Posts about English for business purposes.
Today’s post is a response to an email from a reader, Viettan, who is worried about their English when presenting in public. They are in charge. Agendas First, have a meeting agenda, which is a list of things to talk about. Try to keep to this.
When you speak English, one of the things you must think about is relationships. Who are you talking to? How well do you know them? What is the situation? It is useful, especially in business situations, to be formal. In most native-English speaking cultures, business relationships start formal then become more informal as the relationship … [Read more…]
Everybody needs to change a time to meet sometimes. In this post, I’ll show you some formal and informal ways to reschedule your plans.
Today I’m talking about gossip, which can be good when used to build rapport but the wrong kind of gossip can be awful so there are some strategies for stopping conversations that are just gossip and rumours. 20140611_gossip.mp3 The podcast is also available in the iTunes Store by searching for Get Great English or clicking … [Read more…]
Chairing a meeting means that you have to be in charge of keeping the meeting on topic and on schedule so that important information can be given and decisions can be made. Here are some useful phrases. Starting the meeting You need to make sure that everybody knows it is time to start and it … [Read more…]
Usually I tell my students, “If you make a mistake, nobody dies.” For most people, English mistakes in a conversation don’t have significant effects and in business conversations you are probably fine. However, there are four kinds of mistakes that business people routinely make and may cost them money. Spelling Mistakes This should be easy … [Read more…]
Everybody seems to think that interrupting people is rude. Maybe this is something learned when we are children, with our parents telling us, “Don’t interrupt when I’m talking.” Interrupting when it is unnecessary is rude but sometimes you simply must interrupt. Here are the ways to do it. Try to get someone’s attention visually. Sometimes … [Read more…]
These links are about money and how we talk about it. 22 Phrases That Only Wall Streeters Will Understand via Edulang Banking language by English-At-Home.com This one isn’t about English but it is about business. The English Empire: A growing number of firms worldwide are making English their official language. At The Economist, via Ross … [Read more…]
Why Is Business Writing So Terrible? – slightly difficult. High Intermediate/Advanced How Being Bilingual Benefits The Brain – Intermediate
English presentations are very common in business and are becoming more common for students of the language too. Whatever the reason, here are some tips to help your presentations. Prepare You need to know what you want to say and the best way to remember it is practice. Prepare short prompts on index cards or … [Read more…]