MustKnow English Business Words and Phrases Learn English Vocabulary

we’re live Greg it’s okay hi everybody

my name is Alicia welcome back to our

weekly live stream this week we are

going to talk about giving progress

reports and sharing goals so today I’m

going to talk a bit about some business

English related phrases and maybe some

things that you can use in like

university to talk about your studies or

your research so today I hope that you

find some things that you can use at

work right away in emails or in

presentations so today as always I have

broken the lesson into three parts we

are going to look first at basic

reporting expressions and here I’m going

to talk about some differences between a

simple past tense and perfect tense like

present perfect tense expressions for

giving your reports then I’m going to

talk about some useful vocabulary words

I’ll introduce some verbs and some nouns

just a few that I thought would be good

for this topic second I’m going to talk

about explaining steps so this will be

review maybe for some of you some

sequence words then I’m going to talk a

bit about passive voice and active voice

this is actually something that’s kind

of important for business and for any

kind of reporting in general and finally

just a couple expressions to review how

to express your goals so as you arrive

please don’t forget to send a message

into the chat I see lots of you there on

YouTube and on Facebook hi everybody

today’s topic is giving progress reports

and sharing goals junior from Paraguay

hi um Gabriel hello Rodolfo and my cold

no cuz I have a turtleneck okay like

very exciting question on Facebook hi

everybody Pushpa and Leandra and Sagwa

and demos deans Ron hi and la Bala hi

okay good lots of people from all over

the world from China Heather Wow

add Gabriel from

hello awesome so thanks for joining us

as I said today we’re talking about

progress reports and goals while we wait

we’ll give another minute for other

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so much to everyone who sent in audio

files and video files we chose a few of

those and I got to listen to them

yesterday so again we had people from

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remember all them Ukraine as well I

think so that was really really exciting

if you missed it this time and you want

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super exciting super cool okay we are

about three minutes and three or four

minutes in so I want to begin it looks

like everything is up cool I - I’m going

to share the video and then I will start

the lesson ok beast share good ok so

let’s get started then as I said I want

to begin with basic report expressions

so I want to start with time period

expressions and then some grammatical

differences between these so first I

want to look at a small point that

relates to using articles so if you

don’t know an article is up or an or the

or just no article so here I want to

compare when we have an expression a

time expression with an article and

without an article so here we have last

week or last month or last quarter

quarter by the way porter means a three

month period so we divide one

into four quarters so a quarter of the

year is three months out of the year so

we use these and I’ll explain more in a

minute we use these with simple past

tense more I’ll share some examples of

this then when we see an expression like

this in the last week in the last month

or in the last quarter it means in that

time period so to kind of imagine this

visually we can think of it like this so

here if I say if this is my timeline

here my star is now and I say the

expression last month like last month

sales increased for example it means at

this point right here last month sales

increased it started and it finished

last month if however I use in the last

month

it means during this time period so not

just one point in time but over a period

of time so this is a pattern we use more

with perfect tense so today I’m going to

use this with present perfect tense of

course you can use this with past

perfect tense as well so in the plus

your time period sounds like it happened

over that period so if you don’t use

that article it sounds like a simple

past tense statement so with this in

mind I’ll introduce some vocabulary

words and then a couple of example

sentences that use these points okay so

for now let’s move on to to this part so

I want to talk about a couple vocabulary

words these vocabulary words are all

past tense verbs we’ll zoom in here in

just a second I can see you for ferry so

these are all past tense verbs except

for this one which you’ll see in just a

second sorry no worries so this one

right here this is began and started

began and started are the

some pears here when you’re making a

report you can use either of these to

talk about like beginning something or

starting something they share a meaning

just I’ve put here in parentheses begun

begun this is the past participle form

of the verb so this is the only verb

here actually in this list that has a

different past participle form from its

past tense form okay so a couple of

other good words you can use when you’re

making a report are updated that’s one

updated and changed some of you have

asked what the difference is between

updated and upgraded this one so updated

upgraded means like you’re getting the

newest version of something or like

you’re buying something better than it

was before to update something means you

made like a small change but it’s not

like you’re getting something new it’s

not a whole new level of something okay

so these are kind of good ones for from

basic reports as well as these to

increased and decreased increased and

decreased we can use these as nouns as

well an increase or a decrease but to

increase means to go up to decrease

means to go down and then for more for

those of you that are kind of more

advanced or intermediate or advanced

learners these two I’ve included two

more kind of more difficult vocabulary

words the first one is skyrocketed yeah

someone on the YouTube chat has it woozi

wrote in the last month our profits

skyrocketed so to skyrocket means to

increase very quickly this is a verb to

skyrocket this is the past tense

skyrocketed it means to go up very

quickly skyrocketed second here I have

next to decreased so to decrease means

to go down to go down when you want to

express the opposite of

rocketed you can use the verb plummeted

plummeted so present tense is plummet

plu mm ET plummet is the present tense

form so to plummet means to go down very

very quickly to skyrocket is to go up

very quickly so these are verbs these

are verbs to skyrocket and to plummet

okay so verbs that’s this um I want to

introduce these three nouns then so

these three nouns I also mentioned using

increase and decrease as nouns you can

do that too but here excuse me here I

have three more and I’ve got a small

visual it might be oh yeah we can see

that better thank you

so these three words are up swing up

swing and spike and drop up swing spike

and drop so again

nouns these are nouns so an upswing you

can kind of see I made this like kind of

tiny diagram here and upswing so to

swing it means like to gradually move

like from side to side if you know like

the swing a playground a piece of

playground equipment it makes this

motion to swing so an up swing means

like a gradual smooth increase in

something so an upswing in profits would

look like this sorry it’s hard to see

here the second one is a spike a spike

so you can kind of see here a spike is a

really big sudden increase in something

so I mentioned the verb to skyrocket

that’s a verb we can use spike as a noun

so for example there was a spike in

profits last month or we saw a spike in

users on our live stream for example I

hope okay so a spike third on this list

is drop a drop so I mentioned plummet as

kind of an advanced verb to mean a quick

decrease this is a noun you can use

a drop a drop in profits or a drop in

users yes

so upswing spike and drop are some great

words you can use at work when you’re

reporting data these are great words to

use to report data um I saw a question

where to go alley on YouTube can I use

decrease and increase with the speed of

a car yes

totally totally you can of course um I’d

see I don’t see other questions yet if

you have other questions please feel

free to send them into the chat I will

try to get to them then I wanted to

share um a couple of examples so to

finish this part I mentioned these two

things this simple past tense and this

perfect tense example so I want to kind

of compare with a simple sentence first

I want to look at a simple past tense

expression so for example can I see this

can we zoom in sorry this red pen is

kind of dying sorry maybe I’m sorry I’ll

use black pen this pen is kind of dying

so this sentence profits increase last

month this is a simple past tense

sentence profits profits increased last

month profits increased less months I’m

using simple past tense here and I’m

using this last month with no article as

I talked about it’s off screen now but

there’s no in that here that’s okay

that’s okay so there’s no in the here so

this is a simple past tense statement so

today it depending on where you are it’s

November 14th or it’s November 15th that

means last month was October so this

sentence means in October

just October profits increased that’s

what it means

compare this then to I’m out of space

here can I write it down here alrighty

here okay

compare this to profits

have increased in the last month profits

have increased in the last month let’s

compare this

so again profits have increased in the

last month here I’m using a present

perfect grammar point profits have

increased and as I talked about I’m

using this in the in the so this refers

to a time period so profits have

increased in the last month means from

about this time last month maybe like

October 14th or October 15th until now

profits have continuously gone up

profits have increased so this excuse me

this refers to a time period so here

your present perfect a sentence

structure time period your simple past

tense sentence structure a specific

point in the past this is a great

example of a way that you can use these

two grammar points to be very specific

okay um great some nice example

sentences Joseph says as you can see

profits increased last month nice can we

use increase and decrease for

temperature says sigh yes you absolutely

can so temperatures will increase our

temperatures will decrease yes that’s

very natural to use hi from Egypt hi um

other things yes I am speaking with an

American accent some of you asked that

Facebook I don’t see anything up

let’s see Facebook oh I got Facebook

okay um I don’t ask someone

Amir says could you please give an

example of upswing again upswing so yeah

upswing means like this gradual increase

in something you could replace excuse me

you could replace upswing with increase

just using it as a noun so for example

there was an upswing in profits last

month or we are expecting an upswing in

users next quarter okay so

I think I’m going to move on to the next

part for today so if you have questions

please do send them I will try to catch

them

Hugo we don’t use in the when we want to

talk about a specific point in the past

so in that refers to a time period okay

great let’s move along I’ll take a quick

break if you missed this please don’t

worry this video is being recorded so

you can review these points and if you

have any questions please do send a

message and I will check this later and

try to make something to answer your

questions okay but we’ll take a quick

break I picked I introduced this last

week but I think it’s best for this week

today’s topic is very focused on

business English and maybe on academic

English so our free thing which I will

show you over here is this PDF this is

the business English PDF I know many of

you are using English or studying

English to work on improving your career

goals or like working toward career

goals so this is some vocabulary for the

office but I think the most useful part

of this PDF is right here it’s hard to

see sorry these are things you can use

for business meetings expressions you

can use for business meetings so these

are I’m going to talk a little bit about

expressions you can use to make reports

but if you want to pick up a couple of

other phrases um you can check out this

PDF this is part of like our PDF package

you can find this for free on the

website so check the link below the

video on YouTube or above the video on

Facebook and you can download this for

free you do need an account but the

account is free so check this out I

thought this would be a nice thing to

use for today okie dokie good excuse me

let’s move along I still don’t see any

questions there

ah but if you have questions please let

me know okay for now let’s continue if

you are just joining us today’s lesson

is about giving progress reports and

sharing goals so I talked about some

grammar and some vocabulary words you

can use to do like reporting activities

I’m now going to move to some sequence

words this is maybe some review for a

lot of you but as you join please don’t

forget to send your questions and like

and share the video so other learners

can find it we really appreciate it

ok let’s move on so this part as I said

explaining steps explaining steps so I

want to review sequence words for this

part so sequence words are for example

like first and then after that and so on

when you’re giving a presentation though

you can use patterns like these so let’s

imagine from the beginning like the

beginning of the lesson let’s say you

share a point like like I said profits

increased last month or maybe you said

profits have increased in the last month

better but let’s say you want to go to

your next point and you want to describe

your plans so your next steps for

something you can use next I’m going to

so Y going to here if you use going to

it’s like you have a plan for that thing

so using will doesn’t communicate as

strongly at your plan so next I’m going

to or next I’m gonna you could use gonna

but for me I would say in like a formal

business presentation I would try not to

reduce that sound next I’m going to

sounds good for your your following

steps next I’m going to if you are

working in a team the next thing we have

to do is so last week’s live stream is

about this hash to point the next thing

we have to do is

make new products so the next thing we

have to do is improve our marketing

efforts so you’ll notice I’m ending this

with some kind of verb so next I’m going

to find a new client or the next thing

we have to do is improve our marketing

whatever that might be so here I’m using

a simple present tense verb so no change

to your verb does the regular verb is

perfect okay I don’t see questions okay

so I mentioned these sorts of sequence

words so I call these sequence words you

can also think of them as like

transition words as well transition so

to transition to transition means like

to go between a couple different points

so this is really important for your

writing actually took to go naturally

between your ideas transition and

sequence words are super important so

some common examples are first then

after that and then before your last

point you can say finally or lastly so I

use these at the beginning of every

lesson actually like if you want an

example of how to use this you can go

back to like the beginning of this

lesson I use similar words when I start

these I say first we’re going to talk

about a grammar point next I’m going to

talk about explaining steps after that

I’ll talk about passive voice finally

we’ll talk about how to explain your

goals so this is a really simple example

of how just like put these words

together and also maybe you can kind of

hear like we have a kind of natural rise

and fall so first next after that

finally so we have kind of an

understanding based on the speaker’s

voice - of how much information is

coming okay so this is just a quick

review of that maybe the big point I

want to introduce here that might not be

review for some of you is right here

these two sentences

that’s a weird image okay I don’t know

I’m drawn there needs to these two are

expressions you can use to share your

results so if you are doing research or

if you’re collecting data of some kind

you can use these two to share your

findings findings findings means the

things that you discovered the things

that you found so here we found past

tense of find so for example we’ve we

researched our YouTube and Facebook

watchers and we found that many people

want to study English for their jobs so

we found that and then the data point so

follow this with your data we found that

many people want to use English for work

another expression you can use is our so

if you’re working in a team again our

results plural form our results so

meaning from all of the information we

collected our results showed many people

want to study for work so we found that

or I found that if you’re presenting

alone I found that or we found that our

results showed these are two things you

can use I would probably use our results

showed this one feels a little more like

research to me I’ve seen this more in

like research papers than in business

meetings but if you’re using a lot of

data if you’re doing some kind of test

or experiment or research at work maybe

you’d like to find out more about your

companies but I don’t know your

company’s improvements or where they

need to improve you could use um our

results showed okay good

yes this is really live this is really

high Vijay okay so let’s continue I want

to continue on to this next point active

voice versus passive voice this is a

commonly requested topic on the channel

in general but I want to talk about this

here for business English

because I think that this can sometimes

cost a little bit of confusion or

miscommunication depending on the

culture so to review passive voice we

use passive voice you can see this we

use passive voice use when the actor is

unknown so the actor here the actor

means the person or the thing doing an

action so for example right now like I

am teaching a lesson

I am the actor I am the person doing the

thing so use when the actor is unknown

or unimportant so I said in my example

sentence I am teaching a lesson if I

want to make that sentence passive I

would say the lesson is being taught so

who is the actor we don’t know in that

sentence that’s the difference between

active and passive so we tend to try to

avoid the use of passive especially in

business English because it can sound it

sounds unclear one and sometimes it

sounds suspicious actually like we’re

trying to hide something so let’s look

at a couple of examples of this and let

me know if you have any questions here

first let’s compare these these passive

and active sentences first our manager

will fix the problem I’m sorry I’ve

mislabeled ease our manager will fix the

problem this is an active sentence so

here’s my actor our manager who is the

person doing the thing the manager our

manager will fix the problem that’s an

active sentence here the problem will be

fixed who is going to fix the problem

here we don’t know so this is an example

of a sentence this one this is an

example of a sentence we might use in

like a customer service situation like

if there’s a customer problem and the

representative doesn’t know exactly

who’s going to fix the problem but

want to help the customer they could say

the problem will be fixed if however you

know the person that’s going to fix the

problem it’s better to choose the active

sentence like we want all the

information if you can give us all the

information so try not to use passive

tried to use active so all of the

information is clear yes so the problem

will be fixed if you use this sentence

if you use the problem will be fixed by

the manager fine that’s clear but if you

use something like this and the actor is

not clear it can cause a little like

uncertainty or suspicion um can I use

figure it out instead of fix like the

problem will be figured out by the

manager sure it just depends on the

situation yeah okay then second yeah

someone said can I say the problem will

be fixed by our manager yes yes you can

so if you are going to include by our

manager that’s fine that’s fine

just I would recommend where possible

not to remove your actor if you know the

actor so I want to show one more example

down here this this one is an example of

a situation where removing the actor

creates suspicion so let’s take a look

first passive sentence the secret

information was provided to us the

secret information was provided to us so

there’s no actor here second risa

provided us the secret information

Risa’s their campus visa provided us the

secret information here’s my active

sentence so here this sentence can be

very suspicious so here we’re looking at

secret information so maybe if you’re

like a journalist if you’re a reporter

you work for like a newspaper or

something it’s important to protect the

people who give you information but if

you work for like a big I don’t know

corporate company or if you if you need

to be clear about who is making

decisions or who is sharing information

this sentence can seem suspicious

potentially so this may seem a little

bit suspicious because we don’t know who

provided this secret information here we

know the actor Risa provided us the

secret information this is an active

sentence so generally speaking when you

are giving presentations when you are in

business meetings it’s better to use the

active voice there is this issue one but

also just in English you sound more

confident and you sound more sure of the

things that you’re sharing and you also

sound like you can like take credit

which means you understand like your

responsibilities so use the active voice

where possible other things I don’t see

other things when I buy her manager is

it going to be passive or active it’ll

still be passive that’s still a passive

sentence if you add by our manager can I

say

oh gosh can I say the problem is the

problem will be solved by the manager

yes lots of you have explained it can I

explain gerunds and infinitives quickly

jaren’s are like the verb forms that end

in ing infinitives are 2 plus the verb I

cannot change the whole lesson to teach

the whole lesson about that right now

though ok I have to finish up so I’ll

move to our last point here for today

the last point here is just a couple of

quick expressions you can use to explain

your goals so we can use a couple of

different words that really mean the

same thing like goal target aim you can

use all of these to talk about your next

step so for teamwork our next target is

like our next target is 3 million

subscribers on the channel or something

you can use an expression like this -

this is really positive sounding the

next thing we want to accomplish is the

next thing we want to accomplish is 3

and 3 million subscribers on our YouTube

channel

the next

we want to accomplish or you could say

achieve the next thing we want to

achieve is would also be quite nice okay

another one the goal is this one is

great if you are not sure about which to

use this is an easy one to use and

change a lot the goal is and I have to

in parentheses here it’s kind of hard to

see the goal is three million

subscribers is okay a noun phrase or

include two before a verb the goal is to

increase subscribers or to increase

viewers so you can change this you can

use this with a known phrase for with

the verb okay yeah our next target is

improving our English nice one

all right final point oops we would like

to we would like to so this sounds not

quite is like strong and confident we

would like to think we would like to

make new products or we would like to

expand overseas so this is less like a

goal and more kind of like an idea

something we hope to achieve so just a

couple of quick goal points okay um I

have to finish up there for today that

was a lot of stuff and I know I moved

kind of quickly and maybe this was a

little bit advanced but I hope that you

found something you can use for business

English this is really good to remember

for reporting I feel like so please feel

free to review this of course um if you

missed anything you can watch this video

on the channel or on Facebook right away

if you missed it but I have to finish

there so I’ll show you quickly once more

if you missed it I mentioned that this

PDF this business English PDF was really

good for this week’s lesson so you’ll

see it on screen in a second but I

wanted to mention on the back of this

fifth the business English one um up

here you can see later there are like

words you can use for business me

like what are your views on this or I’d

like to introduce some points or those

kinds of things so these are a couple

things you can use for business meetings

and of course there’s other stuff too so

please check this out you can find this

from the link below the video on YouTube

and above the video on Facebook but

after one so next week next week we will

be back next week next week’s topic is

emergencies yeah next week’s topic I’m

going to talk about explaining

emergencies so we’ll cover like medical

emergencies and like other kinds of

accidents as well so please join us next

week next week November 21st this will

be is this I think it’s 9:00 Eastern

Standard Time now right I think daylight

savings time has started so I think it’s

night I think it’s 9:00 p.m. Eastern

Standard Time that’s New York City time

if you don’t know it google it or just

set a notification on Facebook or

YouTube that’s a great way to make sure

you don’t miss it so please join us next

week for explaining emergencies yes our

live streams are every Wednesday evening

New York City time or Thursday morning

if you’re in like Korea Japan maybe

Australia as well I don’t know depends

on your country so please join us then

next week all right I’m gonna finish up

there thank you so much for watching

thank you for liking and sharing the

video we really appreciate it

I hope that this was helpful for you if

you have questions please do send them

in the chat and enjoy the rest of your

week enjoy your weekend - I’ll see you

again next week bye

you