kind of interest. And nowadays, whether you are interested in sales, or in human resources, or in engineering, or in architecture, or in whatever it might be, there is almost certainly a podcast out there for you. So if you go into iTunes or if you go into Stitcher or whichever platform you are downloading podcasts from, you can search for a particular topic and almost certainly you will find a podcast on that topic. Well, listening to podcasts is really going to help you because you are listening to people with different styles, with different accents, with different sets of vocabulary, and all of that can help you when it comes to your pronunciation. How to children learn how to pronounce words in a particular language? Well, they do it first of all, by listening. They will listen and listen and listen, and then they will start talking. So listening is a really great way to build up, of course, your vocabulary, but also to really help you with your pronunciation because you are going to start listening to people and then to start copying them. So that’s number four, listen to podcasts. And finally, number five is to imitate or shadow. Well, this follows on from number four which was to listen to podcasts. Really, when you listen to an English speaker, when you find someone, when you find someone whose style you like, whose words you like, whose accent you like, well, now is the time to copy or imitate that person. Because language is about copying others to a large degree. So if you can copy that person’s voice, you’re not going to sound exactly the same. You’re not going to use exactly the same vocabulary, but if they are a good speaker of English and you would like to speak like them, and it could be a celebrity, it could be someone on television, you can start to try and copy parts of their conversation. Well, how can you do that? You can do that by imitating or shadowing, just try and follow them when they are speaking. Now, how do you do this? Well, you really need a video or an audio and it is preferable if you have an audio or a video with a transcript. So, of course, all of the Business English Community podcasts come with a full transcript available on the websites for free so you can certainly check out that if you want to follow along what I am saying. But whoever you decide to imitate, you want to have the transcript because that is going to enable you to read along at the same time as the other person. So you’re going to try and follow them and imitate their voice and copy them at the same time as they are speaking. So it’s quite a difficult exercise at the beginning. It takes a little bit of time to get used to but it’s a really great exercise. And as you get better at it, you can also leave the text to one side and just try and copy the person without following the text. But that will really help you to copy the way in which they are pronouncing words in English. You can combine some of these techniques as well. You can record your voice at the same time as you are imitating the other person, and then you can play back your voice and you can play back the other persons’ voice, and you can start to identify the differences and identify the words that you are not pronouncing in the same way as them. And that, again, will help you to improve. So these are all techniques that will help you, will definitely help you to improve your pronunciation. I’ve just got a question for you. To wrap up which words do you find difficult to pronounce correctly in English? Which words do you find difficult to pronounce correctly in English? Please let me know. You can email me at info@businessenglishcommunity.com or you can write a comment on the website <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Either way, please get in touch. Please let me know how I can help you. I really want to help you improve your business English. So thank you so much for listening today. And finally, if you have enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information together with an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-15-how-to-improve-your-pronunciation-in-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 15: How to Improve your Pronunciation in English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 15: How to Improve your Pronunciation in English

Should you be learning American or British English? Find out in this episode of the Business English Community Podcast:  Here is the full transcript: Should you learn American or British English? Hi, there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at BusinessEnglishCommunity.com. Hi, there, Paul here, and welcome to episode 14 of the Business English Community podcast. I hope you’re doing fantastically well, and in today’s episode I’m going to be talking about American and British and American or British English. Which one should you be learning? Well, first of all, a quick reminder that there is a completely free, completely free, training, on the website. If you haven’t downloaded it already, I really suggest that you go and check it out. It’s at www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com. In fact, there is a whole bunch of great stuff on the website. So, when you’re not listening to the podcast, well worth checking it out. Okay, well, for today’s topic I wanted to talk about American and British English, because this is a question that I really get quite a lot. Which one should I learn? Should I be learning American English, or should I be learning British English? Well, first of all, what’s the difference anyway? What is the difference between these two versions of English? I think the first thing that I would say is, that seems to be quite surprising to a number of people, is that the difference is actually not that great. We are not talking about two different languages at all. We are talking about the same English language, that has a few differences. There are some differences in spelling. For example, in American English, the word color is spelled C-O-L-O-R, C-O-L-O-R, whereas in British English it would be C-O-L-O-U-R, C-O-L-O-U-R. So, that spelling, that small spelling difference happens with words such as color, flavor, and a number of others. And there are also some differences in vocabulary. For example, in American English you would normally refer to going “on vacation.” “I’m going to go on vacation.” Whereas, in British English you would say “on holiday.” “Where are you going on holiday next year?” “Where are you going on holiday next year?” So, some small vocabulary differences, as well. And also, some differences in sentence structure. For example, in British English, we tend to use a lot of tag questions. “You are going to help out at the conference, aren’t you?” “You have seen the report, haven’t you?” “You have seen the report, haven’t you?” So, in British English, the use of tag questions tends to be a little bit greater. And, there are some other differences, but in general, we are talking about the same language. The differences are not quite as great as you might imagine when you read things online that talk about American and British English. Well, as you can probably tell from my accent, or for those of you who know me already, I am of course from England. I am of course from the UK. And therefore, you might expect me to suggest that you should learn British English. Well, I’m not going to do that at all. And, I’m not going to suggest that you learn American English, either. So, what am I going to suggest? Well, let’s go through a few facts and a few numbers before we get into my recommendation. American English is the most spoken form of English, just in terms of numbers. There are many more American English speakers than British English speakers. Britain, or Great Britain, is of course a relatively small island on global terms with some 50 million or 60 million speakers of English. The population of the United States is much greater, closer to 300 million, many of whom are native speakers of English. So, American English is the most spoken. Some learners also have a preference for British or American English, but really when you talk to people about this, the preference comes down to accent. So, it’s not actually a preference in terms of structure, in terms of grammar, in terms of vocabulary, on many occasions. It’s actually a preference in terms of accent. So, some people will say, “Hey, I really love the American accent,” or, “I really love the British accent.” “I would like to talk just like that.” Okay, well in terms of numbers, there are around 7.5 billion of us on this planet, and around 1.5 billion speak English. So, of those 1.5 billion, most are not native speakers, and people do, of course, speak English to different levels. Some people have a basic working knowledge. Others are fluent in the language and others still are native speakers. So, of that 1.5 billion, around 400 million are native speakers of the language, from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and others. So, that’s a lot of people, 400 million native speakers, but it’s not as many as the remainder of the 1.5 billion who speak English to some level. So, if we take the 400 million off, then, of that 1.5 billion, we would be left with 1.1 billion people who speak English to some level but who are not native speakers. Now, what does all of this mean? What do those numbers actually mean? Well, they show us that there are far more speakers of English who are not native speakers compared with those of us who are native speakers. So, the non-native speakers make up a larger group. And that means on a statistical level or on a numerical level, when you are speaking to someone in English, it’s actually more likely that you are going to be speaking to someone from Germany, from Japan, from China, or from another country. In English, it’s more likely that you’re going to be speaking to someone from one of those countries, rather than speaking to a native speaker of English, in English. There are also many international or global scenarios if you like. If you can imagine a business meeting, nowadays it’s very likely that we’re going to have a business meeting with people of different nationalities, both native speakers and non-native speakers. And, what do you think the language used in that meeting is going to be? Well, the language is probably going to be English, but what type of English is it going to be? Well, it’s not going to be British English and it’s not going to be American English. It’s going to be some kind of international English. And that brings us on to my recommendation. I recommend that you don’t learn British English, and that you don’t learn American English, either, but rather you do learn international English. A sort of English that is going to allow you to communicate effectively. A type of English where your accent or your particular brand of English, if you like, is not important. What is important is your ability to communicate effectively with people from different parts of the world. And that is where international English comes in. Now, within the realm of, or when talking about international English, what do I mean exactly? I mean, a type of English where perhaps there are not too many idioms or too many phrases, because that can be confusing to different people. It’s nice to use a few idioms. It certainly makes your English sound more natural, but there’s no need to use too many because that can become overcomplicated and become confusing. So, in conclusion, I’m really suggesting that you go for this international English and I’m suggesting that you analyze the importance of learning either British or American English. It really isn’t that important in my opinion. Of course, you can learn English from an American English book, or you can learn British English from a British English textbook, but that doesn’t mean that the English that you speak needs to be British or American English. It doesn’t mean that your colleagues need to identify your English as British or American. Wouldn’t it be better to speak international English to a very high level? So, I’ll leave you with that thought and I have a question for you to wrap this up. What areas of English do you find the most difficult? What areas of English do you find the most difficult? Contact me via email, info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Or via the website, www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com. So, thank you so much for listening today. And finally, if you of enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community @businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information. Together, with an active community, where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. That’s it from me for this week. All the best, and until next time … The post Episode 14: American or British English? appeared first on The Business English Community.

Should you be learning American or British English? Find out in this episode of the Business English Community Podcast: Here is the full transcript: Should you learn American or British English? Hi, there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://BusinessEnglishCommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">BusinessEnglishCommunity.com</a>. Hi, there, Paul here, and welcome to episode 14 of the Business English Community podcast. I hope you’re doing fantastically well, and in today’s episode I’m going to be talking about American and British and American or British English. Which one should you be learning? Well, first of all, a quick reminder that there is a completely free, completely free, training, on the website. If you haven’t downloaded it already, I really suggest that you go and check it out. It’s at <a href="http://www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com</a>. In fact, there is a whole bunch of great stuff on the website. So, when you’re not listening to the podcast, well worth checking it out. Okay, well, for today’s topic I wanted to talk about American and British English, because this is a question that I really get quite a lot. Which one should I learn? Should I be learning American English, or should I be learning British English? Well, first of all, what’s the difference anyway? What is the difference between these two versions of English? I think the first thing that I would say is, that seems to be quite surprising to a number of people, is that the difference is actually not that great. We are not talking about two different languages at all. We are talking about the same English language, that has a few differences. There are some differences in spelling. For example, in American English, the word color is spelled C-O-L-O-R, C-O-L-O-R, whereas in British English it would be C-O-L-O-U-R, C-O-L-O-U-R. So, that spelling, that small spelling difference happens with words such as color, flavor, and a number of others. And there are also some differences in vocabulary. For example, in American English you would normally refer to going “on vacation.” “I’m going to go on vacation.” Whereas, in British English you would say “on holiday.” “Where are you going on holiday next year?” “Where are you going on holiday next year?” So, some small vocabulary differences, as well. And also, some differences in sentence structure. For example, in British English, we tend to use a lot of tag questions. “You are going to help out at the conference, aren’t you?” “You have seen the report, haven’t you?” “You have seen the report, haven’t you?” So, in British English, the use of tag questions tends to be a little bit greater. And, there are some other differences, but in general, we are talking about the same language. The differences are not quite as great as you might imagine when you read things online that talk about American and British English. Well, as you can probably tell from my accent, or for those of you who know me already, I am of course from England. I am of course from the UK. And therefore, you might expect me to suggest that you should learn British English. Well, I’m not going to do that at all. And, I’m not going to suggest that you learn American English, either. So, what am I going to suggest? Well, let’s go through a few facts and a few numbers before we get into my recommendation. American English is the most spoken form of English, just in terms of numbers. There are many more American English speakers than British English speakers. Britain, or Great Britain, is of course a relatively small island on global terms with some 50 million or 60 million speakers of English. The population of the United States is much greater, closer to 300 million, many of whom are native speakers of English. So, American English is the most spoken. Some learners also have a preference for British or American English, but really when you talk to people about this, the preference comes down to accent. So, it’s not actually a preference in terms of structure, in terms of grammar, in terms of vocabulary, on many occasions. It’s actually a preference in terms of accent. So, some people will say, “Hey, I really love the American accent,” or, “I really love the British accent.” “I would like to talk just like that.” Okay, well in terms of numbers, there are around 7.5 billion of us on this planet, and around 1.5 billion speak English. So, of those 1.5 billion, most are not native speakers, and people do, of course, speak English to different levels. Some people have a basic working knowledge. Others are fluent in the language and others still are native speakers. So, of that 1.5 billion, around 400 million are native speakers of the language, from countries such as the United States, the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Barbados, Jamaica, Guyana, Trinidad and Tobago, and others. So, that’s a lot of people, 400 million native speakers, but it’s not as many as the remainder of the 1.5 billion who speak English to some level. So, if we take the 400 million off, then, of that 1.5 billion, we would be left with 1.1 billion people who speak English to some level but who are not native speakers. Now, what does all of this mean? What do those numbers actually mean? Well, they show us that there are far more speakers of English who are not native speakers compared with those of us who are native speakers. So, the non-native speakers make up a larger group. And that means on a statistical level or on a numerical level, when you are speaking to someone in English, it’s actually more likely that you are going to be speaking to someone from Germany, from Japan, from China, or from another country. In English, it’s more likely that you’re going to be speaking to someone from one of those countries, rather than speaking to a native speaker of English, in English. There are also many international or global scenarios if you like. If you can imagine a business meeting, nowadays it’s very likely that we’re going to have a business meeting with people of different nationalities, both native speakers and non-native speakers. And, what do you think the language used in that meeting is going to be? Well, the language is probably going to be English, but what type of English is it going to be? Well, it’s not going to be British English and it’s not going to be American English. It’s going to be some kind of international English. And that brings us on to my recommendation. I recommend that you don’t learn British English, and that you don’t learn American English, either, but rather you do learn international English. A sort of English that is going to allow you to communicate effectively. A type of English where your accent or your particular brand of English, if you like, is not important. What is important is your ability to communicate effectively with people from different parts of the world. And that is where international English comes in. Now, within the realm of, or when talking about international English, what do I mean exactly? I mean, a type of English where perhaps there are not too many idioms or too many phrases, because that can be confusing to different people. It’s nice to use a few idioms. It certainly makes your English sound more natural, but there’s no need to use too many because that can become overcomplicated and become confusing. So, in conclusion, I’m really suggesting that you go for this international English and I’m suggesting that you analyze the importance of learning either British or American English. It really isn’t that important in my opinion. Of course, you can learn English from an American English book, or you can learn British English from a British English textbook, but that doesn’t mean that the English that you speak needs to be British or American English. It doesn’t mean that your colleagues need to identify your English as British or American. Wouldn’t it be better to speak international English to a very high level? So, I’ll leave you with that thought and I have a question for you to wrap this up. What areas of English do you find the most difficult? What areas of English do you find the most difficult? Contact me via email, info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Or via the website, <a href="http://www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.BusinessEnglishCommunity.com</a>. So, thank you so much for listening today. And finally, if you of enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community @businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information. Together, with an active community, where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So, what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. That’s it from me for this week. All the best, and until next time … The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/american-or-british-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 14: American or British English?</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 14: American or British English?

Asking questions in English is a great way to build ongoing conversations, and building up and using a bank of questions can help you to communicate more effectively! In this episode, you will find out how to use questions to improve your level. Do you have any questions? All the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: How to ask questions effectively in English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to Episode 13 of the Business English Community podcast. How has your week been so far? I hope you’re having a great week. I hope you’re making progress on all of your projects, and I hope you’re making progress with improving your level of English. That is of course where I hope to be able to help you even more and help you to take your business English to the next level. Well, first of all, before we get started, a couple of very quick reminders. The first one is that if you wish to follow the text for this podcast, then it is already up on the website. The full transcripts are up on the website: businessenglishcommunity.com. While you are on the website, I also recommend that you download your completely free training, so that’s also available on businessenglishcommunity.com. Right, let’s get cracking. Okay, well, today I want to talk about how to ask questions effectively in English. The reason for this is that I really believe that questions can help conversation flow, it can really help you to communicate more effectively. If you are communicating more effectively, then quite simply, you are going to achieve more, you are going to get more things done. Questions not only help to start conversations, but they also help to keep conversations going. They help you to find out information, they help to move business forward. Let me give you a really simple example. This is super simple, but hopefully will get my point across. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “How are you?” “I’m fine.” Well, that is a very short conversation. Now I’d like you to compare that with this conversation: “How are you?” “I’m fine. And you?” “And you?” So that second question at the end there is the question that is going to generate interaction, is going to keep the conversation going. So with those two people having a conversation, if the first person says, “How are you?” And the second person says, “I’m fine.” then that takes the conversation to a certain point. But if that second person not only answers with, “I’m fine”, but then also asks another question, “And you?” then that is going to help to keep the conversation going, and if we keep the conversation going we find out more information, we help to move business forward, and we help to get things done. So, many reasons why we should keep the conversation going. It helps to really build relationships. How are you going to build a relationship with someone? Well, by having a conversation with them. Okay, well, I’m going to suggest now that in order to keep those conversations going you build up a portfolio of questions. I don’t expect you to go into these conversations unarmed or unprepared, and therefore you might find it a little bit difficult. But if you have a series of questions, let’s say 30 questions built up before you go into these live situations, then you are going to be in a much better position, you’re going to be able to ask for help, you’re going to be able to ask for guidance in different situations. Remember, people actually like providing help or giving guidance on certain topics, it helps them to feel part of the action as well, if you like. So a number of our questions should be designed or prepared in order to ask for help or to ask for guidance. Another thing that I would point out is that questions don’t need to be complicated at all. One thing or one mistake that I see some students making is that they try and ask too many questions at the same time, so they try to ask three different questions in one sentence. Don’t do that. Ask one thing, try and ask one thing at a time. You can always ask another question as a follow up, but try and keep things nice and simple. A nice simple question to keep the conversation going. Okay, well let’s have a look at some questions. There are several ways to build up questions within the English language, and I’m going to give you a few pointers here. What I would suggest is that you write down your own questions, and remember, once you have these questions written down, it’s very easy to adapt them, it’s very easy to change the names and to change the subjects and the objects of these questions, depending on your specific needs. It’s really about having the base there in place that you can then adapt depending on the circumstances. Okay, so the first way of building questions in English that I’m going to talk about is to use WH questions or question words, I’m referring to the following words: why, where, how, when, who, and what. Why, where, how, when, who, and what. Well, by using those question words it’s very easy to build up a whole range of questions. It’s one of the easiest ways in which to start to build questions in English. Let me give you a few examples using those question words. Why is she late? Why is she late? When is the conference? When is the conference? Where shall I meet you? Where shall I meet you? Who is the new accountant? Who is the new accountant? How can I help you? How can I help you? And, what time is it? What time is it? Okay, so I hope you can see that by using those WH questions or question words, that it’s very easy to build up questions, and that is certainly one of the ways that I would recommend that you get started. The second way is to use what’s called subject-auxiliary inversion. So we are going to invert the subject and the auxiliary in order to make a question. Let me give you an example. In English, I’m not going to say something like, “We are going to Boston”, unless it is an affirmation or a statement. So, “We are going to Boston”, that is something that we are going to do. In many languages I can simply form a question from that by changing the tone. So to give you an example, and obviously this doesn’t work in English, but to give you an idea, in another language I might say something like, “We are going to Boston? We are going to Boston?” So simply by changing the tone of my statement I can make a question. Well, in English, you can’t really do that. So we have to invert the words in order to make a question. So let’s take that statement again, “We are going to Boston”, and now I’m going to invert the subject and the auxiliary, so the subject is we, and the form of the auxiliary word is are, so I’m going to invert those and I’m going to say, “Are we going to Boston? Are we going to Boston? Are we going to Boston?” “Yes, we are.” So you see, I’ve created a question by inverting those two words. Now, that doesn’t always work. That really only works with auxiliary verbs such as to be and to have. I might have an affirmation such as, “You like finance. You like finance.” So in this example the verb is like. So what I can’t do now is the inversion, because I don’t have the correct verb. So I cannot say, “Like you finance? Like you finance?” That is not going to work, so the inversion is not going to work in this case. I need an auxiliary verb, and the auxiliary verb that I need is do. So I’m going to put do at the beginning of the sentence, and I’m going to say, “Do you like finance? Do you like finance?” So the statement was, “You like finance.” The one that doesn’t work is, “Like you finance?” That doesn’t work. I’m going to say the one that does work, which is with do, the auxiliary verb, so, “Do you like finance? Do you like finance?” That’s building up questions with the auxiliary verb to do. What about in the past tense? Again, very straightforward, “Did you get my message? Did you get my message? Did you get my message?” Remember, once you have mastered these structures, very, very easy to adapt to any question at all. Finally, questions with modals, words such as: could, can, and would. Let me give you a few examples here. “Could you please help me with the calculations? Could you please help me with the calculations?” What about this one? “Can you please give me a hand? Can you please give me a hand?” Finally, “Would you like to meet on Thursday? Would you like to meet on Thursday?” So in summary, we’ve looked at, number one, questions with question words; number two, subject auxiliary inversion; number three, questions with the auxiliary verb to do; number four, finally, questions with modals. I hope that helps you to start forming your own bank of questions, create your own questions bank. If you have any questions on your questions, please let me know, I’m on Twitter @PaulMUrwin, that’s P-A-U-L M U-R-W-I-N, or you can contact me via the comments on the website of course. Very easy to build this up, very easy to get your question bank going. Then what can you do with it? Well, as we talked at the beginning, get the conversation going, get that conversation, get those conversations going with all different types of people in English. So thank you so much for listening today. Finally, if you have enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information, together with an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. That’s it from me for this week. All the best, and until next time.     The post Episode 13: How to Ask Questions Effectively in English appeared first on The Business English Community.

Asking questions in English is a great way to build ongoing conversations, and building up and using a bank of questions can help you to communicate more effectively! In this episode, you will find out how to use questions to improve your level. Do you have any questions? All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: How to ask questions effectively in English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to Episode 13 of the Business English Community podcast. How has your week been so far? I hope you’re having a great week. I hope you’re making progress on all of your projects, and I hope you’re making progress with improving your level of English. That is of course where I hope to be able to help you even more and help you to take your business English to the next level. Well, first of all, before we get started, a couple of very quick reminders. The first one is that if you wish to follow the text for this podcast, then it is already up on the website. The full transcripts are up on the website: <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. While you are on the website, I also recommend that you download your completely free training, so that’s also available on <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Right, let’s get cracking. Okay, well, today I want to talk about how to ask questions effectively in English. The reason for this is that I really believe that questions can help conversation flow, it can really help you to communicate more effectively. If you are communicating more effectively, then quite simply, you are going to achieve more, you are going to get more things done. Questions not only help to start conversations, but they also help to keep conversations going. They help you to find out information, they help to move business forward. Let me give you a really simple example. This is super simple, but hopefully will get my point across. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “How are you?” “I’m fine.” Well, that is a very short conversation. Now I’d like you to compare that with this conversation: “How are you?” “I’m fine. And you?” “And you?” So that second question at the end there is the question that is going to generate interaction, is going to keep the conversation going. So with those two people having a conversation, if the first person says, “How are you?” And the second person says, “I’m fine.” then that takes the conversation to a certain point. But if that second person not only answers with, “I’m fine”, but then also asks another question, “And you?” then that is going to help to keep the conversation going, and if we keep the conversation going we find out more information, we help to move business forward, and we help to get things done. So, many reasons why we should keep the conversation going. It helps to really build relationships. How are you going to build a relationship with someone? Well, by having a conversation with them. Okay, well, I’m going to suggest now that in order to keep those conversations going you build up a portfolio of questions. I don’t expect you to go into these conversations unarmed or unprepared, and therefore you might find it a little bit difficult. But if you have a series of questions, let’s say 30 questions built up before you go into these live situations, then you are going to be in a much better position, you’re going to be able to ask for help, you’re going to be able to ask for guidance in different situations. Remember, people actually like providing help or giving guidance on certain topics, it helps them to feel part of the action as well, if you like. So a number of our questions should be designed or prepared in order to ask for help or to ask for guidance. Another thing that I would point out is that questions don’t need to be complicated at all. One thing or one mistake that I see some students making is that they try and ask too many questions at the same time, so they try to ask three different questions in one sentence. Don’t do that. Ask one thing, try and ask one thing at a time. You can always ask another question as a follow up, but try and keep things nice and simple. A nice simple question to keep the conversation going. Okay, well let’s have a look at some questions. There are several ways to build up questions within the English language, and I’m going to give you a few pointers here. What I would suggest is that you write down your own questions, and remember, once you have these questions written down, it’s very easy to adapt them, it’s very easy to change the names and to change the subjects and the objects of these questions, depending on your specific needs. It’s really about having the base there in place that you can then adapt depending on the circumstances. Okay, so the first way of building questions in English that I’m going to talk about is to use WH questions or question words, I’m referring to the following words: why, where, how, when, who, and what. Why, where, how, when, who, and what. Well, by using those question words it’s very easy to build up a whole range of questions. It’s one of the easiest ways in which to start to build questions in English. Let me give you a few examples using those question words. Why is she late? Why is she late? When is the conference? When is the conference? Where shall I meet you? Where shall I meet you? Who is the new accountant? Who is the new accountant? How can I help you? How can I help you? And, what time is it? What time is it? Okay, so I hope you can see that by using those WH questions or question words, that it’s very easy to build up questions, and that is certainly one of the ways that I would recommend that you get started. The second way is to use what’s called subject-auxiliary inversion. So we are going to invert the subject and the auxiliary in order to make a question. Let me give you an example. In English, I’m not going to say something like, “We are going to Boston”, unless it is an affirmation or a statement. So, “We are going to Boston”, that is something that we are going to do. In many languages I can simply form a question from that by changing the tone. So to give you an example, and obviously this doesn’t work in English, but to give you an idea, in another language I might say something like, “We are going to Boston? We are going to Boston?” So simply by changing the tone of my statement I can make a question. Well, in English, you can’t really do that. So we have to invert the words in order to make a question. So let’s take that statement again, “We are going to Boston”, and now I’m going to invert the subject and the auxiliary, so the subject is we, and the form of the auxiliary word is are, so I’m going to invert those and I’m going to say, “Are we going to Boston? Are we going to Boston? Are we going to Boston?” “Yes, we are.” So you see, I’ve created a question by inverting those two words. Now, that doesn’t always work. That really only works with auxiliary verbs such as to be and to have. I might have an affirmation such as, “You like finance. You like finance.” So in this example the verb is like. So what I can’t do now is the inversion, because I don’t have the correct verb. So I cannot say, “Like you finance? Like you finance?” That is not going to work, so the inversion is not going to work in this case. I need an auxiliary verb, and the auxiliary verb that I need is do. So I’m going to put do at the beginning of the sentence, and I’m going to say, “Do you like finance? Do you like finance?” So the statement was, “You like finance.” The one that doesn’t work is, “Like you finance?” That doesn’t work. I’m going to say the one that does work, which is with do, the auxiliary verb, so, “Do you like finance? Do you like finance?” That’s building up questions with the auxiliary verb to do. What about in the past tense? Again, very straightforward, “Did you get my message? Did you get my message? Did you get my message?” Remember, once you have mastered these structures, very, very easy to adapt to any question at all. Finally, questions with modals, words such as: could, can, and would. Let me give you a few examples here. “Could you please help me with the calculations? Could you please help me with the calculations?” What about this one? “Can you please give me a hand? Can you please give me a hand?” Finally, “Would you like to meet on Thursday? Would you like to meet on Thursday?” So in summary, we’ve looked at, number one, questions with question words; number two, subject auxiliary inversion; number three, questions with the auxiliary verb to do; number four, finally, questions with modals. I hope that helps you to start forming your own bank of questions, create your own questions bank. If you have any questions on your questions, please let me know, I’m on Twitter @PaulMUrwin, that’s P-A-U-L M U-R-W-I-N, or you can contact me via the comments on the website of course. Very easy to build this up, very easy to get your question bank going. Then what can you do with it? Well, as we talked at the beginning, get the conversation going, get that conversation, get those conversations going with all different types of people in English. So thank you so much for listening today. Finally, if you have enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners looking to take their business English to the next level. We offer an extensive audio and video library packed with great information, together with an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. So what are you waiting for? I’ll see you on the inside. That’s it from me for this week. All the best, and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-13-how-to-ask-questions-effectively-in-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 13: How to Ask Questions Effectively in English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 13: How to Ask Questions Effectively in English

When it comes to learning English, lots of students make fundamental mistakes.  Listen to this episode of the Business English Community podcast to find out how to make sure you are on the right track.  Here is the full transcript: How to Succeed at Learning English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to Episode 12 of the Business English Community podcast. How are you doing? Well, I hope you’ve had a great week so far. Please tell me what you’ve been up to. Please tell me about any of your questions when it comes to learning English and I’d love to hear more about you and about your location, your country, your city. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you with. You can contact me, of course, via Twitter. That’s @Paulmurwin, or via the website. There is a contact form on the businessenglishcommunity.com website. While you’re on the website, why not pick up your completely free training if you haven’t done that. I really suggest you go ahead and grab it. It’s completely free and very useful. Don’t forget that you can find the full transcript for this episode on the website as well. So, if you want to follow my words as I am speaking, then visit businessenglishcommunity.com. Checkout Podcast at the top, find the podcast episode and you can follow through the text as you are listening to the audio. Okay, well, today, I’m going to be talking about how to succeed at learning English, how to make sure that you are on the right path. And the reason I wanted to talk about this is that I talked to many students who are actually trying to learn English. They’re trying to get better, to improve but because they’re going about it in the wrong way, I can see that probably they are not going to succeed and I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you to be successful in your learning English endeavors. I want to make sure that this is going to work for you and if you’ve got the basics right, then I think you can really build on that. It’s like having a foundation for a house. If you have a great foundation, then you are able to build a solid structure but if you don’t have a good foundation, then however much effort you put into building the house from there onwards, it’s probably not going to be very successful. So, how does this relate to learning English? Well, I’m only going to give you three points. That’s it, three different points in terms of how to succeed at learning English. I feel that many people try to over-complicate things and not just related to learning English in many walks of life. And sometimes when you analyze people who are over-complicating things, they haven’t actually covered some of the basic, some of the necessary points in order to get to where they want to get to. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen when it comes to learning English. In order to succeed at learning English, point #1, remember there’s only three points. Point #1 is to find a method that works. There are many, many different methods out there nowadays, and by find a method that works, I’m talking about a study method and also a work plan. Study method is how you study if you are studying in the classroom or if you’re studying online and your work plan would be how often you are going to study, so once a week or five times a week or however often. Those two components make up your method. Now, you are listening to this podcast so I know you have an interest in learning English which is fantastic so you’re on the right path. What’s interesting about finding the right method nowadays is that you’re not at school anymore and therefore, you have a lot of flexibility. Obviously, when I went to school and I learned German and I learned French, I didn’t really have any say whatsoever in the study method being employed by the teacher, although it’s mostly very good, and I didn’t really have any say at all in the time table. I had to go to class at certain times and I had to do homework at certain times. It was very rigid. It was a method that was completely planned out for me. Fortunately, it worked so I’m happy with the method. But now, as adults we have a lot more flexibility so we are able to choose our learning method and we are able to select our time table. That’s great in some ways to have all that flexibility because you can now fit in learning English around your job, around studying for a master’s degree and so on and so on. But with that flexibility, sometimes comes a difficulty to actually make it happen. Well, it’s the sort of a trade-off, I guess, of having all that extra flexibility as an adult. But what I’m going to suggest you do is that you find a method that works for you and as you have already studied many things over the years, now is the time to really analyze yourself and be honest with yourself and establish what is going to work for you. For some people, online training works amazingly well. For other people, they really need to be in a classroom. Some people like to follow a book very rigidly. Others really want to study in a much more relaxed, in a much more flexible atmosphere. But whichever way you decide, it’s important that you find a way that is in line with your personality and is in line with your successful learning experiences in the past. If you have already successfully learned something online, then it would make sense to continue to learn something online or if you have recently adapted to learning online, then maybe you can continue. If you find you study better on your own, then you might want to continue in that way if you find that you always study well and are motivated by other people in a group setting, then it would make sense to keep studying, to keep learning in that environment. I think it’s well worth analyzing your own situation and deciding how you best study. I would say that a successful study program normally involves interaction with others and that even includes the case where you are studying on your own. I think it’s really important to have someone to check in with, someone to interact with, someone to talk about, talk with in terms of your progress. So even if you’re studying on your own, this whole English learning task, if you like, should not be performed on your own, or at least in my opinion, you should normally be going through this process with other people. Also a successful English program is normally going to involve all four parts of the language: Reading, writing, listening and speaking. If you come up with a study plan that only involves learning grammar, I don’t think that is going to get you where you want to get to. So, yes, there is a lot of flexibility in terms of the program that you might select. However, successful programs do have quite a lot of things in common, so working with others and all four parts of the language. In terms of a work plan, remember at the beginning that I talked about, a method and a work plan. I think it’s important to decide how much time you can dedicate to learning English in the long term or in the medium to long term. Why? Well, because you are not going to get to the desired level probably in the space of a week or a couple of months. This is something that really you should be looking at in the long term. And if that’s the case, if we are going to attain any long-term goal in life, then it really needs to become part of our routine. It doesn’t really make sense to start off by saying, “I’m going to study English for three hours every single day,” unless of course you can find that time in your routine. But most people don’t have an extra three hours every day and therefore, what usually happens in that situation is that someone who starts off by trying to study too much ends up giving up. You need to be realistic when you are selecting a work plan. To study, for example, for two hours at a time, three times per week would be much more realistic. That’s something that many students can fit into their schedule. But to say something like, “I’m going to study for three hours every day.” Well, it’s probably not going to work. Number one is to establish a method. Establish a study method and work plan that works for you. Number two is very, very simple but incredibly important, stick at it, to stick at your plan, to keep with the plan, to keep with the program. Success happens in the medium to long term. If you look at anyone who is successful in any walk of life, then almost always they have spent a significant amount of time working towards that success, and learning English is no different. I like the phrase that goes something like, “She was an overnight success many years in the making”, an overnight success many years in the making. Meaning that really it wasn’t an overnight success, or she wasn’t an overnight success at all because actually it had been many years in the making. Now, when you see someone who is successful apparently overnight, you might be tempted to believe that it has happened all of a sudden. But normally when you delve into this situation a little bit deeper, you will find that that person has a long history of working towards a particular goal. So, stick at this in the long term. So many failures, again, in many walks of life are simply the result of that person having given up. The person has given up and therefore, they haven’t really failed at something. They’ve just given up. When I meet English learners, for example, and those who have given up, it is not that they have failed because they are simply not good enough at learning English or that this is something impossible for them, no, not at all. It’s because they have given up. They have stopped trying to make progress for whatever reasons. This is hopefully helping you to build up a very, very simple plan. Part one or point one, find a method. Establish a method. Point two, stick at it. And number three, finally, do not let that fear of failure creep in because it’s that fear of failure that can lead people to give up. This is not mission impossible. This is not a long shot. This is a guarantee. I guarantee you will get your English to a very high level if you follow these points, if you stick at it and be positive. But don’t let that fear of failure creep in. Don’t let other people’s experiences where perhaps they haven’t dedicated the right amount of time or effort. Don’t let their experiences cloud your judgment and make you believe that this is something impossible. It definitely is not impossible. It is something that you can get to a very high level of English. You can really dominate the English language if you just stick at it. Don’t be one of those people who studies English for three months and then gives up and then starts again and then gives up again and then eventually gives up completely. Don’t be that person. Learning English is going to have a hugely positive impact on your career and on your life, so stick with it. Be positive and you will get to where you need to get to. That’s it, really three very, very simple points. One, establish a method. Two, stick at it. And three, be positive. Of course, we can elaborate in each of those sections and go into more detail. In fact, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me. But really, that’s the essence of it. And as I said at the beginning, some people over-complicate things. It might seem quite simple. It might seem like a simple plan, and it is a simple plan. But many people don’t have a simple plan and therefore, they end up veering off into the unknown, if you like, and really studying without purpose, studying without direction and that’s not going to get them anywhere at all, okay? And finally for today, a question for you. What’s your plan? What’s your study plan? What is your work plan? Please let me know in the comments section on the website. I would really, really love to hear from you, to hear your perspective on this and to hear about anything else that, any other questions that you have related to business English. Don’t be shy. Let me know. I can help you. Finally, if you enjoy today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask-me-anything calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best, and until next time. The post Episode 12: How to Succeed at Learning English appeared first on The Business English Community.

When it comes to learning English, lots of students make fundamental mistakes.  Listen to this episode of the Business English Community podcast to find out how to make sure you are on the right track. Here is the full transcript: How to Succeed at Learning English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to Episode 12 of the Business English Community podcast. How are you doing? Well, I hope you’ve had a great week so far. Please tell me what you’ve been up to. Please tell me about any of your questions when it comes to learning English and I’d love to hear more about you and about your location, your country, your city. Please don’t hesitate to get in touch. Please let me know if there’s anything I can help you with. You can contact me, of course, via Twitter. That’s @Paulmurwin, or via the website. There is a contact form on the <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a> website. While you’re on the website, why not pick up your completely free training if you haven’t done that. I really suggest you go ahead and grab it. It’s completely free and very useful. Don’t forget that you can find the full transcript for this episode on the website as well. So, if you want to follow my words as I am speaking, then visit <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Checkout Podcast at the top, find the podcast episode and you can follow through the text as you are listening to the audio. Okay, well, today, I’m going to be talking about how to succeed at learning English, how to make sure that you are on the right path. And the reason I wanted to talk about this is that I talked to many students who are actually trying to learn English. They’re trying to get better, to improve but because they’re going about it in the wrong way, I can see that probably they are not going to succeed and I don’t want that to happen to you. I want you to be successful in your learning English endeavors. I want to make sure that this is going to work for you and if you’ve got the basics right, then I think you can really build on that. It’s like having a foundation for a house. If you have a great foundation, then you are able to build a solid structure but if you don’t have a good foundation, then however much effort you put into building the house from there onwards, it’s probably not going to be very successful. So, how does this relate to learning English? Well, I’m only going to give you three points. That’s it, three different points in terms of how to succeed at learning English. I feel that many people try to over-complicate things and not just related to learning English in many walks of life. And sometimes when you analyze people who are over-complicating things, they haven’t actually covered some of the basic, some of the necessary points in order to get to where they want to get to. Let’s make sure that doesn’t happen when it comes to learning English. In order to succeed at learning English, point #1, remember there’s only three points. Point #1 is to find a method that works. There are many, many different methods out there nowadays, and by find a method that works, I’m talking about a study method and also a work plan. Study method is how you study if you are studying in the classroom or if you’re studying online and your work plan would be how often you are going to study, so once a week or five times a week or however often. Those two components make up your method. Now, you are listening to this podcast so I know you have an interest in learning English which is fantastic so you’re on the right path. What’s interesting about finding the right method nowadays is that you’re not at school anymore and therefore, you have a lot of flexibility. Obviously, when I went to school and I learned German and I learned French, I didn’t really have any say whatsoever in the study method being employed by the teacher, although it’s mostly very good, and I didn’t really have any say at all in the time table. I had to go to class at certain times and I had to do homework at certain times. It was very rigid. It was a method that was completely planned out for me. Fortunately, it worked so I’m happy with the method. But now, as adults we have a lot more flexibility so we are able to choose our learning method and we are able to select our time table. That’s great in some ways to have all that flexibility because you can now fit in learning English around your job, around studying for a master’s degree and so on and so on. But with that flexibility, sometimes comes a difficulty to actually make it happen. Well, it’s the sort of a trade-off, I guess, of having all that extra flexibility as an adult. But what I’m going to suggest you do is that you find a method that works for you and as you have already studied many things over the years, now is the time to really analyze yourself and be honest with yourself and establish what is going to work for you. For some people, online training works amazingly well. For other people, they really need to be in a classroom. Some people like to follow a book very rigidly. Others really want to study in a much more relaxed, in a much more flexible atmosphere. But whichever way you decide, it’s important that you find a way that is in line with your personality and is in line with your successful learning experiences in the past. If you have already successfully learned something online, then it would make sense to continue to learn something online or if you have recently adapted to learning online, then maybe you can continue. If you find you study better on your own, then you might want to continue in that way if you find that you always study well and are motivated by other people in a group setting, then it would make sense to keep studying, to keep learning in that environment. I think it’s well worth analyzing your own situation and deciding how you best study. I would say that a successful study program normally involves interaction with others and that even includes the case where you are studying on your own. I think it’s really important to have someone to check in with, someone to interact with, someone to talk about, talk with in terms of your progress. So even if you’re studying on your own, this whole English learning task, if you like, should not be performed on your own, or at least in my opinion, you should normally be going through this process with other people. Also a successful English program is normally going to involve all four parts of the language: Reading, writing, listening and speaking. If you come up with a study plan that only involves learning grammar, I don’t think that is going to get you where you want to get to. So, yes, there is a lot of flexibility in terms of the program that you might select. However, successful programs do have quite a lot of things in common, so working with others and all four parts of the language. In terms of a work plan, remember at the beginning that I talked about, a method and a work plan. I think it’s important to decide how much time you can dedicate to learning English in the long term or in the medium to long term. Why? Well, because you are not going to get to the desired level probably in the space of a week or a couple of months. This is something that really you should be looking at in the long term. And if that’s the case, if we are going to attain any long-term goal in life, then it really needs to become part of our routine. It doesn’t really make sense to start off by saying, “I’m going to study English for three hours every single day,” unless of course you can find that time in your routine. But most people don’t have an extra three hours every day and therefore, what usually happens in that situation is that someone who starts off by trying to study too much ends up giving up. You need to be realistic when you are selecting a work plan. To study, for example, for two hours at a time, three times per week would be much more realistic. That’s something that many students can fit into their schedule. But to say something like, “I’m going to study for three hours every day.” Well, it’s probably not going to work. Number one is to establish a method. Establish a study method and work plan that works for you. Number two is very, very simple but incredibly important, stick at it, to stick at your plan, to keep with the plan, to keep with the program. Success happens in the medium to long term. If you look at anyone who is successful in any walk of life, then almost always they have spent a significant amount of time working towards that success, and learning English is no different. I like the phrase that goes something like, “She was an overnight success many years in the making”, an overnight success many years in the making. Meaning that really it wasn’t an overnight success, or she wasn’t an overnight success at all because actually it had been many years in the making. Now, when you see someone who is successful apparently overnight, you might be tempted to believe that it has happened all of a sudden. But normally when you delve into this situation a little bit deeper, you will find that that person has a long history of working towards a particular goal. So, stick at this in the long term. So many failures, again, in many walks of life are simply the result of that person having given up. The person has given up and therefore, they haven’t really failed at something. They’ve just given up. When I meet English learners, for example, and those who have given up, it is not that they have failed because they are simply not good enough at learning English or that this is something impossible for them, no, not at all. It’s because they have given up. They have stopped trying to make progress for whatever reasons. This is hopefully helping you to build up a very, very simple plan. Part one or point one, find a method. Establish a method. Point two, stick at it. And number three, finally, do not let that fear of failure creep in because it’s that fear of failure that can lead people to give up. This is not mission impossible. This is not a long shot. This is a guarantee. I guarantee you will get your English to a very high level if you follow these points, if you stick at it and be positive. But don’t let that fear of failure creep in. Don’t let other people’s experiences where perhaps they haven’t dedicated the right amount of time or effort. Don’t let their experiences cloud your judgment and make you believe that this is something impossible. It definitely is not impossible. It is something that you can get to a very high level of English. You can really dominate the English language if you just stick at it. Don’t be one of those people who studies English for three months and then gives up and then starts again and then gives up again and then eventually gives up completely. Don’t be that person. Learning English is going to have a hugely positive impact on your career and on your life, so stick with it. Be positive and you will get to where you need to get to. That’s it, really three very, very simple points. One, establish a method. Two, stick at it. And three, be positive. Of course, we can elaborate in each of those sections and go into more detail. In fact, if you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask me. But really, that’s the essence of it. And as I said at the beginning, some people over-complicate things. It might seem quite simple. It might seem like a simple plan, and it is a simple plan. But many people don’t have a simple plan and therefore, they end up veering off into the unknown, if you like, and really studying without purpose, studying without direction and that’s not going to get them anywhere at all, okay? And finally for today, a question for you. What’s your plan? What’s your study plan? What is your work plan? Please let me know in the comments section on the website. I would really, really love to hear from you, to hear your perspective on this and to hear about anything else that, any other questions that you have related to business English. Don’t be shy. Let me know. I can help you. Finally, if you enjoy today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask-me-anything calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best, and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-12-how-to-succeed-at-learning-english/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 12: How to Succeed at Learning English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 12: How to Succeed at Learning English

Welcome to the last in the phrasal verbs series! I really hope you’ve found this series useful!  When you complete this session, you will have covered 50 phrasal verbs, together with real business examples. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. All the very best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, Part Six. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, Paul here. Hope you’ve had a fantastic week so far and welcome to episode 11 of the Business English Community podcast. This is the last in the series on phrasal verbs, so I hope you’ve been enjoying this series. I hope you’ve been finding it useful. As always, please let me know if you have any questions on phrasal verbs or anything else related to Business English for that matter. A couple of quick reminders before we get started. If you haven’t downloaded your free training from the Business English Community website, I really suggest that you go and do that. And also, on the website, you will find the full transcripts, the full texts of every single podcast so you can read along at the same time as you are listening. That can be a really useful exercise. Just go to businessenglishcommunity.com. Click on podcasts at the top. Find the podcast that you’re listening to if you’re not listening already directly from the website. And when you click on the podcast, you will see the full transcript there, so very, very useful and a very worthwhile exercise. Okay, we’ll let’s get cracking with today’s 10 phrasal verbs. Well, number one is to note down, to note down, to write something down, normally so that you won’t forget it. Let me give you an example. He carefully noted down the client’s name and address. He carefully noted down the client’s name and address. He carefully wrote it down so that he wouldn’t forget it. Important to mention here the difference between noted down and just noted. If you just note something, you make a mental register. You remember it, but you might not necessarily note it down. I could say the same sentence, he carefully noted the client’s name and address, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that he wrote it down. But noted down definitely means to write down. That’s number one, to note down. Number two, to get together. Well, this has a couple of different meanings. The first one is to meet up physically with a person or persons such as, let’s get together at the conference next week. Let’s get together at the conference next week. But as well as meaning to meet up physically or in person, it can also relate to a meeting of minds if you like, or an agreement on some particular topic. So, I might say something like, Mike and Diana really need to get together on this. Mike and Diana really need to get together on this. Meaning that Mike and Diana need to come to some form of agreement. They don’t necessarily need to meet physically but they need to agree on their ideas or agree on a particular direction. Number two, to get together, that can mean to come together physically or mentally. Number three, to lay off. This is to make someone redundant, to make someone redundant. They lose their job but they’re not being fired. They’re not being sacked. They’re being made redundant because there is no longer a position for them at the company. She’s not happy at all, she’s just been laid off. She’s not happy at all, she’s just been laid off. Number four, to keep up with. Well, if you’re going to keep up with someone, you’re going to keep alongside with them. You’re going to keep pace with them. And this can be used, for example, in a race. A particular runner or a particular driver can keep up with another competitor, let’s say, in a particular race. It can be used in a physical sense but it can also be used in a business context in a slightly different sense. So, let me give you the following example. We really need to keep up with the competition. We really need to keep up with the competition. We need to keep pace with the competition. We need to maintain our position relative to the competition. It’s not the same sort of physical race although it is a kind of a competition, of course, and it can definitely be used in that context. That’s number four, to keep up with. Number five, to drop in. Well, if you are going to drop in on someone, it’s to visit them normally, an unexpected, unplanned visit something that wasn’t in the diary. Let me give you an example, the lawyer dropped in to see us on her way to court. The lawyer dropped in to see us on her way to court. An unplanned visit, an unexpected visit something relatively informal. That’s number five, to drop in. Number six, to put forward. To put forward, that is, to suggest something such as an idea. It was Mark who put forward the idea of hiring more sales people. It was Mark who put forward the idea of hiring more sales people. That’s number six, to put forward. Number seven, to opt in. To opt in is to be included in something at one’s own wish or voluntarily so you want to be included and therefore, you are going to opt in. Nowadays, this is most frequently used with a mailing list online. You will opt in to a mailing list in order to be included. Have you opted in to the Business English Community mailing list? Have you opted in to the Business English Community mailing list? There’s an example for you. Number eight, to put together. Well, to put together is to collate or organize, to build or create, or to assemble using different things or different parts. To form a team is to put together. They put together an amazing conference. They put together an amazing conference. That means that they organized the conference but by using different parts or different components. To organize a conference, you would have to organize speakers. You would have to organize a room or a conference room, and it’s the combination of those components that really suits the verb, to put together, to put together. A team of experts needs to be put together if we are going to be successful. A team of experts needs to be put together if we are going to be successful. That’s number eight, to put together. Number nine, to pass up, to pass up. Well, that’s to miss an opportunity or to not take advantage of an opportunity that has been presented to you. He passed up the chance to go and work in Berlin. He passed up the chance to go and work in Berlin. He chose not to take advantage of that particular opportunity. That’s number nine, to pass up. Number 10, to sort out. Well, this one has several meanings and here are two of the main ones. The first one is to deal with something such as a problem, to deal with something such as a problem. It’s been difficult but I know she is going to sort out the problems with the contractors. It’s been difficult but I know she is going to sort out the problems with the contractors. And it can also mean to tidy up or to organize, to tidy up or to organize. You really need to sort out those papers. You really need to sort out those papers. You need to tidy up those papers. You need to put those papers in order. And that’s number 10, to sort out. Well, let me give you a very quick summary. Number one is to note down. That’s to write something down so you don’t forget it. Number two, to get together. That is either to meet physically or to agree on something. Number three, to lay off. That is to be made redundant. Number four, to keep up with. That is to keep alongside with or to keep pace with. Number five, to drop in. That is to visit unexpectedly. Number six, to put forward. That is to suggest something such as an idea. Number seven, to opt in. That is to be included in something voluntarily. Number eight, to put together. That is to assemble using different things or parts. Number nine, to pass up. That is to miss an opportunity or to not take advantage of one. Number 10, to sort out. That can mean to deal with something such as a problem or to tidy up or organize. Well, that brings us to the end of this series on phrasal verbs. I hope you have found it really useful. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Please let me know how you are getting on with phrasal verbs. And in particular if you have any questions, I’d be very, very happy to help you. As always, to all of my listeners all around the world, thank you so much for tuning in. I really, really appreciate it. And I hope I can help you as much as I possibly can with your business English. That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next week with a different topic, so watch out for that. In the meantime, I hope everything goes very well for you, and I wish you every success with your business English and with your business projects. Well, with everything actually, all the best. Have a fantastic week and yes, I’ll see you next time. Finally, if you enjoy today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask-me-anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best and until next time. The post Episode 11: Phrasal Verbs for Business VI appeared first on The Business English Community.

Welcome to the last in the phrasal verbs series! I really hope you’ve found this series useful!  When you complete this session, you will have covered 50 phrasal verbs, together with real business examples. Please let me know if you have any questions or comments. All the very best! Paul Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, Part Six. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, Paul here. Hope you’ve had a fantastic week so far and welcome to episode 11 of the Business English Community podcast. This is the last in the series on phrasal verbs, so I hope you’ve been enjoying this series. I hope you’ve been finding it useful. As always, please let me know if you have any questions on phrasal verbs or anything else related to Business English for that matter. A couple of quick reminders before we get started. If you haven’t downloaded your free training from the Business English Community website, I really suggest that you go and do that. And also, on the website, you will find the full transcripts, the full texts of every single podcast so you can read along at the same time as you are listening. That can be a really useful exercise. Just go to <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Click on podcasts at the top. Find the podcast that you’re listening to if you’re not listening already directly from the website. And when you click on the podcast, you will see the full transcript there, so very, very useful and a very worthwhile exercise. Okay, we’ll let’s get cracking with today’s 10 phrasal verbs. Well, number one is to note down, to note down, to write something down, normally so that you won’t forget it. Let me give you an example. He carefully noted down the client’s name and address. He carefully noted down the client’s name and address. He carefully wrote it down so that he wouldn’t forget it. Important to mention here the difference between noted down and just noted. If you just note something, you make a mental register. You remember it, but you might not necessarily note it down. I could say the same sentence, he carefully noted the client’s name and address, and that doesn’t necessarily mean that he wrote it down. But noted down definitely means to write down. That’s number one, to note down. Number two, to get together. Well, this has a couple of different meanings. The first one is to meet up physically with a person or persons such as, let’s get together at the conference next week. Let’s get together at the conference next week. But as well as meaning to meet up physically or in person, it can also relate to a meeting of minds if you like, or an agreement on some particular topic. So, I might say something like, Mike and Diana really need to get together on this. Mike and Diana really need to get together on this. Meaning that Mike and Diana need to come to some form of agreement. They don’t necessarily need to meet physically but they need to agree on their ideas or agree on a particular direction. Number two, to get together, that can mean to come together physically or mentally. Number three, to lay off. This is to make someone redundant, to make someone redundant. They lose their job but they’re not being fired. They’re not being sacked. They’re being made redundant because there is no longer a position for them at the company. She’s not happy at all, she’s just been laid off. She’s not happy at all, she’s just been laid off. Number four, to keep up with. Well, if you’re going to keep up with someone, you’re going to keep alongside with them. You’re going to keep pace with them. And this can be used, for example, in a race. A particular runner or a particular driver can keep up with another competitor, let’s say, in a particular race. It can be used in a physical sense but it can also be used in a business context in a slightly different sense. So, let me give you the following example. We really need to keep up with the competition. We really need to keep up with the competition. We need to keep pace with the competition. We need to maintain our position relative to the competition. It’s not the same sort of physical race although it is a kind of a competition, of course, and it can definitely be used in that context. That’s number four, to keep up with. Number five, to drop in. Well, if you are going to drop in on someone, it’s to visit them normally, an unexpected, unplanned visit something that wasn’t in the diary. Let me give you an example, the lawyer dropped in to see us on her way to court. The lawyer dropped in to see us on her way to court. An unplanned visit, an unexpected visit something relatively informal. That’s number five, to drop in. Number six, to put forward. To put forward, that is, to suggest something such as an idea. It was Mark who put forward the idea of hiring more sales people. It was Mark who put forward the idea of hiring more sales people. That’s number six, to put forward. Number seven, to opt in. To opt in is to be included in something at one’s own wish or voluntarily so you want to be included and therefore, you are going to opt in. Nowadays, this is most frequently used with a mailing list online. You will opt in to a mailing list in order to be included. Have you opted in to the Business English Community mailing list? Have you opted in to the Business English Community mailing list? There’s an example for you. Number eight, to put together. Well, to put together is to collate or organize, to build or create, or to assemble using different things or different parts. To form a team is to put together. They put together an amazing conference. They put together an amazing conference. That means that they organized the conference but by using different parts or different components. To organize a conference, you would have to organize speakers. You would have to organize a room or a conference room, and it’s the combination of those components that really suits the verb, to put together, to put together. A team of experts needs to be put together if we are going to be successful. A team of experts needs to be put together if we are going to be successful. That’s number eight, to put together. Number nine, to pass up, to pass up. Well, that’s to miss an opportunity or to not take advantage of an opportunity that has been presented to you. He passed up the chance to go and work in Berlin. He passed up the chance to go and work in Berlin. He chose not to take advantage of that particular opportunity. That’s number nine, to pass up. Number 10, to sort out. Well, this one has several meanings and here are two of the main ones. The first one is to deal with something such as a problem, to deal with something such as a problem. It’s been difficult but I know she is going to sort out the problems with the contractors. It’s been difficult but I know she is going to sort out the problems with the contractors. And it can also mean to tidy up or to organize, to tidy up or to organize. You really need to sort out those papers. You really need to sort out those papers. You need to tidy up those papers. You need to put those papers in order. And that’s number 10, to sort out. Well, let me give you a very quick summary. Number one is to note down. That’s to write something down so you don’t forget it. Number two, to get together. That is either to meet physically or to agree on something. Number three, to lay off. That is to be made redundant. Number four, to keep up with. That is to keep alongside with or to keep pace with. Number five, to drop in. That is to visit unexpectedly. Number six, to put forward. That is to suggest something such as an idea. Number seven, to opt in. That is to be included in something voluntarily. Number eight, to put together. That is to assemble using different things or parts. Number nine, to pass up. That is to miss an opportunity or to not take advantage of one. Number 10, to sort out. That can mean to deal with something such as a problem or to tidy up or organize. Well, that brings us to the end of this series on phrasal verbs. I hope you have found it really useful. I hope you’ve enjoyed it. Please let me know how you are getting on with phrasal verbs. And in particular if you have any questions, I’d be very, very happy to help you. As always, to all of my listeners all around the world, thank you so much for tuning in. I really, really appreciate it. And I hope I can help you as much as I possibly can with your business English. That’s it for this week. I’ll be back next week with a different topic, so watch out for that. In the meantime, I hope everything goes very well for you, and I wish you every success with your business English and with your business projects. Well, with everything actually, all the best. Have a fantastic week and yes, I’ll see you next time. Finally, if you enjoy today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask-me-anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode11/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 11: Phrasal Verbs for Business VI</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 11: Phrasal Verbs for Business VI

More phrasal verbs in real business situations, ideal for business English learners. I hope you find it useful, and please let me know if you have any questions! Have a great week! Paul  Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, Part Five. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, there. Paul here, and welcome to episode 10 of the Business English Community podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. So 10 more phrasal verbs in a business context, so that you can really improve your conversation so that you can really improve your use of the English language in those business, in those real business situations. Also, we now have the full text or the full transcript for each one of these podcasts, completely free, up on the website. And that means that you can listen to the podcast, you can listen to exactly what I’m saying now, while you are following through the text. So very, very easy. For example, for this episode, all you need to do is go to www.businessenglishcommunity.com/episode10. /episode and then the number 10. Or, you can simply find it through the podcast link on the website. Very, very easy, but it’s very useful to follow through the transcript at the same time as you are listening to the audio. So a couple of things before we get started. First of all, a reminder to go and get your free, completely free training. Completely free training session from businessenglishcommunity.com. If you just visit the website, there it is right at the top of the page. You can get your free training instantly, so I would really encourage you to go and do that, if you haven’t done so already. And second of all before we get started, I wanted to tell you a little story because I had a meeting with some of my Business English learners this week, and they’ve been studying with me for a little while now. Probably around a year and a half. And it was just amazing to talk to them. The reason it was amazing is that they are a brilliant example of persistence. These particular students have been studying consistently for that period. They have really been focusing on making English a part of their lives, and they just stuck at it. They are not the most experienced. They’re not the most natural English learners, but they are one of the most persistent groups with whom or with which I have worked over the years. And they are getting the results, which just goes back to something that I have said before, which is that persistence is absolutely the key. If you are on this journey to really improve your level of business English, then all you need to do is to start and by listening to this podcast, you have already started. And now all you need to do is stick at it. If you stick at it, you will get there, I absolutely promise you. And I also promise you to help you every step of the way, in every way I possibly can. So that was a little story just to get you started. Let’s get cracking with these 10 phrasal verbs. Number one is to call back. Well, that can mean one of a couple of different things. It can mean to ask someone to physically return. Let’s say someone had left a meeting and we needed that particular person to come back. Well, we can call them back, ask them to return. Let me give you an example. “She had already left the meeting, but something important came up and so they called her back.” “She had already left the meeting, but something important came up and so they called her back.” So they’re asking her to return to the meeting. And it can also mean to return a phone call. Very simple, to return a phone call. To call someone back. “Could you ask her to call me back, please?” “Could you ask her to call me back, please?” So that’s number one, to call back. Number two, to carry on. To carry on. Well, to carry on means to continue. To continue doing something, to keep going, to keep going in the direction, the right direction, hopefully. So to continue doing something. “The merger is definitely on, but for now, we should carry on as usual.” “The merger is definitely on, but for now, we should carry on as usual.” That’s number two, to carry on. Number three, to pencil in. To pencil in. Well, I quite like this one. If you can imagine having a pencil that you can, of course, write things with, but you can also, of course, erase what you have written with a pencil, with an eraser. So if you pencil something in, it’s not completely definite. It’s something that you can change quite easily at a later date. And therefore, if you can imagine writing with a pencil in a diary, let’s say, and then rubbing it out or erasing it, and writing it in somewhere else. That will give you a very good idea of what to pencil in means. It means, to book something tentatively. To book something that you are not 100% sure is going to take place, at least not at that particular time. So if you pencil something in, you can change it at a later date. It means to book something tentatively. Let me give you an example. “Let’s pencil something in for next week.” “Let’s pencil something in for next week.” That’s number three, to pencil in. Number four is to burn out. To burn out. Well, we’re not burning anything, really in this context. It means a loss of physical or emotional wellbeing. Someone who has had enough. It’s someone who’s burnt or burned out, they’ve simply had enough. They are simply really stressed, or really tired, or overworked. Subject to high levels of stress and frustration. “These traders in highly stressful jobs are often burned out by the age of 30.” “These traders in highly stressful jobs are often burned out by the age of 30.” Number five, to deal with. To deal with. Well, this can have several different meanings. It can mean to take action to solve a problem. It can mean to accept something. “Hey, just deal with it.” And it can also mean to resolve a particular issue. So it’s really related most of the time with solving or resolving an issue, or a certain level of acceptance to deal with something. Let me give you a few examples that I hope will give you a much better idea. “He has a lot of experience in dealing with similar problems.” “He has a lot of experience in dealing with similar problems.” What about this one: “They are just going to have to deal with the loss of personnel.” “They are just going to have to deal with the loss of personnel.” “They are going to have face-up to that situation,” if you like. So they’re going to have to deal with it in the sense of facing-up to the difficulties that that might well present. Or, what about this example: “I always deal with John in the marketing department.” “I always deal with John in the marketing department.” “I always interact with John. I always talk with John. I always negotiate with him.” Or, “I always put my orders through John,” in that particular example. So several different meanings to deal with can mean to take action, or to accept and face-up to a situation. Number six, to look forward to. Well, to look forward to means to feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. This is a really common one in English, and it’s a really good one, as well. I would really encourage you to use it, and I would also encourage you to make sure that you understand it because this one is, as I said, very important. So let me give you an example: “I’m really looking forward to meeting you at the conference in Rome.” “I’m really looking forward to meeting you at the conference in Rome.” To feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. Number seven, to fill out. Well, to fill out means to complete. A form to fill out. You can also say, “To fill in,” in certain circumstances. So to fill out or to fill in. To fill out is more common in American English, and to fill in is more common in British English, so a very slight difference there. But really, it means to complete a form, to complete an application, or something like that. “Please fill out this form and then we can discuss your application.” “Please fill out this form and then we can discuss your application.” That’s number seven, to fill out. Number eight is to use up. To use up is to finish something. To use up something, to finish it. There’s not any of that particular thing left. “So they have already used up all of their goodwill in this deal,” to give you a business example. “They have already used up all of their goodwill in this deal.” That’s number eight, to use up. To finish something. Number nine, to check in. Well, you can certainly check into a hotel, and you can certainly check in for a flight. So I’m sure if you’re a business traveler, you’re familiar with those two uses, to check into a hotel, or to check in for a flight. To register for a flight or to really get yourself installed in a hotel. So that’s to check in. But it can also mean to see what the situation is, to establish what a particular situation is on a particular topic. You might want to check in with the accounting department to see how the invoices are going. Someone might say, “How is the expansion project going?” And you might reply, “I’m not sure. I’m going to check in with Jim and see what the situation is. I’m going to check in with Jim and see what the situation is. I’m going to talk with that person and find out what is going on.” So that’s number nine, to check in. Also worth mentioning, to check out. You can also check out when it comes to a hotel. You can check out of a hotel. And you can also check out something, which means to take a look at something. If you’re going to check out something, you can take a look at something. “So check out these trading volumes.” “Check out these trading volumes.” And finally for today, number 10, to branch out. Well, number 10, to branch out, that means to try something different. Or, to add a different business line. So if you can imagine a tree with a series of branches. Well, one of those branches or a new branch might go in a slightly, or in a very different direction to some of those other branches on the tree. So to branch out means to go in a different direction. “Company ABC has branched out into healthcare.” “Company ABC has branched out into healthcare.” So that’s it for today. Let me give you a very quick summary. Number one, to call back. To ask someone to return or to return a phone call. Number two, to carry on. To continue or to keep going. Number three, to pencil in. To book something tentatively. Number four, to burn out. To lose physical or emotional wellbeing. Number five, to deal with. To take action to solve a problem, or to face up to an issue. Number six, to look forward to. To feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. Number seven, to fill out. To complete a form. Number eight, to use up. To finish something. Number nine, to check in. To register for a hotel or a flight. Or, to find out the situation of something. And finally, number 10, to branch out. To try something different. Well, I hope you found those 10 phrasal verbs useful. We’ve got another episode coming Tuesday next week. So watch out for that one. And in the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for your completely free training, right at the top of the website, businessenglishcommunity.com. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com, the Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners, who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and Ask Me Anything Calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your Business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best. And until next time. The post Episode 10: Phrasal Verbs for Business V appeared first on The Business English Community.

More phrasal verbs in real business situations, ideal for business English learners. I hope you find it useful, and please let me know if you have any questions! Have a great week! Paul Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, Part Five. Hi, there. I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, there. Paul here, and welcome to episode 10 of the Business English Community podcast. In this episode, we’re going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. So 10 more phrasal verbs in a business context, so that you can really improve your conversation so that you can really improve your use of the English language in those business, in those real business situations. Also, we now have the full text or the full transcript for each one of these podcasts, completely free, up on the website. And that means that you can listen to the podcast, you can listen to exactly what I’m saying now, while you are following through the text. So very, very easy. For example, for this episode, all you need to do is go to <a href="http://www.businessenglishcommunity.com/episode10" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.businessenglishcommunity.com/episode10</a>. /episode and then the number 10. Or, you can simply find it through the podcast link on the website. Very, very easy, but it’s very useful to follow through the transcript at the same time as you are listening to the audio. So a couple of things before we get started. First of all, a reminder to go and get your free, completely free training. Completely free training session from <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. If you just visit the website, there it is right at the top of the page. You can get your free training instantly, so I would really encourage you to go and do that, if you haven’t done so already. And second of all before we get started, I wanted to tell you a little story because I had a meeting with some of my Business English learners this week, and they’ve been studying with me for a little while now. Probably around a year and a half. And it was just amazing to talk to them. The reason it was amazing is that they are a brilliant example of persistence. These particular students have been studying consistently for that period. They have really been focusing on making English a part of their lives, and they just stuck at it. They are not the most experienced. They’re not the most natural English learners, but they are one of the most persistent groups with whom or with which I have worked over the years. And they are getting the results, which just goes back to something that I have said before, which is that persistence is absolutely the key. If you are on this journey to really improve your level of business English, then all you need to do is to start and by listening to this podcast, you have already started. And now all you need to do is stick at it. If you stick at it, you will get there, I absolutely promise you. And I also promise you to help you every step of the way, in every way I possibly can. So that was a little story just to get you started. Let’s get cracking with these 10 phrasal verbs. Number one is to call back. Well, that can mean one of a couple of different things. It can mean to ask someone to physically return. Let’s say someone had left a meeting and we needed that particular person to come back. Well, we can call them back, ask them to return. Let me give you an example. “She had already left the meeting, but something important came up and so they called her back.” “She had already left the meeting, but something important came up and so they called her back.” So they’re asking her to return to the meeting. And it can also mean to return a phone call. Very simple, to return a phone call. To call someone back. “Could you ask her to call me back, please?” “Could you ask her to call me back, please?” So that’s number one, to call back. Number two, to carry on. To carry on. Well, to carry on means to continue. To continue doing something, to keep going, to keep going in the direction, the right direction, hopefully. So to continue doing something. “The merger is definitely on, but for now, we should carry on as usual.” “The merger is definitely on, but for now, we should carry on as usual.” That’s number two, to carry on. Number three, to pencil in. To pencil in. Well, I quite like this one. If you can imagine having a pencil that you can, of course, write things with, but you can also, of course, erase what you have written with a pencil, with an eraser. So if you pencil something in, it’s not completely definite. It’s something that you can change quite easily at a later date. And therefore, if you can imagine writing with a pencil in a diary, let’s say, and then rubbing it out or erasing it, and writing it in somewhere else. That will give you a very good idea of what to pencil in means. It means, to book something tentatively. To book something that you are not 100% sure is going to take place, at least not at that particular time. So if you pencil something in, you can change it at a later date. It means to book something tentatively. Let me give you an example. “Let’s pencil something in for next week.” “Let’s pencil something in for next week.” That’s number three, to pencil in. Number four is to burn out. To burn out. Well, we’re not burning anything, really in this context. It means a loss of physical or emotional wellbeing. Someone who has had enough. It’s someone who’s burnt or burned out, they’ve simply had enough. They are simply really stressed, or really tired, or overworked. Subject to high levels of stress and frustration. “These traders in highly stressful jobs are often burned out by the age of 30.” “These traders in highly stressful jobs are often burned out by the age of 30.” Number five, to deal with. To deal with. Well, this can have several different meanings. It can mean to take action to solve a problem. It can mean to accept something. “Hey, just deal with it.” And it can also mean to resolve a particular issue. So it’s really related most of the time with solving or resolving an issue, or a certain level of acceptance to deal with something. Let me give you a few examples that I hope will give you a much better idea. “He has a lot of experience in dealing with similar problems.” “He has a lot of experience in dealing with similar problems.” What about this one: “They are just going to have to deal with the loss of personnel.” “They are just going to have to deal with the loss of personnel.” “They are going to have face-up to that situation,” if you like. So they’re going to have to deal with it in the sense of facing-up to the difficulties that that might well present. Or, what about this example: “I always deal with John in the marketing department.” “I always deal with John in the marketing department.” “I always interact with John. I always talk with John. I always negotiate with him.” Or, “I always put my orders through John,” in that particular example. So several different meanings to deal with can mean to take action, or to accept and face-up to a situation. Number six, to look forward to. Well, to look forward to means to feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. This is a really common one in English, and it’s a really good one, as well. I would really encourage you to use it, and I would also encourage you to make sure that you understand it because this one is, as I said, very important. So let me give you an example: “I’m really looking forward to meeting you at the conference in Rome.” “I’m really looking forward to meeting you at the conference in Rome.” To feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. Number seven, to fill out. Well, to fill out means to complete. A form to fill out. You can also say, “To fill in,” in certain circumstances. So to fill out or to fill in. To fill out is more common in American English, and to fill in is more common in British English, so a very slight difference there. But really, it means to complete a form, to complete an application, or something like that. “Please fill out this form and then we can discuss your application.” “Please fill out this form and then we can discuss your application.” That’s number seven, to fill out. Number eight is to use up. To use up is to finish something. To use up something, to finish it. There’s not any of that particular thing left. “So they have already used up all of their goodwill in this deal,” to give you a business example. “They have already used up all of their goodwill in this deal.” That’s number eight, to use up. To finish something. Number nine, to check in. Well, you can certainly check into a hotel, and you can certainly check in for a flight. So I’m sure if you’re a business traveler, you’re familiar with those two uses, to check into a hotel, or to check in for a flight. To register for a flight or to really get yourself installed in a hotel. So that’s to check in. But it can also mean to see what the situation is, to establish what a particular situation is on a particular topic. You might want to check in with the accounting department to see how the invoices are going. Someone might say, “How is the expansion project going?” And you might reply, “I’m not sure. I’m going to check in with Jim and see what the situation is. I’m going to check in with Jim and see what the situation is. I’m going to talk with that person and find out what is going on.” So that’s number nine, to check in. Also worth mentioning, to check out. You can also check out when it comes to a hotel. You can check out of a hotel. And you can also check out something, which means to take a look at something. If you’re going to check out something, you can take a look at something. “So check out these trading volumes.” “Check out these trading volumes.” And finally for today, number 10, to branch out. Well, number 10, to branch out, that means to try something different. Or, to add a different business line. So if you can imagine a tree with a series of branches. Well, one of those branches or a new branch might go in a slightly, or in a very different direction to some of those other branches on the tree. So to branch out means to go in a different direction. “Company ABC has branched out into healthcare.” “Company ABC has branched out into healthcare.” So that’s it for today. Let me give you a very quick summary. Number one, to call back. To ask someone to return or to return a phone call. Number two, to carry on. To continue or to keep going. Number three, to pencil in. To book something tentatively. Number four, to burn out. To lose physical or emotional wellbeing. Number five, to deal with. To take action to solve a problem, or to face up to an issue. Number six, to look forward to. To feel happy about something that is going to happen in the future. Number seven, to fill out. To complete a form. Number eight, to use up. To finish something. Number nine, to check in. To register for a hotel or a flight. Or, to find out the situation of something. And finally, number 10, to branch out. To try something different. Well, I hope you found those 10 phrasal verbs useful. We’ve got another episode coming Tuesday next week. So watch out for that one. And in the meantime, don’t forget to sign up for your completely free training, right at the top of the website, <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>, the Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners, who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and Ask Me Anything Calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your Business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it for me. Thanks for listening. All the best. And until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode10/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 10: Phrasal Verbs for Business V</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 10: Phrasal Verbs for Business V

Amazing show with excellent material.  Paul is awesome!!!  Thank you!

Really helpful

The Business English Community Podcast

I have received so many requests to go into a bit more detail on phrasal verbs, so I thought I would create a podcast series, and here it is! In this first session, I explain some of the theory behind phrasal verbs, together with some of the reasons why you should be learning them. In sessions 2-6 from the series (there are 6 episodes altogether), I will be going through examples of phrasal verbs in a business context. In order to get the most out of this phrasal verbs series, please let me know if you have any questions! All the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: In this episode, I will be introducing phrasal verbs for business. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the business english community podcast where the world of business meets the english language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com Hi there, Paul here and welcome to episode six of the business english community podcast. I hope you’re having a fantastic week so far and remember, if you already have an intermediate or an advanced level of english and you are looking to take your business english to the next level than this is the podcast for you. This episode marks the start of a series on phrasal verbs. Well how did that come about? I’ve been talking to lots of people recently within the business english community via email and just in general it seems everyone wants to know about phrasal verbs. So I thought I would do a series on phrasal verbs. I wanted to do something a little bit different, a little bit more detailed and also, I wanted to do something that is focused on business english. We are the business english community and we try to give business related examples to everything that we do and that is going to include this series on phrasal verbs. Of course, if you are not interested in business english but you are more interested in general english, then you should still find this series really, really useful. Now, if you listen to a conversation or you watch a video or you read a text even you’re going to find that that particular piece of content is packed with phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are everywhere and not only are they everywhere, I think they lead to a lot of complications and confusion for non native speakers of english. There is no need for all that confusion and there is no need for all that sense of being overwhelmed. I am going to help you to really get a grip on these phrasal verbs and I can assure you that once you have completed this series, you will feel much, much better about phrasal verbs, how to use them, when to use them, and really start to build up some examples in your phrasal verbs vocabulary. Okay. Well how is this series going to work? It’s a series of six episodes. I wanted to do something really comprehensive. I wanted to do something really good, really great that is going to help you get over the phrasal verbs hurdle. There are many videos out there, there are many blog posts on phrasal verbs but I couldn’t really find a series that was going to help take students like you from having this level of confusion to really mastering phrasal verbs. And I know that’s quite an ambitious goal, but that’s what I intend to do in this series. In this first episode of the series which is episode six of the podcast, I’m just going to give you an introduce to phrasal verbs. I’m going to explain a little bit about the theory. Now, the theory might not be the most important factor, but I think it is important to have an idea before we go into the examples. And in the following five episodes of the series, I’m going to be giving you 10 examples of phrasal verbs in each one, so that’s going to be 50 phrasal verbs that we are going to cover in this series. I really hope it’s going to help you, I really believe it will. So right, let’s get started. So, first of all, what are phrasal verbs? Phrasal verbs are also know as compound verbs because they are made up of two our more parts. Now, the exact structure can very. It might be a main verb plus an adverb such as to pick up, or it might be a main verb plus a preposition such as to look at, or to make things complicated, it could be a main verb plus an adverb and a preposition. Now, I started straight away with a grammatical type explanation and I don’t want you to worry about that right now. I don’t think that is the most important piece of information when it comes to learning about phrasal verbs and improving your level. What is important is to understand that phrasal verbs are compound verbs made up of two or more parts. Now, phrasal verbs can be transitive or intransitive or both. Now, what does that mean? Transitive or intransitive or both? Now, a transitive verb is one that takes an object and an intransitive verb is one that doesn’t have an object. Well how does that work? Well, let’s have a look at an example. They looked up at the stars. They looked up at the stars. Well they, the subject, are clearly looking up at the stars, the object in this case. So that particular phrasal verb is transitive. It has an object. What about he wants to be a pilot when he grows up? He wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Well he, the subject is growing up, but he’s not growing up anything, he’s just growing up. So that is an intransitive example. He wants to be a pilot when he grows up. And phrasal verbs, just to make things complicated, can be both intransitive and transitive and I think one of the best examples of that is the verb to wake up. She woke up at 8 am. She woke up. She just woke up, she didn’t wake up anyone else, she just workup up at 8 am. Intransitive. Compare that with she woke him up at 8 am. She woke him up at 8 am. In that second example, there is clearly an object and that is an example of the transitive phrasal verb. So some phrasal verbs may be transitive with an object, others may be intransitive, no object and others still may work in both ways, so again, that’s another little bit of theory for you, just before we get into the examples. Phrasal verbs can also be separable or insuperable. Separable means the two components of the verb, the two parts of the phrasal verb are superable. Let me give you an example. So he picked up his son from school. The phrasal very is to pick up, to collect, he picked up his son from school, or because this phrasal verb can be used in a separable form, we can also say, ‘he picked his son up from school.’ He picked his son up from school. So that particular phrasal verb is separable, let me give you another example of one that is inseparable. I ran into Jenny last week. I ran into Jenny last week. Weill you ran into Jenny, you bumped into Jenny as you were walking down the street and perhaps you said hello, that’s to, to run in to, but you cannot say, “I ran Jenny into last week.” I ran Jenny into. That does not make sene so that particular example is inseparable. Now, this whole separable verse inseparable thing is one of the issues that makes phrasal verbs difficult, but don’t worry I just want you to be aware of the fact that they can be transitive or intransitive, separable or inseparable, but the piece of advice I’m going to give you to help you get over this phrasal verb barrier and to get to the point where you are able to use phrasal verbs effectively is practice. Phrasal verbs can also be formal or informal and I think there is some confusion on this particular topic. First of all, phrasal verbs or the use of phrasal verbs, is extremely common in conversation. It makes the conversation more natural and if you listen to a conversation between native speakers, you will hear many, many phrasal verbs being used. But when it comes to writing, I have heard the advice that you should not use phrasal verbs in writing. Well that advice is incorrect. That advice is wrong. You can definitely use phrasal verbs in written text and I guarantee you that if you pick up almost any text, you will find that there are plenty of phrasal verbs in there. And that guess right from informal text right through to very formal documents. Now, there are a few phrasal verbs that are definitely informal and therefore you would expect to see them in written english. Let me give you two examples. One is to rat on, to rat on, which means to tell on someone, to rat on them. And the other one would be to palm off. To palm off, P-A-L-M. To palm off. To leave someone with a problem or to dump something on someone. Now those two examples, those two phrasal verbs are definitely informal and therefore, you wouldn’t expect to see them in written english, but many other phrasal verbs can be used in both formal and informal contexts. One example that really starts out for me is to carry out. To carry out meaning to perform or to realize. Now, I actually prefer using to carry out in many written situations, so I might write something like, “The evaluation was carried out successfully. The evaluation was carried out successfully. Now, that is a phrasal verb, that I a formal sentence and that works very well in writing. So you can definitely use phrasal verbs in writing as well. You can use then in all forms of conversation, but you can certainly use them in written situations as well. Phrasal verbs are everywhere, is my conclusion. Phrasal verbs are everywhere and that is why learning then and understanding them is so important. It’s also difficult to deduce the meaning of a phrasal verb by analyzing it’s component parts. So a lot of non native speakers or a lot of english learners, try to deduce the meaning of a phrase verb from it’s two component parts. And while that is sometimes possible, on many occasions, it simply isn’t possible. The meaning of the phrasal verb cannot be deduced by analyzing it’s component parts, and that means, of course, that you have to learn them. That you have to learn them. And not only do you have to learn them, but you need to learn them in a particular context. English is a wonderful ln complicated language, but really breaking phrasal verbs down into this theory and then analyzing them in context is really going to help you master the use of phrasal verbs. One pieces of advice, don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. There are thousands and thousands of phrasal verbs within the english language, so don’t think for one minute that you need to learn all of them, you simply don’t. Learning and using, lets say 50 phrasal verbs can really help you to improve your level both in terms of understanding others and in using phrasal verbs in your own conversation. Why should you learn phrasal verbs? Well because native speakers tend to use lots of phrasal verbs, so if you want to make your english sound more natural, more like a native speaker, then incorporating phrasal verbs into your language use is going to help you to do that. Also, it’s a question of understanding because if others are gong to use lots of phrasal verbs, then it’s important that you understand those phrasal verbs in order o be able to participate in that conversation or understand that report. I think I would also point out that this phrasal verbs thing, if you like, it’s not a nice add on, it’s not a nice to have, it shouldn’t be some that is only for the very advanced learners of english. This should be for everyone and I think it’s a key part of progressing within you english learning process, so I would absolutely not shy away from learning phrasal verbs, let’s jump right in and lets make sure that you can use these phrasal verbs effectively. Okay, so that brings today’s episode the a close. You will also not that in these episode on phrasal verbs, there will be no word of the week or phrase of the week. That’s because I really want us to focus on the subject of phrasal verbs. In the next episodes were going to get started with the examples, and don’t forget, let me guide you through. Let me help you to build up this phrasal verb vocabulary. Don’t let yourself get overwhelm, this is a very, very big topics, but we can tackle it together by looking at this strength step by step. So we’re going to go through this whole topic of phrasal verbs step by step. If you do have any questions, please get in torch via the website. There is a contact form on the website, alterntatiey, you can send me an email to info, I-N-F-P@businessenglishcommnity.com Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to checkout our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The business english community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want the take their business english to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business english questions. If you really wan to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s int form me. Thanks for listening, all the best and until next time. The post Episode 6: Phrasal Verbs for Business I appeared first on The Business English Community.

I have received so many requests to go into a bit more detail on phrasal verbs, so I thought I would create a podcast series, and here it is! In this first session, I explain some of the theory behind phrasal verbs, together with some of the reasons why you should be learning them. In sessions 2-6 from the series (there are 6 episodes altogether), I will be going through examples of phrasal verbs in a business context. In order to get the most out of this phrasal verbs series, please let me know if you have any questions! All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: In this episode, I will be introducing phrasal verbs for business. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the business english community podcast where the world of business meets the english language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a> Hi there, Paul here and welcome to episode six of the business english community podcast. I hope you’re having a fantastic week so far and remember, if you already have an intermediate or an advanced level of english and you are looking to take your business english to the next level than this is the podcast for you. This episode marks the start of a series on phrasal verbs. Well how did that come about? I’ve been talking to lots of people recently within the business english community via email and just in general it seems everyone wants to know about phrasal verbs. So I thought I would do a series on phrasal verbs. I wanted to do something a little bit different, a little bit more detailed and also, I wanted to do something that is focused on business english. We are the business english community and we try to give business related examples to everything that we do and that is going to include this series on phrasal verbs. Of course, if you are not interested in business english but you are more interested in general english, then you should still find this series really, really useful. Now, if you listen to a conversation or you watch a video or you read a text even you’re going to find that that particular piece of content is packed with phrasal verbs. Phrasal verbs are everywhere and not only are they everywhere, I think they lead to a lot of complications and confusion for non native speakers of english. There is no need for all that confusion and there is no need for all that sense of being overwhelmed. I am going to help you to really get a grip on these phrasal verbs and I can assure you that once you have completed this series, you will feel much, much better about phrasal verbs, how to use them, when to use them, and really start to build up some examples in your phrasal verbs vocabulary. Okay. Well how is this series going to work? It’s a series of six episodes. I wanted to do something really comprehensive. I wanted to do something really good, really great that is going to help you get over the phrasal verbs hurdle. There are many videos out there, there are many blog posts on phrasal verbs but I couldn’t really find a series that was going to help take students like you from having this level of confusion to really mastering phrasal verbs. And I know that’s quite an ambitious goal, but that’s what I intend to do in this series. In this first episode of the series which is episode six of the podcast, I’m just going to give you an introduce to phrasal verbs. I’m going to explain a little bit about the theory. Now, the theory might not be the most important factor, but I think it is important to have an idea before we go into the examples. And in the following five episodes of the series, I’m going to be giving you 10 examples of phrasal verbs in each one, so that’s going to be 50 phrasal verbs that we are going to cover in this series. I really hope it’s going to help you, I really believe it will. So right, let’s get started. So, first of all, what are phrasal verbs? Phrasal verbs are also know as compound verbs because they are made up of two our more parts. Now, the exact structure can very. It might be a main verb plus an adverb such as to pick up, or it might be a main verb plus a preposition such as to look at, or to make things complicated, it could be a main verb plus an adverb and a preposition. Now, I started straight away with a grammatical type explanation and I don’t want you to worry about that right now. I don’t think that is the most important piece of information when it comes to learning about phrasal verbs and improving your level. What is important is to understand that phrasal verbs are compound verbs made up of two or more parts. Now, phrasal verbs can be transitive or intransitive or both. Now, what does that mean? Transitive or intransitive or both? Now, a transitive verb is one that takes an object and an intransitive verb is one that doesn’t have an object. Well how does that work? Well, let’s have a look at an example. They looked up at the stars. They looked up at the stars. Well they, the subject, are clearly looking up at the stars, the object in this case. So that particular phrasal verb is transitive. It has an object. What about he wants to be a pilot when he grows up? He wants to be a pilot when he grows up. Well he, the subject is growing up, but he’s not growing up anything, he’s just growing up. So that is an intransitive example. He wants to be a pilot when he grows up. And phrasal verbs, just to make things complicated, can be both intransitive and transitive and I think one of the best examples of that is the verb to wake up. She woke up at 8 am. She woke up. She just woke up, she didn’t wake up anyone else, she just workup up at 8 am. Intransitive. Compare that with she woke him up at 8 am. She woke him up at 8 am. In that second example, there is clearly an object and that is an example of the transitive phrasal verb. So some phrasal verbs may be transitive with an object, others may be intransitive, no object and others still may work in both ways, so again, that’s another little bit of theory for you, just before we get into the examples. Phrasal verbs can also be separable or insuperable. Separable means the two components of the verb, the two parts of the phrasal verb are superable. Let me give you an example. So he picked up his son from school. The phrasal very is to pick up, to collect, he picked up his son from school, or because this phrasal verb can be used in a separable form, we can also say, ‘he picked his son up from school.’ He picked his son up from school. So that particular phrasal verb is separable, let me give you another example of one that is inseparable. I ran into Jenny last week. I ran into Jenny last week. Weill you ran into Jenny, you bumped into Jenny as you were walking down the street and perhaps you said hello, that’s to, to run in to, but you cannot say, “I ran Jenny into last week.” I ran Jenny into. That does not make sene so that particular example is inseparable. Now, this whole separable verse inseparable thing is one of the issues that makes phrasal verbs difficult, but don’t worry I just want you to be aware of the fact that they can be transitive or intransitive, separable or inseparable, but the piece of advice I’m going to give you to help you get over this phrasal verb barrier and to get to the point where you are able to use phrasal verbs effectively is practice. Phrasal verbs can also be formal or informal and I think there is some confusion on this particular topic. First of all, phrasal verbs or the use of phrasal verbs, is extremely common in conversation. It makes the conversation more natural and if you listen to a conversation between native speakers, you will hear many, many phrasal verbs being used. But when it comes to writing, I have heard the advice that you should not use phrasal verbs in writing. Well that advice is incorrect. That advice is wrong. You can definitely use phrasal verbs in written text and I guarantee you that if you pick up almost any text, you will find that there are plenty of phrasal verbs in there. And that guess right from informal text right through to very formal documents. Now, there are a few phrasal verbs that are definitely informal and therefore you would expect to see them in written english. Let me give you two examples. One is to rat on, to rat on, which means to tell on someone, to rat on them. And the other one would be to palm off. To palm off, P-A-L-M. To palm off. To leave someone with a problem or to dump something on someone. Now those two examples, those two phrasal verbs are definitely informal and therefore, you wouldn’t expect to see them in written english, but many other phrasal verbs can be used in both formal and informal contexts. One example that really starts out for me is to carry out. To carry out meaning to perform or to realize. Now, I actually prefer using to carry out in many written situations, so I might write something like, “The evaluation was carried out successfully. The evaluation was carried out successfully. Now, that is a phrasal verb, that I a formal sentence and that works very well in writing. So you can definitely use phrasal verbs in writing as well. You can use then in all forms of conversation, but you can certainly use them in written situations as well. Phrasal verbs are everywhere, is my conclusion. Phrasal verbs are everywhere and that is why learning then and understanding them is so important. It’s also difficult to deduce the meaning of a phrasal verb by analyzing it’s component parts. So a lot of non native speakers or a lot of english learners, try to deduce the meaning of a phrase verb from it’s two component parts. And while that is sometimes possible, on many occasions, it simply isn’t possible. The meaning of the phrasal verb cannot be deduced by analyzing it’s component parts, and that means, of course, that you have to learn them. That you have to learn them. And not only do you have to learn them, but you need to learn them in a particular context. English is a wonderful ln complicated language, but really breaking phrasal verbs down into this theory and then analyzing them in context is really going to help you master the use of phrasal verbs. One pieces of advice, don’t let yourself get overwhelmed. There are thousands and thousands of phrasal verbs within the english language, so don’t think for one minute that you need to learn all of them, you simply don’t. Learning and using, lets say 50 phrasal verbs can really help you to improve your level both in terms of understanding others and in using phrasal verbs in your own conversation. Why should you learn phrasal verbs? Well because native speakers tend to use lots of phrasal verbs, so if you want to make your english sound more natural, more like a native speaker, then incorporating phrasal verbs into your language use is going to help you to do that. Also, it’s a question of understanding because if others are gong to use lots of phrasal verbs, then it’s important that you understand those phrasal verbs in order o be able to participate in that conversation or understand that report. I think I would also point out that this phrasal verbs thing, if you like, it’s not a nice add on, it’s not a nice to have, it shouldn’t be some that is only for the very advanced learners of english. This should be for everyone and I think it’s a key part of progressing within you english learning process, so I would absolutely not shy away from learning phrasal verbs, let’s jump right in and lets make sure that you can use these phrasal verbs effectively. Okay, so that brings today’s episode the a close. You will also not that in these episode on phrasal verbs, there will be no word of the week or phrase of the week. That’s because I really want us to focus on the subject of phrasal verbs. In the next episodes were going to get started with the examples, and don’t forget, let me guide you through. Let me help you to build up this phrasal verb vocabulary. Don’t let yourself get overwhelm, this is a very, very big topics, but we can tackle it together by looking at this strength step by step. So we’re going to go through this whole topic of phrasal verbs step by step. If you do have any questions, please get in torch via the website. There is a contact form on the website, alterntatiey, you can send me an email to info, I-N-F-P@businessenglishcommnity.com Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to checkout our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The business english community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want the take their business english to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls. And very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business english questions. If you really wan to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s int form me. Thanks for listening, all the best and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode6/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 6: Phrasal Verbs for Business I</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 6: Phrasal Verbs for Business I

Using textbooks to learn and improve at English is very common, and there is nothing wrong with using textbooks as part of a balanced learning program! However, it is also important to include more specific material, such as business books and magazines, and incorporate these into your learning program. In this episode, I explore the importance of such a strategy and I also talk about the concepts of general and specialist vocabulary. So, what about you?  What materials are you using to improve your level of English? Let me know in the comments section below. All the very best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: In this episode I’m going to be talking about how to use business books to improve your level of business English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the business English community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessEngliscommunity.com. Hi there, Paul here, and welcome to episode five. Remember, if you are an intermediate or advanced speaker of English and just really looking to take your business English to the next level, then this is the podcast for you. What I try to do is to talk about real business English situations, because I know that that’s what is actually going to help you to improve. After all, we’re going to be experiencing real situations out there. Before we get started, I just wanted to give you a quick reminder to check out our YouTube channel. We’ve got some fantastic videos on there. You can link to the YouTube channel directly from the website and also on the website, you will find a completely free audio book and a completely free online training session. So I suggest you download those if you haven’t already. You can find them of course, at www.businessEnglishcommunity.com. Before we get into today’s main section, I’m just going to give you a word of the week, and this week’s word of the week is brand. B-R-A-N-D, brand. Now this is a great word when it comes to companies and to business English, and a brand is simply a type of product manufactured by a particular company. Some companies have only one brand, and some companies, I can think of Unilever, and Procter &amp; Gamble as a couple of examples. Those companies have many, many different brands operating from the one company. But I really like the word brand, because there are also so many extensions or variations of that word and I’m going to give you just two today. One is brand equity. What is brand equity? Brand equity is commercial value that really comes from customer perception rather than the product itself. It’s coming from the customer’s perception of the brand. What value does that actually have? That’s brand equity. The other one is brand positioning. Brand positioning is a marketing strategy and it’s all about trying to get a brand to occupy a particular space or particular position in the mind of the customer. Often positioning it against other brands to give it it’s own particular space, its own distinct flavor or position, if you like. That’s brand positioning. Brand positioning and brand equity, there are many others, which is why brand is such a great word. On to today’s main topic, which is all about using business books to improve your business English. I want to start out by talking about a traditional English learning method, which involves using course books or textbooks to guide a student from one level to the next. I think these textbooks or these guide books have a really important part to play, and I’m sure that we all learned through textbooks definitely at school, and possibly in other areas of life, such as language learning as well. In the case of English learning, these textbooks are written by experts and they contain great exercises. So they are very, very good and they can certainly be used as part of a balanced learning program. If that’s what’s good about them, then what’s bad about them? What’s bad about them or not necessarily bad, but what’s limiting, is perhaps a better word about them, is that they are not up to date. If you pick up a textbook that you’ve had on your shelf for a year, well then it’s at least one year old, and it’s not going to have any information or anything in terms of what’s been happening in the world or in your sector, in the last year or so. Also, textbooks generally don’t focus, especially English learning textbooks, don’t focus on specific subject areas. If you are a physicist or if you are an entrepreneur, or if you are a sales executive, or a mining expert, then you are unlikely to find the material that you need in an English learning textbook. I also feel that those English learning textbooks sometimes are too balanced. How can something be too balanced? Generally, they have exercises in all parts of the language. That’s reading, writing, listening, and speaking of course. That’s great in the sense that I suggest that you need to become competent in all four parts of the language. The problem of being too balanced occurs when a student has a distribution that is not balanced, so if you need to focus more on learning or improving your conversation, and less on improving your grammar, then maybe following through a balanced textbook is not going to help you achieve that, whereas focusing on conversation exercises might help you to improve your distribution. I wanted to start out by first of all, saying that English learning textbooks can be a good part of your learning process, definitely, but also at the same time, understanding their limitations. What can you use to complement those types of books? You can learn a lot from specific books that are related to your area of interest. In many ways, that’s how a native speaker learns English anyway. If I look back on how I learned English, obviously I was exposed to English all the time, it’s my native language, and for sure, I took English classes as well, so at school we had English classes, but we also had classes in other subjects of course, such as physics and biology, and those books were written in English. As I got older and I started to want to find out about other areas, I learned about those subjects in English by getting hold of that material in English, and what’s interesting here is at the same time, I was improving my level of English. Also when I read fiction, when I would go on holiday and read a novel, not only was I relaxing and enjoying my time on holiday, but was also learning and improving my English the whole time. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s a very natural way to learn English simply to expose yourself to material in English, but in other subjects. Now, what about you? What is your area of expertise? What are you interested in, and following on from that, what books or what materials are you reading on a daily basis in English? That’s what I would like you to have a look at. The more material that you can read in English about your subject, the better and more confident you are going to get about that particular subject. I would really encourage you to find business books related to your particular area of interest, and really to get into them and really to explore them deeply, to understand the vocabulary, to look up the vocabulary, and this is not just about vocabulary, it’s also about a writing style. You will find that people who write about physics, write differently to those who write about entrepreneurship. If you associate yourself with a particular group of people, then you can over time, start to create an identity for yourself in terms of the way that you speak about the subject and in terms of the way that you write about the subject. This is not just about improving your English, improving your business English means improving your English in a specific context, and that means being able to talk effectively about your subject. It’s not about being able to talk about Jack and Jill going to the beach, it’s not about being able to describe every single color in the English language. Those things are, in my opinion, a little bit unnecessary most of the time, but if you can operate effectively in your specialist area, that is when you’re going to achieve a good level of success. What I also find interesting here, is that everyone has different vocabulary needs. We often talk about a student improving their vocabulary, and I think it … a lot of people don’t really focus on the fact that everyone has different vocabulary needs. I like to divide it into a general and a specialist vocabulary. Everyone needs a basic general vocabulary in order to operate in the English language, but then it’s your specialist vocabulary that relates to your area of expertise which you can add on the top of that. Recognize that your needs are different to everyone else’s and while someone else may be reading a book about physics, you may be interested in something about medicine or about entrepreneurship or about mining or geology or something completely different. And that’s also why for me, business English is all about relating business with English, combining the two subjects, if you like. It’s not about learning English in isolation, it’s about learning about your subject in English right from the outset. That’s really my thoughts for this week, let me know what you think. What do you think about this? What’s your specialist area? If you go onto the website, and if you go to businessEnglishcommunity.com/episode5, that’s E-P-I-S-O-D-E and then the number five, why not leave me a comment at the bottom of that, and let me know what you think about this subject. Are you developing your specialist vocabulary? Are you really focusing on English and business as separate subjects or are you managing to combine them successfully, but please let me know what you think. Now I’m going to wrap up with this week’s phrase of the week, and this week’s phrase of the week is to sign off on something, to sign off on something. And that means to approve something. It might mean that something is actually being signed, or it might mean that it’s not actually being signed, but it’s getting approval nevertheless. This phrase obviously comes from the fact that many things needed to be signed in order to be approved and that practice of course, continues to this day, but this expression is also used to imply approval when something is not actually signed. Let me give you an example. My boss hasn’t signed off on my pay raise yet. My hasn’t signed off on my pay raise yet. Or, I need her to sign off on it before we can place the order. I need her to sign off on it before we can place the order. To approve something, whether or not it is actually being signed depends on the context. Hope you found that useful, and that’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening, thanks to everyone in Taiwan, in China, in Colombia and Brazil, in Italy, in the United States and in all of the many, many other countries where this podcast is being downloaded. If I haven’t mentioned you on that list, then please get in touch and tell me where you are from. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessEnglishcommunity.com. The business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessEnglishcommunity.com. That’s it for me, thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time. The post Episode 5: Using Business Books to Improve your Business English appeared first on The Business English Community.

Using textbooks to learn and improve at English is very common, and there is nothing wrong with using textbooks as part of a balanced learning program! However, it is also important to include more specific material, such as business books and magazines, and incorporate these into your learning program. In this episode, I explore the importance of such a strategy and I also talk about the concepts of general and specialist vocabulary. So, what about you?  What materials are you using to improve your level of English? Let me know in the comments section below. All the very best! Paul Here is the full transcript: In this episode I’m going to be talking about how to use business books to improve your level of business English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the business English community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessEngliscommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessEngliscommunity.com</a>. Hi there, Paul here, and welcome to episode five. Remember, if you are an intermediate or advanced speaker of English and just really looking to take your business English to the next level, then this is the podcast for you. What I try to do is to talk about real business English situations, because I know that that’s what is actually going to help you to improve. After all, we’re going to be experiencing real situations out there. Before we get started, I just wanted to give you a quick reminder to check out our YouTube channel. We’ve got some fantastic videos on there. You can link to the YouTube channel directly from the website and also on the website, you will find a completely free audio book and a completely free online training session. So I suggest you download those if you haven’t already. You can find them of course, at <a href="http://www.businessEnglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.businessEnglishcommunity.com</a>. Before we get into today’s main section, I’m just going to give you a word of the week, and this week’s word of the week is brand. B-R-A-N-D, brand. Now this is a great word when it comes to companies and to business English, and a brand is simply a type of product manufactured by a particular company. Some companies have only one brand, and some companies, I can think of Unilever, and Procter &amp; Gamble as a couple of examples. Those companies have many, many different brands operating from the one company. But I really like the word brand, because there are also so many extensions or variations of that word and I’m going to give you just two today. One is brand equity. What is brand equity? Brand equity is commercial value that really comes from customer perception rather than the product itself. It’s coming from the customer’s perception of the brand. What value does that actually have? That’s brand equity. The other one is brand positioning. Brand positioning is a marketing strategy and it’s all about trying to get a brand to occupy a particular space or particular position in the mind of the customer. Often positioning it against other brands to give it it’s own particular space, its own distinct flavor or position, if you like. That’s brand positioning. Brand positioning and brand equity, there are many others, which is why brand is such a great word. On to today’s main topic, which is all about using business books to improve your business English. I want to start out by talking about a traditional English learning method, which involves using course books or textbooks to guide a student from one level to the next. I think these textbooks or these guide books have a really important part to play, and I’m sure that we all learned through textbooks definitely at school, and possibly in other areas of life, such as language learning as well. In the case of English learning, these textbooks are written by experts and they contain great exercises. So they are very, very good and they can certainly be used as part of a balanced learning program. If that’s what’s good about them, then what’s bad about them? What’s bad about them or not necessarily bad, but what’s limiting, is perhaps a better word about them, is that they are not up to date. If you pick up a textbook that you’ve had on your shelf for a year, well then it’s at least one year old, and it’s not going to have any information or anything in terms of what’s been happening in the world or in your sector, in the last year or so. Also, textbooks generally don’t focus, especially English learning textbooks, don’t focus on specific subject areas. If you are a physicist or if you are an entrepreneur, or if you are a sales executive, or a mining expert, then you are unlikely to find the material that you need in an English learning textbook. I also feel that those English learning textbooks sometimes are too balanced. How can something be too balanced? Generally, they have exercises in all parts of the language. That’s reading, writing, listening, and speaking of course. That’s great in the sense that I suggest that you need to become competent in all four parts of the language. The problem of being too balanced occurs when a student has a distribution that is not balanced, so if you need to focus more on learning or improving your conversation, and less on improving your grammar, then maybe following through a balanced textbook is not going to help you achieve that, whereas focusing on conversation exercises might help you to improve your distribution. I wanted to start out by first of all, saying that English learning textbooks can be a good part of your learning process, definitely, but also at the same time, understanding their limitations. What can you use to complement those types of books? You can learn a lot from specific books that are related to your area of interest. In many ways, that’s how a native speaker learns English anyway. If I look back on how I learned English, obviously I was exposed to English all the time, it’s my native language, and for sure, I took English classes as well, so at school we had English classes, but we also had classes in other subjects of course, such as physics and biology, and those books were written in English. As I got older and I started to want to find out about other areas, I learned about those subjects in English by getting hold of that material in English, and what’s interesting here is at the same time, I was improving my level of English. Also when I read fiction, when I would go on holiday and read a novel, not only was I relaxing and enjoying my time on holiday, but was also learning and improving my English the whole time. What I’m trying to say is that I think it’s a very natural way to learn English simply to expose yourself to material in English, but in other subjects. Now, what about you? What is your area of expertise? What are you interested in, and following on from that, what books or what materials are you reading on a daily basis in English? That’s what I would like you to have a look at. The more material that you can read in English about your subject, the better and more confident you are going to get about that particular subject. I would really encourage you to find business books related to your particular area of interest, and really to get into them and really to explore them deeply, to understand the vocabulary, to look up the vocabulary, and this is not just about vocabulary, it’s also about a writing style. You will find that people who write about physics, write differently to those who write about entrepreneurship. If you associate yourself with a particular group of people, then you can over time, start to create an identity for yourself in terms of the way that you speak about the subject and in terms of the way that you write about the subject. This is not just about improving your English, improving your business English means improving your English in a specific context, and that means being able to talk effectively about your subject. It’s not about being able to talk about Jack and Jill going to the beach, it’s not about being able to describe every single color in the English language. Those things are, in my opinion, a little bit unnecessary most of the time, but if you can operate effectively in your specialist area, that is when you’re going to achieve a good level of success. What I also find interesting here, is that everyone has different vocabulary needs. We often talk about a student improving their vocabulary, and I think it … a lot of people don’t really focus on the fact that everyone has different vocabulary needs. I like to divide it into a general and a specialist vocabulary. Everyone needs a basic general vocabulary in order to operate in the English language, but then it’s your specialist vocabulary that relates to your area of expertise which you can add on the top of that. Recognize that your needs are different to everyone else’s and while someone else may be reading a book about physics, you may be interested in something about medicine or about entrepreneurship or about mining or geology or something completely different. And that’s also why for me, business English is all about relating business with English, combining the two subjects, if you like. It’s not about learning English in isolation, it’s about learning about your subject in English right from the outset. That’s really my thoughts for this week, let me know what you think. What do you think about this? What’s your specialist area? If you go onto the website, and if you go to <a href="http://businessEnglishcommunity.com/episode5" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessEnglishcommunity.com/episode5</a>, that’s E-P-I-S-O-D-E and then the number five, why not leave me a comment at the bottom of that, and let me know what you think about this subject. Are you developing your specialist vocabulary? Are you really focusing on English and business as separate subjects or are you managing to combine them successfully, but please let me know what you think. Now I’m going to wrap up with this week’s phrase of the week, and this week’s phrase of the week is to sign off on something, to sign off on something. And that means to approve something. It might mean that something is actually being signed, or it might mean that it’s not actually being signed, but it’s getting approval nevertheless. This phrase obviously comes from the fact that many things needed to be signed in order to be approved and that practice of course, continues to this day, but this expression is also used to imply approval when something is not actually signed. Let me give you an example. My boss hasn’t signed off on my pay raise yet. My hasn’t signed off on my pay raise yet. Or, I need her to sign off on it before we can place the order. I need her to sign off on it before we can place the order. To approve something, whether or not it is actually being signed depends on the context. Hope you found that useful, and that’s it for today. Thank you so much for listening, thanks to everyone in Taiwan, in China, in Colombia and Brazil, in Italy, in the United States and in all of the many, many other countries where this podcast is being downloaded. If I haven’t mentioned you on that list, then please get in touch and tell me where you are from. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessEnglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessEnglishcommunity.com</a>. The business English community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessEnglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessEnglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it for me, thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode5/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 5: Using Business Books to Improve your Business English</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 5: Using Business Books to Improve your Business English

Using different tenses can really help you to improve  – you are going to sound more natural when speaking in English, and be able to describe more complex situations. So, stop using just the present simple tense! This episode shows you exactly how to do it! Here is the sample text that I use in the audio: I read engineering at Bristol University and I graduated in 2006.  Upon graduation, I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learnt a lot about production and product development. After working at the company for 10 years, I decided to become undefended and, in 2018, I set up my own consulting company, helping small companies to get started with engineering projects. The company has only been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, and we are starting to see some great results. Over the next few years, I plan to expand the business, move into new markets, and help technical entrepreneurs from overseas.  I am also going to make a big effort to present at more conferences and to really advance my speaking career. What about you?  Do you use different tenses when speaking English? Let me know in the comments section below. I hope you find this episode useful and all the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: In this episode, I’m going to be talking about how to use different tenses to improve your level. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, technique, vocabulary, grammar, and much much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi there. I hope you’re having a fantastic day so far, and welcome to episode number three of the Business English Community Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Urwin, and if you are an intermediate or advanced speaker of English looking to take your business English to the next level, then this is the podcast for you. Before we get started, I just wanted to invite you to check out our YouTube channel. We have some really fantastic videos on there. You can find a link on our website, or simply enter business English community into YouTube. Okay, well today I’m going to be talking about different tenses and how to use them effectively, but first of all our business word of the week, and this week’s business word is blue chip. Blue chip. You might hear the expression ‘blue chip shares’ or a ‘blue chip company.’ Well, what does that actually mean, or what does that actually refer to? It refers to a company that is a very big company usually, very safe and very well recognized within the marketplace, probably the sort of brand name that you would have heard of. Now, these companies are supposed to be very safe, stable investments although one or two of these blue chip companies have actually gone bankrupt, so they are certainly not protected completely. But they are generally speaking safe, well established companies, companies that would normally appear in indices such as the FTSE 100 in the UK or the S&amp;P or the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 in the US. Okay, well where does this expression come from? Well, it comes from poker where the blue chips are traditionally the highest value chips, and therefore it makes sense that the blue chip companies or the blue chip shares or the blue chip stocks are the highest value companies, stocks or shares. I’m talking about companies such as Barclays HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline and Diageo to name but a few. They are really well recognized and well established companies, so that’s word of the week: blue chip. Now onto today’s main topic which is all about how to use tenses to improve your level. Now, what happens to a lot of English learners or a lot of business English learners is that they get to a certain level, and they are able to manage certain tenses, but then they take the decision to keep everything simple. Often you will see or often I certainly have the experience of working with many students who operate in one or two tenses, they’ve kind of made the decision to keep things as simple as possible. I think at the beginning that makes a lot of sense. We often receive the advice to keep things simple, but as you look to improve your level of English, I think it is really, really important that you learn how the other tenses work, and you learn how to incorporate them into your language, incorporate them into your written texts, incorporate them into your conversations. It’s going to enable you to sound much more natural. It’s going to make you a more effective communicator. I think with a number of students, their use of tenses particularly keeping things too simple, is something that can be holding them back. So is this an area that is holding you back? Well if it is, the good news is that we can absolutely help you to overcome that. Let’s go through a little bit of an example now. I’m going to give you an example of the type of text or the type of conversation that happens at its most basic level. Here we go. I like to read. I go to church. I watch movies. I like to read. I go to church. I watch movies. So three very simple sentences there, and I’m sure you can understand what is going on, but there’s no time frame attached really to those phrases apart from the fact that they are all in the present of course, but it doesn’t tell any history. It doesn’t give you any history for that particular person. It doesn’t give you any context. It doesn’t give you any idea of what they are planning to do in the future. Often in more complex conversations, it’s really good to focus on a time frame, and to give someone a little bit of a story. Stories are very interesting, and stories really captivate people when you are talking to them. Stories of course do normally include a past, a present and some kind of future. So before we go into this text that I’m going to share with you in just a second, I would really encourage you to start thinking in the past, in the present and in the future. So here’s the example, and it’s based on someone talking about their career. If you want to follow this text, I’m going to put it up on the website, so that is businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree. Businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree. So, here we go. I read engineering at Bristol University, and I graduated in 2006. Upon graduation, I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learned a lot about production and product development. After working at the company for 10 years, I decided to become independent. In 2018, I set up my own consulting company, helping small companies to get started with engineering projects. The company has only been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, and we are starting to see some great results. Over the next few years, I plan to expand the business, move into new markets, and help technical entrepreneurs from overseas. I am also going to make a big effort to present at more conferences, and to really advance my speaking career. Okay, so that’s in a few different sections of that text, but I’m sure that just listening to it you can appreciate that there’s a lot more depth to it than simply saying something like: I study engineering. I work in a company, and so on. There’s a real timeline associated with that story. So, I read engineering at Bristol University. I graduated in 2006. This is all in the past. I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learned a lot about production and product development, all in the past. After working at the company for 10 years, so we have a clear point in the timeline there, I then decided, I decided but we’re still in the past, to become independent. In 2018, we’re using an actual date here to again set a point on the timeline, I set up my own consulting company. So now, we move forward to the present. The company has only been going for a few months now. The company has only been going for a few months now. Now that is actually the present perfect continuous tense, something that started in the past but continues to this day. It started in the past, so it started, the company started a few months ago but it’s still going right now. So that’s the present perfect continuous, and I would really encourage you to visualize this on a timeline. That would be something that started in the past with an arrow coming forward to today. So the company has been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, so the present continuous. What is happening right now? I am really enjoying it, and we are starting, again present continuous, we are starting to see some great results. Then we’re on to the future. Over the next few years I plan to expand. That is one of the forms of the future tense. It’s actually a present tense being used to express an idea in the future. Then we’ve got the use of going to, so I am also going to make, I’m going to make a big effort … so that is the future with going to. So we’ve got a clear time frame in that text, and if you do have a few minutes, I really would encourage you to jump on the website and follow that text through. But really the message is that we are dealing with different time frames. It’s a little bit more complex, but it gives a lot more substance to the story. And that’s one of the differences between a basic level or lower intermediate speaker and an upper intermediate or advanced speaker. The upper intermediate speaker is going to be able to manage these tenses much more comfortably, and it really shows, it really, really shows. So if you’re not sure about this, I would really encourage you to give it a go. It really is going to have an impact on your level. It’s one of those things that people do notice. People can tell what tenses you are using, and it makes you sound much more accomplished if you are actually using a range of tenses. It does help of course to visualize that timeline, to visualize where you are, and to plan out your conversations or your stories in advance. Often thinking about something from the past through to the present, and then on to the future is the easiest way of doing things, but as you get even more advanced, you’ll be able to mix up these tenses and mix up these time frames no problem at all. Okay, well I hope you found that useful. I’m going to finish up this episode with our phrase of the week, which is to start from scratch. What does to start from scratch mean? Well, it means to go back to the beginning and start again. To go back to square one is another very similar expression. Let me give you an example. It simply hasn’t worked. We’re going to have to start from scratch. It simply hasn’t worked. We’re going to have to start from scratch, we’re going to have to start from zero. Okay, well that’s it for today. I hope you’ve really enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I really, really, really appreciate it. If you have any questions, you can email me. I’m at info@businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s info@businessenglishcommunity.com. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. Well, that’s it from me for this week. Have a fantastic week ahead, and I’ll see you next time. All the best. Bye for now. The post Episode 3: Using Different Tenses to Improve Your Level appeared first on The Business English Community.

Using different tenses can really help you to improve  – you are going to sound more natural when speaking in English, and be able to describe more complex situations. So, stop using just the present simple tense! This episode shows you exactly how to do it! Here is the sample text that I use in the audio: I read engineering at Bristol University and I graduated in 2006.  Upon graduation, I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learnt a lot about production and product development. After working at the company for 10 years, I decided to become undefended and, in 2018, I set up my own consulting company, helping small companies to get started with engineering projects. The company has only been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, and we are starting to see some great results. Over the next few years, I plan to expand the business, move into new markets, and help technical entrepreneurs from overseas.  I am also going to make a big effort to present at more conferences and to really advance my speaking career. What about you?  Do you use different tenses when speaking English? Let me know in the comments section below. I hope you find this episode useful and all the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: In this episode, I’m going to be talking about how to use different tenses to improve your level. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, technique, vocabulary, grammar, and much much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi there. I hope you’re having a fantastic day so far, and welcome to episode number three of the Business English Community Podcast. I’m your host, Paul Urwin, and if you are an intermediate or advanced speaker of English looking to take your business English to the next level, then this is the podcast for you. Before we get started, I just wanted to invite you to check out our YouTube channel. We have some really fantastic videos on there. You can find a link on our website, or simply enter business English community into YouTube. Okay, well today I’m going to be talking about different tenses and how to use them effectively, but first of all our business word of the week, and this week’s business word is blue chip. Blue chip. You might hear the expression ‘blue chip shares’ or a ‘blue chip company.’ Well, what does that actually mean, or what does that actually refer to? It refers to a company that is a very big company usually, very safe and very well recognized within the marketplace, probably the sort of brand name that you would have heard of. Now, these companies are supposed to be very safe, stable investments although one or two of these blue chip companies have actually gone bankrupt, so they are certainly not protected completely. But they are generally speaking safe, well established companies, companies that would normally appear in indices such as the FTSE 100 in the UK or the S&amp;P or the Standard &amp; Poor’s 500 in the US. Okay, well where does this expression come from? Well, it comes from poker where the blue chips are traditionally the highest value chips, and therefore it makes sense that the blue chip companies or the blue chip shares or the blue chip stocks are the highest value companies, stocks or shares. I’m talking about companies such as Barclays HSBC, GlaxoSmithKline and Diageo to name but a few. They are really well recognized and well established companies, so that’s word of the week: blue chip. Now onto today’s main topic which is all about how to use tenses to improve your level. Now, what happens to a lot of English learners or a lot of business English learners is that they get to a certain level, and they are able to manage certain tenses, but then they take the decision to keep everything simple. Often you will see or often I certainly have the experience of working with many students who operate in one or two tenses, they’ve kind of made the decision to keep things as simple as possible. I think at the beginning that makes a lot of sense. We often receive the advice to keep things simple, but as you look to improve your level of English, I think it is really, really important that you learn how the other tenses work, and you learn how to incorporate them into your language, incorporate them into your written texts, incorporate them into your conversations. It’s going to enable you to sound much more natural. It’s going to make you a more effective communicator. I think with a number of students, their use of tenses particularly keeping things too simple, is something that can be holding them back. So is this an area that is holding you back? Well if it is, the good news is that we can absolutely help you to overcome that. Let’s go through a little bit of an example now. I’m going to give you an example of the type of text or the type of conversation that happens at its most basic level. Here we go. I like to read. I go to church. I watch movies. I like to read. I go to church. I watch movies. So three very simple sentences there, and I’m sure you can understand what is going on, but there’s no time frame attached really to those phrases apart from the fact that they are all in the present of course, but it doesn’t tell any history. It doesn’t give you any history for that particular person. It doesn’t give you any context. It doesn’t give you any idea of what they are planning to do in the future. Often in more complex conversations, it’s really good to focus on a time frame, and to give someone a little bit of a story. Stories are very interesting, and stories really captivate people when you are talking to them. Stories of course do normally include a past, a present and some kind of future. So before we go into this text that I’m going to share with you in just a second, I would really encourage you to start thinking in the past, in the present and in the future. So here’s the example, and it’s based on someone talking about their career. If you want to follow this text, I’m going to put it up on the website, so that is <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree</a>. <a href="http://Businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Businessenglishcommunity.com/episodethree</a>. So, here we go. I read engineering at Bristol University, and I graduated in 2006. Upon graduation, I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learned a lot about production and product development. After working at the company for 10 years, I decided to become independent. In 2018, I set up my own consulting company, helping small companies to get started with engineering projects. The company has only been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, and we are starting to see some great results. Over the next few years, I plan to expand the business, move into new markets, and help technical entrepreneurs from overseas. I am also going to make a big effort to present at more conferences, and to really advance my speaking career. Okay, so that’s in a few different sections of that text, but I’m sure that just listening to it you can appreciate that there’s a lot more depth to it than simply saying something like: I study engineering. I work in a company, and so on. There’s a real timeline associated with that story. So, I read engineering at Bristol University. I graduated in 2006. This is all in the past. I went to work for a local manufacturing company where I learned a lot about production and product development, all in the past. After working at the company for 10 years, so we have a clear point in the timeline there, I then decided, I decided but we’re still in the past, to become independent. In 2018, we’re using an actual date here to again set a point on the timeline, I set up my own consulting company. So now, we move forward to the present. The company has only been going for a few months now. The company has only been going for a few months now. Now that is actually the present perfect continuous tense, something that started in the past but continues to this day. It started in the past, so it started, the company started a few months ago but it’s still going right now. So that’s the present perfect continuous, and I would really encourage you to visualize this on a timeline. That would be something that started in the past with an arrow coming forward to today. So the company has been going for a few months now, but I am really enjoying it, so the present continuous. What is happening right now? I am really enjoying it, and we are starting, again present continuous, we are starting to see some great results. Then we’re on to the future. Over the next few years I plan to expand. That is one of the forms of the future tense. It’s actually a present tense being used to express an idea in the future. Then we’ve got the use of going to, so I am also going to make, I’m going to make a big effort … so that is the future with going to. So we’ve got a clear time frame in that text, and if you do have a few minutes, I really would encourage you to jump on the website and follow that text through. But really the message is that we are dealing with different time frames. It’s a little bit more complex, but it gives a lot more substance to the story. And that’s one of the differences between a basic level or lower intermediate speaker and an upper intermediate or advanced speaker. The upper intermediate speaker is going to be able to manage these tenses much more comfortably, and it really shows, it really, really shows. So if you’re not sure about this, I would really encourage you to give it a go. It really is going to have an impact on your level. It’s one of those things that people do notice. People can tell what tenses you are using, and it makes you sound much more accomplished if you are actually using a range of tenses. It does help of course to visualize that timeline, to visualize where you are, and to plan out your conversations or your stories in advance. Often thinking about something from the past through to the present, and then on to the future is the easiest way of doing things, but as you get even more advanced, you’ll be able to mix up these tenses and mix up these time frames no problem at all. Okay, well I hope you found that useful. I’m going to finish up this episode with our phrase of the week, which is to start from scratch. What does to start from scratch mean? Well, it means to go back to the beginning and start again. To go back to square one is another very similar expression. Let me give you an example. It simply hasn’t worked. We’re going to have to start from scratch. It simply hasn’t worked. We’re going to have to start from scratch, we’re going to have to start from zero. Okay, well that’s it for today. I hope you’ve really enjoyed this episode. Thank you so much for listening. I really, really, really appreciate it. If you have any questions, you can email me. I’m at info@businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s info@businessenglishcommunity.com. If you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Well, that’s it from me for this week. Have a fantastic week ahead, and I’ll see you next time. All the best. Bye for now. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode3/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 3: Using Different Tenses to Improve Your Level</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 3: Using Different Tenses to Improve Your Level

Continuing our series on phrasal verbs! In this episode, I explain 10 more phrasal verbs in a business context – very useful for business English learners! Please let me know if you have any questions. All the best! Paul  Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, part three. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, I’m Paul and welcome to episode eight of the Business English Community podcast. In this episode, I’m going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. If you haven’t listened to the introduction to phrasal verbs, I suggest you check that out. That’s back in episode six. In this episode, I’m going to be going through 10 more examples of phrasal verbs in business, in real business situations. If you want to get in touch, you can email me at info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Don’t forget, we have a podcast out every Tuesday. We have a YouTube video out every Thursday. And if there’s anything in particular that you need help with, then please get in touch, please let me know. I really want to help you take your business English to the next level. Okay, well let’s get cracking with these 10 examples of phrasal verbs. Number one is to look through. To look through something is to read information and find the details that you need and to kind of get the idea of what is going on. To look through something is to physically look at something, to analyze something, and to get an idea of what is happening. Let me give you an example. Have you had a chance to look through the report? Have you had a chance you look through the report? Or what about this one? We’ve had a look through your CV and we would like to invite you to an interview. We’ve had a look through your CV and we would like to invite you to an interview. So just kind of looking at something, analyze something, getting the idea of something, understanding the key information in a particular report or in a particular document perhaps. That’s number one, to look through. Number two, to get on with. Well you can get on with something or you can get on with someone. It’s one of those phrasal verbs that can be used in different ways. It can mean to make progress on something. For example, how are you getting on with the task? How are you getting on with the task? How are you making progress on that particular task? It can also mean to have a good relationship with someone. To get on with someone, means to have a good relationship with that person. An example, I get on well with my colleagues. We have great fun in the office. I get on well with my colleagues. We have great fun in the office. Or what about this one? He’s a difficult customer. Hard to get on with. He’s a difficult customer. Hard to get on with. Difficult to have a good relationship with that particular person in that particular example. So that’s number two, to get on with. Number three, to sum up. To sum up is to kind of give the conclusions for a particular situation, to share a brief recap of the main points discussed. You might hear this towards the end of a meeting. Before we end the meeting, let me sum up with what we’ve agreed on so far. Before we end the meeting, let me sum up what we’ve agreed on so far. So let me give you the main points, or let me give you the main conclusions regarding what we have talked about today. That’s to sum up, to recap the main points discussed. Number four, to call off. If you are calling something off, that means that you are canceling some plans, something that was due to happen, it has now been called off and is now no longer going to happen. So it’s being canceled effectively. The worker strike has been called off as the board have agreed to their demands. The worker strike has been called off as the board have agreed to their demands. What about this one? My meeting has been called off, so I’m available this afternoon. My meeting has been called off, so I’m available this afternoon. That’s number four, to call off. Number five, to put off. We’ve gone from to call off to put off, and this means either to postpone or it can mean that someone has been caused to dislike something or someone. So it can mean to postpone, or it can kind of have this implication of dislike for a particular situation. As always, I’m going to give you a couple of examples. I think it’s much easier for you to get the hang of these phrasal verbs through examples. In terms of postponing, I don’t think we should put this off any longer. We have to take action now. I don’t think we should put this off any longer. We have to take action now. Or, the merger has been put off for now. The merger has been put off for now. You can see that it is a separable phrasal verb. It can be used in a separated form with the two components separated as in put this off. We have separated the two components of the phrasal verb. That’s when it means to postpone. What about when it causes dislike towards someone or something? Again, let me give you these examples. I don’t think he is the best person to represent the company. His manner can put people off. I don’t think he is the best person to represent the company. His manner can put people off. Number six, to write up. To write a report or an article or to write something with notes that you have previously taken down. So you’ve already taken the notes, you’ve already written down some ideas about a particular topic and now you are going to write them up. You’re going to write up those notes. You are going to turn those notes into a real report or into a real article. Jim, would you mind writing up the notes and emailing them to me later today? Jim, would you mind writing up the notes and emailing them to me later today? That’s to write up, to write a report or article using notes that you took earlier on. Number seven, to go over. If you’re asked to go over something you’re being asked to study, to examine, or to review that particular thing. Before we start the meeting, can we go over the monthly figures? Before we start the meeting, can we go over the monthly figures? Can we study them? Can we review them? Can we examine them? So it’s to take a look in some detail at these particular pieces of data in that example, to go over. We can’t sign the deal until we have gone over the contract. We can’t sign the deal until we have gone over the contract, until we have reviewed the contract in some detail. That’s number seven, to go over. Number eight is to figure something out, to figure out. This is a great phrasal verb. You might hear this expression when your colleagues are trying to understand something or to solve a problem. Don’t worry. If we work together, I’m sure we can figure this out. Don’t worry. If we work together, I’m sure we can figure this out. Or what about this one? These figures make no sense. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure it out. These figures make no sense. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure it out. I just can’t make sense of it. I just can’t understand it. That’s number eight, to figure out, when you are trying to solve something or trying to understand a problem. Number nine, to roll out. Roll out, R-O-L-L O-U-T, to roll something out is to make a new service or a product available or to launch something. It’s about sharing something new perhaps with your customers, perhaps with your team, perhaps with a company’s employees. To roll out, to share something new. We expect the new benefits plan to be rolled out within the next month. We expect the new benefits plan to be rolled out within the next month. If the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out to all the other countries later in the year. If the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out to all the other countries later in the year. In that sentence the pilot means the test program. So if the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out, then it will be shared, then it will be also launched in all the other countries later in the year. That’s number nine, to roll out. And number 10, to fall through. Well of course if you fall, then you might be up on some kind of height and you might hit the ground, so you might fall off your chair for example. But this doesn’t relate to any kind of physical falling. It relates to a deal that has collapsed normally or a plan that is not going ahead. So the plan has failed for some reason, making it impossible to proceed. That’s to fall through. You might hear your colleagues talk about plans or possible partnerships or deals falling through. We have to start all over again. The deal has fallen through. We have to start all over again. The deal has fallen through. The sale was almost complete, but at the last stage it fell through. The sale was almost complete, but at the last stage it fell through. That’s number 10, to fall through. Now for a very quick summary, number one, to look through is to read information and to find the details that you need. Number two, to get on with something or someone is to make progress or to have a good relationship with. Number three, to sum up is to recap or to provide a summary or conclusions. Number four, to call something off is to cancel plans. Number five, to put off is to postpone or to cause dislike. Number six, to write up is to write a report or article using notes that you took earlier. Number seven, to go over is to study, to examine or review. Number eight, to figure something out, is to try and understand or solve a problem. Number nine, to roll out is to make a new service or product available. Number 10, to fall through is when something has failed. That’s this session on phrasal verbs. I hope you found it useful. Please let me know if you have any questions. Please let me know if there’s any phrasal verbs in particular that you would like me to cover. You can email me info@businessenglishcommunity.com. You can contact me via the website. Don’t forget, new podcast episode every single Tuesday, and new YouTube video every single Thursday. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you so much for listening wherever you are in the world. I wish you a wonderful day ahead, all the very best, and please let me know how I can help you. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and Ask Me Anything course, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s it from me. Thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time. The post Episode 8: Phrasal Verbs for Business III appeared first on The Business English Community.

Continuing our series on phrasal verbs! In this episode, I explain 10 more phrasal verbs in a business context – very useful for business English learners! Please let me know if you have any questions. All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: Phrasal Verbs for Business, part three. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi, I’m Paul and welcome to episode eight of the Business English Community podcast. In this episode, I’m going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. If you haven’t listened to the introduction to phrasal verbs, I suggest you check that out. That’s back in episode six. In this episode, I’m going to be going through 10 more examples of phrasal verbs in business, in real business situations. If you want to get in touch, you can email me at info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Don’t forget, we have a podcast out every Tuesday. We have a YouTube video out every Thursday. And if there’s anything in particular that you need help with, then please get in touch, please let me know. I really want to help you take your business English to the next level. Okay, well let’s get cracking with these 10 examples of phrasal verbs. Number one is to look through. To look through something is to read information and find the details that you need and to kind of get the idea of what is going on. To look through something is to physically look at something, to analyze something, and to get an idea of what is happening. Let me give you an example. Have you had a chance to look through the report? Have you had a chance you look through the report? Or what about this one? We’ve had a look through your CV and we would like to invite you to an interview. We’ve had a look through your CV and we would like to invite you to an interview. So just kind of looking at something, analyze something, getting the idea of something, understanding the key information in a particular report or in a particular document perhaps. That’s number one, to look through. Number two, to get on with. Well you can get on with something or you can get on with someone. It’s one of those phrasal verbs that can be used in different ways. It can mean to make progress on something. For example, how are you getting on with the task? How are you getting on with the task? How are you making progress on that particular task? It can also mean to have a good relationship with someone. To get on with someone, means to have a good relationship with that person. An example, I get on well with my colleagues. We have great fun in the office. I get on well with my colleagues. We have great fun in the office. Or what about this one? He’s a difficult customer. Hard to get on with. He’s a difficult customer. Hard to get on with. Difficult to have a good relationship with that particular person in that particular example. So that’s number two, to get on with. Number three, to sum up. To sum up is to kind of give the conclusions for a particular situation, to share a brief recap of the main points discussed. You might hear this towards the end of a meeting. Before we end the meeting, let me sum up with what we’ve agreed on so far. Before we end the meeting, let me sum up what we’ve agreed on so far. So let me give you the main points, or let me give you the main conclusions regarding what we have talked about today. That’s to sum up, to recap the main points discussed. Number four, to call off. If you are calling something off, that means that you are canceling some plans, something that was due to happen, it has now been called off and is now no longer going to happen. So it’s being canceled effectively. The worker strike has been called off as the board have agreed to their demands. The worker strike has been called off as the board have agreed to their demands. What about this one? My meeting has been called off, so I’m available this afternoon. My meeting has been called off, so I’m available this afternoon. That’s number four, to call off. Number five, to put off. We’ve gone from to call off to put off, and this means either to postpone or it can mean that someone has been caused to dislike something or someone. So it can mean to postpone, or it can kind of have this implication of dislike for a particular situation. As always, I’m going to give you a couple of examples. I think it’s much easier for you to get the hang of these phrasal verbs through examples. In terms of postponing, I don’t think we should put this off any longer. We have to take action now. I don’t think we should put this off any longer. We have to take action now. Or, the merger has been put off for now. The merger has been put off for now. You can see that it is a separable phrasal verb. It can be used in a separated form with the two components separated as in put this off. We have separated the two components of the phrasal verb. That’s when it means to postpone. What about when it causes dislike towards someone or something? Again, let me give you these examples. I don’t think he is the best person to represent the company. His manner can put people off. I don’t think he is the best person to represent the company. His manner can put people off. Number six, to write up. To write a report or an article or to write something with notes that you have previously taken down. So you’ve already taken the notes, you’ve already written down some ideas about a particular topic and now you are going to write them up. You’re going to write up those notes. You are going to turn those notes into a real report or into a real article. Jim, would you mind writing up the notes and emailing them to me later today? Jim, would you mind writing up the notes and emailing them to me later today? That’s to write up, to write a report or article using notes that you took earlier on. Number seven, to go over. If you’re asked to go over something you’re being asked to study, to examine, or to review that particular thing. Before we start the meeting, can we go over the monthly figures? Before we start the meeting, can we go over the monthly figures? Can we study them? Can we review them? Can we examine them? So it’s to take a look in some detail at these particular pieces of data in that example, to go over. We can’t sign the deal until we have gone over the contract. We can’t sign the deal until we have gone over the contract, until we have reviewed the contract in some detail. That’s number seven, to go over. Number eight is to figure something out, to figure out. This is a great phrasal verb. You might hear this expression when your colleagues are trying to understand something or to solve a problem. Don’t worry. If we work together, I’m sure we can figure this out. Don’t worry. If we work together, I’m sure we can figure this out. Or what about this one? These figures make no sense. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure it out. These figures make no sense. No matter how hard I try, I just can’t figure it out. I just can’t make sense of it. I just can’t understand it. That’s number eight, to figure out, when you are trying to solve something or trying to understand a problem. Number nine, to roll out. Roll out, R-O-L-L O-U-T, to roll something out is to make a new service or a product available or to launch something. It’s about sharing something new perhaps with your customers, perhaps with your team, perhaps with a company’s employees. To roll out, to share something new. We expect the new benefits plan to be rolled out within the next month. We expect the new benefits plan to be rolled out within the next month. If the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out to all the other countries later in the year. If the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out to all the other countries later in the year. In that sentence the pilot means the test program. So if the pilot is successful, then it will be rolled out, then it will be shared, then it will be also launched in all the other countries later in the year. That’s number nine, to roll out. And number 10, to fall through. Well of course if you fall, then you might be up on some kind of height and you might hit the ground, so you might fall off your chair for example. But this doesn’t relate to any kind of physical falling. It relates to a deal that has collapsed normally or a plan that is not going ahead. So the plan has failed for some reason, making it impossible to proceed. That’s to fall through. You might hear your colleagues talk about plans or possible partnerships or deals falling through. We have to start all over again. The deal has fallen through. We have to start all over again. The deal has fallen through. The sale was almost complete, but at the last stage it fell through. The sale was almost complete, but at the last stage it fell through. That’s number 10, to fall through. Now for a very quick summary, number one, to look through is to read information and to find the details that you need. Number two, to get on with something or someone is to make progress or to have a good relationship with. Number three, to sum up is to recap or to provide a summary or conclusions. Number four, to call something off is to cancel plans. Number five, to put off is to postpone or to cause dislike. Number six, to write up is to write a report or article using notes that you took earlier. Number seven, to go over is to study, to examine or review. Number eight, to figure something out, is to try and understand or solve a problem. Number nine, to roll out is to make a new service or product available. Number 10, to fall through is when something has failed. That’s this session on phrasal verbs. I hope you found it useful. Please let me know if you have any questions. Please let me know if there’s any phrasal verbs in particular that you would like me to cover. You can email me info@businessenglishcommunity.com. You can contact me via the website. Don’t forget, new podcast episode every single Tuesday, and new YouTube video every single Thursday. Thank you so much for your support. Thank you so much for listening wherever you are in the world. I wish you a wonderful day ahead, all the very best, and please let me know how I can help you. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and Ask Me Anything course, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it from me. Thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode-8-phrasal-verbs-for-business-iii/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 8: Phrasal Verbs for Business III</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 8: Phrasal Verbs for Business III

Here’s the fourth part of the phrasal verbs series.  I hope you find it useful and please let me know if you have any questions.  Here is the full transcript: Phrasal verbs for business, part four. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi there. Paul here, and welcome to episode nine of the Business English Community Podcast. In this episode, we are going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. First of all, if you haven’t signed up for your free training, completely free, I recommend that you visit the Business English Community website, that’s businessenglishcommunity.com, and go and get your free training. There’s also something else that’s pretty important that I wanted to share with you, and that is the fact that you can read exactly what I am saying in this podcast at the same time as you are listening. That is known as a transcript, an audio transcript, the text that goes along with this audio. It’s completely free, and you can find it on the website. Just go to the podcast section at the top, find the podcast that you are listening to. If you’re listening to it on the website already, you will see the text there, but if you are listening on iTunes, or Stitcher, or somewhere else, just go to the website and find the text, and you can follow through exactly what I am saying at the same time as I’m saying it, so very, very useful for many students, and again, completely free. So, worth checking that out. Right, well let’s get started with this week’s 10 phrasal verbs. Number one is to screw up, to screw up. Well, this is definitely an informal phrasal verb, and to screw up means to make a bad mistake or a significant mistake, to mismanage something, or to mishandle something, to put it simply, to do something wrong or to make a pretty bad mistake. So let me give you an example. I gave you one simple job to do and you just screwed it up completely. I gave you one simple job to do and you just screwed it up completely. So that’s number one, to screw up. Number two, to zero in on, to zero in on. Well, if you are zeroing in on something, well, you are focusing on something. You are really highlighting, or directing your efforts, towards a particular topic or a particular issue. The authorities have really zeroed in on unethical selling practices. The authorities have really zeroed in on unethical selling practices. They have focused on those unethical selling practices. They’ve zeroed in on them. So that’s number two, to zero in on. Number three, to run into. Well, this is another one of those polysemous phrasal verbs. It can have several different meanings, and the first one is to meet someone or to come across something by chance. So, I ran into Jackie from HR the other day. I ran into Jackie from HR the other day. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually physically running. It means that you were perhaps out and about somewhere, and that you encountered her, or you met her, by chance. I ran into Jackie from HR the other day, Jackie from human resources. It can also mean to reach a particular amount, to run into. The level of debt is incredible. It could run into millions. The level of debt is incredible. It could run into millions. So that’s to reach a particular amount, to run into. And it can also mean to start to have difficulties or problems. The project started well, but it has run into lots of issues this year. The project started well, but it has run into lots of issues this year. That’s number three, to run into. It can mean to meet someone or something by chance, to reach a particular amount, or to start to have difficulties or problems. Number four, slightly different, to run by. So I’ve changed into to by, to run by, to run by. Well, this means to check with someone in order to get their approval. If I’m going to run something by someone, I’m going to ask them, or I’m going to get them to give their okay, or their approval on the particular matter. I’m fine with it, but please run it by Jessica before going ahead. I’m fine with it, but please run it by Jessica before going ahead. That’s number four, to run by. Number five, to hand in. Well, to hand in something is to deliver something, for example a project. You can hand in a project, or you can also hand in your notice. If you hand in your notice, that is when you are leaving a particular company, so you can physically deliver something, or you can hand in a letter that states that you are resigning from the company. Let me give you an example of that one. He won’t be here much longer. He’s handed in his notice. He won’t be here much longer. He’s handed in his notice. That’s number five, to hand in. Number six, to cut back on, to cut back on. Well, that means to reduce costs, or to reduce expenditure, to reduce the amount of money that is being paid out. We are going to have to cut back on advertising. We are going to have to cut back on advertising. That’s number six, to cut back on. Number seven, to count on. Well, if you are counting on someone, you’re really relying on them, or you are depending on them, to help you in some way. You’re really going to count on someone to support you, or count on someone to help you. I’m really counting on you to make this sale. I am really counting on you to make this sale. That’s number seven, to count on. Number eight is to hang on, to hang on. Well, that can mean to hold on, to hold onto something, or to hold on tightly, or to cling to something, and it can be used in a physical sense, so you could be hanging onto the edge of a cliff, for example. Let’s hope not, but you could be hanging onto the edge of a cliff. You can imagine a movie where someone … If you’re watching a movie and someone is about to fall off the edge of a cliff, then I’m sure they’ll be desperately trying to hang on. So it does have that physical sense to it. But it also can be used in a more business context, and it can mean still to hold onto something, or to be clinging onto something, but instead of clinging onto a cliff, perhaps you’re going to be clinging onto your job, so let me give you an example of that one. He’s hanging on for now, but I think he’s going to be fired soon. He’s hanging on for now, but I think he’s going to be fired soon. He’s just about managing to hang onto his job for the time being. It can also mean to wait for a short time, just hang on a second. Hang on a minute, I’ll be there shortly. Hang on a minute, and I’ll be right with you. Hang on a minute, and I’ll be right with you. So that’s number eight, to hold onto something, or to wait for a short time. Number nine, to pitch in. Well, to pitch in is to share an idea, or to share something, as part of a group, perhaps to share responsibility. If you are pitching in, you’re definitely not doing something on your own. You might be giving your individual contribution, but it definitely has this idea of being part of a group, so to pitch in, to share an idea or to do something as part of a group. Let me give you an example of that one. We all pitched in to make sure it was finished by close of business on Friday. We all pitched in to make sure it was finished by close of business on Friday. So that’s number nine, to pitch in. And number 10, to get ahead. Well, if you are going to get ahead, that means you are going to become successful. You’re going to rise to the top, perhaps in the corporate environment. So, if you want to get ahead in this business, you’ll have to learn how to deal with difficult clients. If you want to get ahead in this business, you’ll have to learn how to deal with difficult clients. So that means to succeed, to become successful, to get to the top, or to rise to the top in a particular business. That’s number 10, to get ahead. Time for a quick summary. Number one, to screw up. That’s an informal one that means to make a significant mistake. Number two, to zero in on, to focus on something. Number three, to run into. That can mean to meet someone or something by chance, to reach a particular amount, or to start to have difficulties or problems. Number four, to run by, to check with someone to get their approval. Number five, to hand in, to deliver something such as a project or notice to leave the company. Number six, to cut back on, to reduce costs or expenditure. Number seven, to count on, to rely or depend on. Number eight, to hang on, to hold onto or to wait for a short time. Number nine, to pitch in, to share an idea or to do something as part of a group. And number 10, to get ahead, to become successful. Well, that’s the end, or that brings us to the end of this session on phrasal verbs. Thank you so much for listening as always, and don’t forget to sign up for that free training on the website. That’s www.businessenglishcommunity.com. If you’ve got any questions for me at all, you can also go through the website. There is a contact form on the website. I’d really love to hear from you wherever you are in the world. Please let me know how you’re getting on with this series on phrasal verbs. Share your concerns. Let me know your questions and I can help you achieve your business English goals. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessenglishcommunity.com. That’s it from me. Thanks for listening. All the best, and until next time.   The post Episode 9: Phrasal Verbs for Business IV appeared first on The Business English Community.

Here’s the fourth part of the phrasal verbs series.  I hope you find it useful and please let me know if you have any questions. Here is the full transcript: Phrasal verbs for business, part four. Hi there. I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi there. Paul here, and welcome to episode nine of the Business English Community Podcast. In this episode, we are going to be continuing with the series on phrasal verbs. First of all, if you haven’t signed up for your free training, completely free, I recommend that you visit the Business English Community website, that’s <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>, and go and get your free training. There’s also something else that’s pretty important that I wanted to share with you, and that is the fact that you can read exactly what I am saying in this podcast at the same time as you are listening. That is known as a transcript, an audio transcript, the text that goes along with this audio. It’s completely free, and you can find it on the website. Just go to the podcast section at the top, find the podcast that you are listening to. If you’re listening to it on the website already, you will see the text there, but if you are listening on iTunes, or Stitcher, or somewhere else, just go to the website and find the text, and you can follow through exactly what I am saying at the same time as I’m saying it, so very, very useful for many students, and again, completely free. So, worth checking that out. Right, well let’s get started with this week’s 10 phrasal verbs. Number one is to screw up, to screw up. Well, this is definitely an informal phrasal verb, and to screw up means to make a bad mistake or a significant mistake, to mismanage something, or to mishandle something, to put it simply, to do something wrong or to make a pretty bad mistake. So let me give you an example. I gave you one simple job to do and you just screwed it up completely. I gave you one simple job to do and you just screwed it up completely. So that’s number one, to screw up. Number two, to zero in on, to zero in on. Well, if you are zeroing in on something, well, you are focusing on something. You are really highlighting, or directing your efforts, towards a particular topic or a particular issue. The authorities have really zeroed in on unethical selling practices. The authorities have really zeroed in on unethical selling practices. They have focused on those unethical selling practices. They’ve zeroed in on them. So that’s number two, to zero in on. Number three, to run into. Well, this is another one of those polysemous phrasal verbs. It can have several different meanings, and the first one is to meet someone or to come across something by chance. So, I ran into Jackie from HR the other day. I ran into Jackie from HR the other day. It doesn’t mean that you’re actually physically running. It means that you were perhaps out and about somewhere, and that you encountered her, or you met her, by chance. I ran into Jackie from HR the other day, Jackie from human resources. It can also mean to reach a particular amount, to run into. The level of debt is incredible. It could run into millions. The level of debt is incredible. It could run into millions. So that’s to reach a particular amount, to run into. And it can also mean to start to have difficulties or problems. The project started well, but it has run into lots of issues this year. The project started well, but it has run into lots of issues this year. That’s number three, to run into. It can mean to meet someone or something by chance, to reach a particular amount, or to start to have difficulties or problems. Number four, slightly different, to run by. So I’ve changed into to by, to run by, to run by. Well, this means to check with someone in order to get their approval. If I’m going to run something by someone, I’m going to ask them, or I’m going to get them to give their okay, or their approval on the particular matter. I’m fine with it, but please run it by Jessica before going ahead. I’m fine with it, but please run it by Jessica before going ahead. That’s number four, to run by. Number five, to hand in. Well, to hand in something is to deliver something, for example a project. You can hand in a project, or you can also hand in your notice. If you hand in your notice, that is when you are leaving a particular company, so you can physically deliver something, or you can hand in a letter that states that you are resigning from the company. Let me give you an example of that one. He won’t be here much longer. He’s handed in his notice. He won’t be here much longer. He’s handed in his notice. That’s number five, to hand in. Number six, to cut back on, to cut back on. Well, that means to reduce costs, or to reduce expenditure, to reduce the amount of money that is being paid out. We are going to have to cut back on advertising. We are going to have to cut back on advertising. That’s number six, to cut back on. Number seven, to count on. Well, if you are counting on someone, you’re really relying on them, or you are depending on them, to help you in some way. You’re really going to count on someone to support you, or count on someone to help you. I’m really counting on you to make this sale. I am really counting on you to make this sale. That’s number seven, to count on. Number eight is to hang on, to hang on. Well, that can mean to hold on, to hold onto something, or to hold on tightly, or to cling to something, and it can be used in a physical sense, so you could be hanging onto the edge of a cliff, for example. Let’s hope not, but you could be hanging onto the edge of a cliff. You can imagine a movie where someone … If you’re watching a movie and someone is about to fall off the edge of a cliff, then I’m sure they’ll be desperately trying to hang on. So it does have that physical sense to it. But it also can be used in a more business context, and it can mean still to hold onto something, or to be clinging onto something, but instead of clinging onto a cliff, perhaps you’re going to be clinging onto your job, so let me give you an example of that one. He’s hanging on for now, but I think he’s going to be fired soon. He’s hanging on for now, but I think he’s going to be fired soon. He’s just about managing to hang onto his job for the time being. It can also mean to wait for a short time, just hang on a second. Hang on a minute, I’ll be there shortly. Hang on a minute, and I’ll be right with you. Hang on a minute, and I’ll be right with you. So that’s number eight, to hold onto something, or to wait for a short time. Number nine, to pitch in. Well, to pitch in is to share an idea, or to share something, as part of a group, perhaps to share responsibility. If you are pitching in, you’re definitely not doing something on your own. You might be giving your individual contribution, but it definitely has this idea of being part of a group, so to pitch in, to share an idea or to do something as part of a group. Let me give you an example of that one. We all pitched in to make sure it was finished by close of business on Friday. We all pitched in to make sure it was finished by close of business on Friday. So that’s number nine, to pitch in. And number 10, to get ahead. Well, if you are going to get ahead, that means you are going to become successful. You’re going to rise to the top, perhaps in the corporate environment. So, if you want to get ahead in this business, you’ll have to learn how to deal with difficult clients. If you want to get ahead in this business, you’ll have to learn how to deal with difficult clients. So that means to succeed, to become successful, to get to the top, or to rise to the top in a particular business. That’s number 10, to get ahead. Time for a quick summary. Number one, to screw up. That’s an informal one that means to make a significant mistake. Number two, to zero in on, to focus on something. Number three, to run into. That can mean to meet someone or something by chance, to reach a particular amount, or to start to have difficulties or problems. Number four, to run by, to check with someone to get their approval. Number five, to hand in, to deliver something such as a project or notice to leave the company. Number six, to cut back on, to reduce costs or expenditure. Number seven, to count on, to rely or depend on. Number eight, to hang on, to hold onto or to wait for a short time. Number nine, to pitch in, to share an idea or to do something as part of a group. And number 10, to get ahead, to become successful. Well, that’s the end, or that brings us to the end of this session on phrasal verbs. Thank you so much for listening as always, and don’t forget to sign up for that free training on the website. That’s <a href="http://www.businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. If you’ve got any questions for me at all, you can also go through the website. There is a contact form on the website. I’d really love to hear from you wherever you are in the world. Please let me know how you’re getting on with this series on phrasal verbs. Share your concerns. Let me know your questions and I can help you achieve your business English goals. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask me anything calls, and very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it from me. Thanks for listening. All the best, and until next time. The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode9/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 9: Phrasal Verbs for Business IV</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 9: Phrasal Verbs for Business IV

In this episode, I continue with the phrasal verbs for business series. Each episode (apart from the introduction) covers 10 phrasal verbs and discusses their use in real business situations. I know that many business English learners have difficulties with phrasal verb, and I really hope that these podcasts are going to help you become very comfortable at using phrasal verbs.  Here is the full transcript: Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi there, Paul here, and welcome to episode seven of the Business English Community Podcast. This is the episode where we’re really going to get into these examples of phrasal verbs. If you haven’t listened to the introduction, I would really suggest that you go and listen to that first, that’s episode six, phrasal verbs one. And in that episode, I explained a little bit of the theory about phrasal verbs. So, either before listening to this episode, or if you want to finish this episode, which includes examples of phrasal verbs, and then go back, I would really suggest that you listen to that introduction. Anyway, as I said, I hope you’re having a great week so far, and really there are lots of things going on within the community. So, we have a podcast coming out every Tuesday, we have a YouTube video coming out every Thursday, we have articles up on the website. So there are many, many opportunities for you to get involved with what we are doing. And one of the reasons I chose community for those company is that it really is a community, it really involves all of you. I really value all of your opinions, and especially all of your needs when it comes to learning English, and learning business English in particular, because without your opinion and without your guidance, I don’t know what topics are causing you the most difficulties. In fact, that’s one of the main reason why I decided to do this series on phrasal verbs, because I know how difficult it is for many people. So, if you do wish to get in contact, you can email me, I’m info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Or you can simply fill in a form on the website, businessenglishcommunity.com, and let me know how I can help you. Okay, well let’s get started with this week’s phrasal verbs, from one to ten. Number one, is to set up, to set up. Well, this one has several different meanings, and in these examples, first of all I’m not going to go through every single meaning, I’m going to try and cover the main meanings, because some phrasal verbs simply have too many variations. And the other point that I wanted to remind you of is that I’m going to try and use examples from business English, or from business situations. This is of course the Business English Community, and I try to focus on business related examples. If you’re interested in general English, this will still be a massive, massive help to you when it comes to phrasal verbs. So number one, to set up. Several different meanings, the first one is to start something, such as a business. An example, they have set up an office in Miami. They have set up an office in Miami. So it can mean to start something, such as a business. Another meaning is to organize something, to organize something such as a meeting. She wants to set up a meeting for next Tuesday. She wants to set up a meeting for next Tuesday. So we already have two different meanings for the phrasal verb to set up. Here’s a third meaning, to put some kind of structure in place, to put some kind of structure in a particular location. So, they set up a mobile office by the train station to help with the extra customers. They set up a mobile office by the train station to help with the extra customers. You can just imagine someone setting up this sort of structure in that particular location. Or what about, and this is the final example for to set up, what about to get a piece of equipment ready for use. I’m sure you’ve heard the term to set up a computer, and here’s an example, the new computers have been set up and are ready to use. The new computers have been set up and are ready to use. A great phrasal verb, to set up, very useful, a number of different meanings. That’s number one. Number two, to help out, to help out. Well, to help out is to do a part of someone’s work, or to give someone money. So, in terms of doing a part of someone’s work, if you’re helping out you’re maybe giving them a hand, you’re helping them along. You’re sharing their task or their workload, or helping them with a project. Something like that, so that’s to help someone else. Can you please help me out with the projections? Can you please help me out with the projections? And what about giving someone money, how is that helping out? Well, someone may need some extra money, and they just want you to help out with a little bit of extra cash in order to get their project started, for example. I need $10,000 to get my business started, and I hope that you can help me out. I need $10,000 to get my business started, and I hope that you can help me out. So that’s number two, to help out. Number three is to find out, to find out. That means to discover, or to learn something. To find something out. We’re going to have to find out what the case history says. We’re going to have to find out what the case history says. You’re going to have to discover it, you’re going to have to learn what that particular case history says. It can also mean to catch, let me give you an example. He was stealing, and someone found him out, someone caught him. He was stealing, and someone found him out. So that’s another example of the phrasal verb to find out. Number four, to get through. Well, I’m going to cover three different meanings for to get through. The first one is to deal with something difficult, if you get through something you’re passing through, or dealing with a difficult time. And the idea of getting through it is to come out the other side having dealt with that particular problem or issue. Here’s an example, the company will get through these difficult times. The company will get through these difficult times. Second example is to connect on the phone, to connect with someone on the phone. Can you get through to someone on the phone? Did you get through to a particular contact? I tried to speak to Martin, but I couldn’t get through. I tried to speak to Martin, but I couldn’t get through. So you’re trying to connect to someone on the phone, in that example, to get through is to connect on the phone. And finally, to get through can also mean to pass a test, or to pass an exam. Don’t worry, you’ll get through the exam easily. Don’t worry, you’ll get through the exam easily. So, in that example it’s all about overcoming a particular hurdle, and the hurdle is the exam, or the test. So, three different meanings of to get through, to deal with something difficult, to connect on the phone, or to pass a test or exam. Number five, to knock down, to knock down. This is a little bit informal, and it means, normally, to reduce prices, to reduce the price of something is to knock that price down. One way to get quick results would be to knock down the prices. One way to get quick results would be to knock down the prices. So that’s number five, to knock down. Number six, to weigh up. Well, to weigh up is to think carefully about something, to evaluate the pluses and minuses, or the pros and cons, or the advantages and disadvantages of something, before taking a decision. So I would like you to imagine someone with something in each hand, and moving their hands up and down, weighing up, checking the weight of those two items, to try and decide which one is the best. That gives you a visual picture of to weigh up. It’s to consider, to consider the pros and cons of something, before taking an educated decision. You’ve considered everything, and now you are going to take your decision. So that’s to weigh up. Let me give you an example, she weighed up the pros and cons very carefully before deciding to move to Paris. She weighed up the pros and cons very carefully before deciding to move to Paris. So that’s number six, to weigh up. And number seven is to run out of, to run out of. Now, to run out of means to be used up, or exhausted. To be finished. To run out of something means that there is no more of that particular something left. Easy to explain with an example of course, here we go. Around the globe, we are simply running out of oil. Around the globe, we are simply running out of oil. That’s number seven, to run out of. Number eight, to measure up. Now, when I hear those words, to measure up, I can imagine an engineer on a building site with some kind of measure, some kind of tape measure perhaps, taking measurements of the location in order to build something. And that is absolutely one of the uses of this particular phrasal verb, it’s to take measurements, to measure up. So I might say they are measuring up for her new office. They are measuring up for her new office. So that is the physical description of to measure up, and it is used in that context. But it also has another meaning, and it means to be good enough, to be good enough for something. Do you measure up to the task? Are you good enough for that particular task? The question is, when it comes to the demands of the job, will he measure up? The question is, when it comes to the demands of the job, will he measure up? So in that phrase, or in that sentence, I mean is he going to be good enough for that particular job? Is he going to measure up to the task? So, two meanings, to be good enough, or to actually physically measure something. Number nine, to give up, to give up on something. Well, to give up is to stop trying, you don’t really want to know about it any more. You’ve had enough, and you’re going to give up. The project was just too expensive, and they have given up on it completely. The project was just too expensive, and they have given up on it completely. They have stopped trying with that particular project. It can also mean to yield control, to give up control of something. He gave up his voting rights, as part of the takeover. He gave up his voting rights, as part of the takeover. So it can mean either to stop trying, that you’ve had enough, or someone has had enough with a particular situation and they don’t see any future in that situation, and therefore they’re going to leave it, they’re going to give up. They’re going to stop trying. Or, it can mean to yield or to cede, to give up rights over something, such as in that voting rights example. He gave up his voting rights as part of the takeover. And finally for this session, number 10, to look into. What does to look into mean? Well, it means to investigate. There is definitely something going on there, Claudia is going to look into the legal implications. There is definitely something going on there, Claudia is going to look into the legal implications. So to investigate, to find out what is really going on. What’s going on with the merger? I’m not sure, but I’ll have a look into it for you. I’ll have a look into for you. I’ll investigate for you. That’s number 10, that’s to look into. Okay, time for a quick recap, number one, to set up. Several meanings, to start something such as a business, to organize something such as a meeting, to build some kind of structure, or to get a piece of equipment ready for use. Number two, to help out. To do a part of someone’s work, or to give someone some money. Number three, to find out. That’s to discover, or to learn. Or, alternatively, to catch someone. Number four, to get through. That can mean to deal with something difficult, to connect on the phone, or to pass a test. Number five, to knock down. This is an informal one, it means to reduce the price. Number six, to weight up, to think carefully about something before making a decision. Number seven, to run out of, to be used up or exhausted. Number eight, to measure up. To physical measure something, or to be good enough for something. Number nine, to give up, means to stop trying, or to yield control. And number 10, to look into means to investigate. And that brings us to the end of this session on phrasal verbs, 10 phrasal verbs that you can start using in your own real conversations, and in your own writing. And we have 40 more phrasal verbs to come, remember this is a series of 50 phrasal verbs in total. Don’t forget the introduction, that’s back in episode six. Together with the examples, I think this is really going to provide a good foundation for you to get started in phrasal verbs. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. You can contact me via the website, that’s www.businessenglishcommunity.com. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at businessenglishcommunity.com. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners, who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask me anything calls. And, very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at businessneglishcommunity.com. That’s it from me, thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time …     The post Episode 7: Phrasal Verbs for Business II appeared first on The Business English Community.

In this episode, I continue with the phrasal verbs for business series. Each episode (apart from the introduction) covers 10 phrasal verbs and discusses their use in real business situations. I know that many business English learners have difficulties with phrasal verb, and I really hope that these podcasts are going to help you become very comfortable at using phrasal verbs. Here is the full transcript: Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community Podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Hi there, Paul here, and welcome to episode seven of the Business English Community Podcast. This is the episode where we’re really going to get into these examples of phrasal verbs. If you haven’t listened to the introduction, I would really suggest that you go and listen to that first, that’s episode six, phrasal verbs one. And in that episode, I explained a little bit of the theory about phrasal verbs. So, either before listening to this episode, or if you want to finish this episode, which includes examples of phrasal verbs, and then go back, I would really suggest that you listen to that introduction. Anyway, as I said, I hope you’re having a great week so far, and really there are lots of things going on within the community. So, we have a podcast coming out every Tuesday, we have a YouTube video coming out every Thursday, we have articles up on the website. So there are many, many opportunities for you to get involved with what we are doing. And one of the reasons I chose community for those company is that it really is a community, it really involves all of you. I really value all of your opinions, and especially all of your needs when it comes to learning English, and learning business English in particular, because without your opinion and without your guidance, I don’t know what topics are causing you the most difficulties. In fact, that’s one of the main reason why I decided to do this series on phrasal verbs, because I know how difficult it is for many people. So, if you do wish to get in contact, you can email me, I’m info@businessenglishcommunity.com. Or you can simply fill in a form on the website, <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>, and let me know how I can help you. Okay, well let’s get started with this week’s phrasal verbs, from one to ten. Number one, is to set up, to set up. Well, this one has several different meanings, and in these examples, first of all I’m not going to go through every single meaning, I’m going to try and cover the main meanings, because some phrasal verbs simply have too many variations. And the other point that I wanted to remind you of is that I’m going to try and use examples from business English, or from business situations. This is of course the Business English Community, and I try to focus on business related examples. If you’re interested in general English, this will still be a massive, massive help to you when it comes to phrasal verbs. So number one, to set up. Several different meanings, the first one is to start something, such as a business. An example, they have set up an office in Miami. They have set up an office in Miami. So it can mean to start something, such as a business. Another meaning is to organize something, to organize something such as a meeting. She wants to set up a meeting for next Tuesday. She wants to set up a meeting for next Tuesday. So we already have two different meanings for the phrasal verb to set up. Here’s a third meaning, to put some kind of structure in place, to put some kind of structure in a particular location. So, they set up a mobile office by the train station to help with the extra customers. They set up a mobile office by the train station to help with the extra customers. You can just imagine someone setting up this sort of structure in that particular location. Or what about, and this is the final example for to set up, what about to get a piece of equipment ready for use. I’m sure you’ve heard the term to set up a computer, and here’s an example, the new computers have been set up and are ready to use. The new computers have been set up and are ready to use. A great phrasal verb, to set up, very useful, a number of different meanings. That’s number one. Number two, to help out, to help out. Well, to help out is to do a part of someone’s work, or to give someone money. So, in terms of doing a part of someone’s work, if you’re helping out you’re maybe giving them a hand, you’re helping them along. You’re sharing their task or their workload, or helping them with a project. Something like that, so that’s to help someone else. Can you please help me out with the projections? Can you please help me out with the projections? And what about giving someone money, how is that helping out? Well, someone may need some extra money, and they just want you to help out with a little bit of extra cash in order to get their project started, for example. I need $10,000 to get my business started, and I hope that you can help me out. I need $10,000 to get my business started, and I hope that you can help me out. So that’s number two, to help out. Number three is to find out, to find out. That means to discover, or to learn something. To find something out. We’re going to have to find out what the case history says. We’re going to have to find out what the case history says. You’re going to have to discover it, you’re going to have to learn what that particular case history says. It can also mean to catch, let me give you an example. He was stealing, and someone found him out, someone caught him. He was stealing, and someone found him out. So that’s another example of the phrasal verb to find out. Number four, to get through. Well, I’m going to cover three different meanings for to get through. The first one is to deal with something difficult, if you get through something you’re passing through, or dealing with a difficult time. And the idea of getting through it is to come out the other side having dealt with that particular problem or issue. Here’s an example, the company will get through these difficult times. The company will get through these difficult times. Second example is to connect on the phone, to connect with someone on the phone. Can you get through to someone on the phone? Did you get through to a particular contact? I tried to speak to Martin, but I couldn’t get through. I tried to speak to Martin, but I couldn’t get through. So you’re trying to connect to someone on the phone, in that example, to get through is to connect on the phone. And finally, to get through can also mean to pass a test, or to pass an exam. Don’t worry, you’ll get through the exam easily. Don’t worry, you’ll get through the exam easily. So, in that example it’s all about overcoming a particular hurdle, and the hurdle is the exam, or the test. So, three different meanings of to get through, to deal with something difficult, to connect on the phone, or to pass a test or exam. Number five, to knock down, to knock down. This is a little bit informal, and it means, normally, to reduce prices, to reduce the price of something is to knock that price down. One way to get quick results would be to knock down the prices. One way to get quick results would be to knock down the prices. So that’s number five, to knock down. Number six, to weigh up. Well, to weigh up is to think carefully about something, to evaluate the pluses and minuses, or the pros and cons, or the advantages and disadvantages of something, before taking a decision. So I would like you to imagine someone with something in each hand, and moving their hands up and down, weighing up, checking the weight of those two items, to try and decide which one is the best. That gives you a visual picture of to weigh up. It’s to consider, to consider the pros and cons of something, before taking an educated decision. You’ve considered everything, and now you are going to take your decision. So that’s to weigh up. Let me give you an example, she weighed up the pros and cons very carefully before deciding to move to Paris. She weighed up the pros and cons very carefully before deciding to move to Paris. So that’s number six, to weigh up. And number seven is to run out of, to run out of. Now, to run out of means to be used up, or exhausted. To be finished. To run out of something means that there is no more of that particular something left. Easy to explain with an example of course, here we go. Around the globe, we are simply running out of oil. Around the globe, we are simply running out of oil. That’s number seven, to run out of. Number eight, to measure up. Now, when I hear those words, to measure up, I can imagine an engineer on a building site with some kind of measure, some kind of tape measure perhaps, taking measurements of the location in order to build something. And that is absolutely one of the uses of this particular phrasal verb, it’s to take measurements, to measure up. So I might say they are measuring up for her new office. They are measuring up for her new office. So that is the physical description of to measure up, and it is used in that context. But it also has another meaning, and it means to be good enough, to be good enough for something. Do you measure up to the task? Are you good enough for that particular task? The question is, when it comes to the demands of the job, will he measure up? The question is, when it comes to the demands of the job, will he measure up? So in that phrase, or in that sentence, I mean is he going to be good enough for that particular job? Is he going to measure up to the task? So, two meanings, to be good enough, or to actually physically measure something. Number nine, to give up, to give up on something. Well, to give up is to stop trying, you don’t really want to know about it any more. You’ve had enough, and you’re going to give up. The project was just too expensive, and they have given up on it completely. The project was just too expensive, and they have given up on it completely. They have stopped trying with that particular project. It can also mean to yield control, to give up control of something. He gave up his voting rights, as part of the takeover. He gave up his voting rights, as part of the takeover. So it can mean either to stop trying, that you’ve had enough, or someone has had enough with a particular situation and they don’t see any future in that situation, and therefore they’re going to leave it, they’re going to give up. They’re going to stop trying. Or, it can mean to yield or to cede, to give up rights over something, such as in that voting rights example. He gave up his voting rights as part of the takeover. And finally for this session, number 10, to look into. What does to look into mean? Well, it means to investigate. There is definitely something going on there, Claudia is going to look into the legal implications. There is definitely something going on there, Claudia is going to look into the legal implications. So to investigate, to find out what is really going on. What’s going on with the merger? I’m not sure, but I’ll have a look into it for you. I’ll have a look into for you. I’ll investigate for you. That’s number 10, that’s to look into. Okay, time for a quick recap, number one, to set up. Several meanings, to start something such as a business, to organize something such as a meeting, to build some kind of structure, or to get a piece of equipment ready for use. Number two, to help out. To do a part of someone’s work, or to give someone some money. Number three, to find out. That’s to discover, or to learn. Or, alternatively, to catch someone. Number four, to get through. That can mean to deal with something difficult, to connect on the phone, or to pass a test. Number five, to knock down. This is an informal one, it means to reduce the price. Number six, to weight up, to think carefully about something before making a decision. Number seven, to run out of, to be used up or exhausted. Number eight, to measure up. To physical measure something, or to be good enough for something. Number nine, to give up, means to stop trying, or to yield control. And number 10, to look into means to investigate. And that brings us to the end of this session on phrasal verbs, 10 phrasal verbs that you can start using in your own real conversations, and in your own writing. And we have 40 more phrasal verbs to come, remember this is a series of 50 phrasal verbs in total. Don’t forget the introduction, that’s back in episode six. Together with the examples, I think this is really going to provide a good foundation for you to get started in phrasal verbs. As always, please let me know if you have any questions. You can contact me via the website, that’s <a href="http://www.businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">www.businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. Finally, if you enjoyed today’s episode, I invite you to check out our online learning platform and community at <a href="http://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessenglishcommunity.com</a>. The Business English Community is the essential resource for intermediate and advanced learners, who want to take their business English to the next level. We offer extensive audio and video libraries, live webinars, and ask me anything calls. And, very importantly, an active community where you can get answers to all of your business English questions. If you really want to take action to improve your level quickly, then sign up at <a href="http://businessneglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">businessneglishcommunity.com</a>. That’s it from me, thanks for listening, all the best, and until next time … The post <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com/episode7/" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">Episode 7: Phrasal Verbs for Business II</a> appeared first on <a href="https://businessenglishcommunity.com" rel="nofollow" target="_blank">The Business English Community</a>.

Episode 7: Phrasal Verbs for Business II

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