Speak With Me English Speaking Practice

Vanessa:
Hey, I’m in the market  

for a new gig. My day job is in sales, but it’s 
not my dream job so I’m looking for something  

in the medical field. Do you think you could 
help me? Would you know how to respond to this?  

Well, let’s talk about it.
Vanessa: 

New gig, day job, medical field. Today we 
are going to practice speaking together  

about your job. You are going to 
learn some important vocabulary,  

questions, and a sample conversation. 
Plus a chance to practice speaking with me  

about your job today. I hope that this lesson will 
boost skills because talking about your job is an  

extremely common daily conversation topic, so with 
today’s lesson, you’ll be on your way to success.  

To help you remember everything that you 
learn in this lesson, I’ve created a free PDF  

worksheet that you can download and use all of the 
vocabulary, expressions, questions, conversations,  

and you can answer Vanessa’s challenge question 
at the end of the worksheet. You can click on  

the link in the description to download it. 
All right, let’s get started with some common  

vocabulary about jobs.
Vanessa: 

The first category have to do with employment. 
We’ll talk about unemployment later. You might  

say, my day job is in an office, but I’m 
taking some night classes to become a nurse.  

This expression, my day job usually means your 
primary job. The way that you make the most money,  

it could imply that it’s during the day. But if 
you happen to work a night shift, you can still  

say my day job. This is my main job and how I make 
money. It’s my day job. Another way to talk about  

your main job is to say my nine to five is in a 
marketing firm. My nine to five, this talks about  

the hours that you work, 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM. You 
might work different hours. You might work 7:00 AM  

to 4:00 PM. You might work in the afternoon or the 
evening, but we still use my nine to five to talk  

about your primary job, my nine to five.
Vanessa: 

There is kind of a new movement talking about this 
expression and it’s often about how people don’t  

like their nine to five, that this is something 
that they’re not satisfied with. And people who  

are not enjoying their nine to five might find 
some articles online that say, “Want to ditch  

your nine to five? Here’s how to find your dream 
job.” An expression we’ll talk about in a moment,  

but sometimes in this modern age, nine to five 
implies that it’s just a job. I don’t really care  

about it, it’s my nine to five. It’s the way that 
you make money, but it’s not really your passion,  

it’s my nine to five.
Vanessa: 

What about jobs that are not your primary money 
making job? You can use a lot of different  

expressions. We could call those jobs a gig, a 
side-gig, a hustle, a side-hustle. Or you might  

just say I do it on the side. So let’s imagine 
that you make earrings, but it’s not your nine  

to five. It’s not your primary job. Well, you 
might say, I do it on the side. I make earrings  

on the side. Or you could say, I have a side gig 
making earrings. This is not your primary job,  

but it’s something that you do and you still 
make some money, but it’s not your primary job. 

Vanessa:
If you don’t work 40 hours a week at a job,  

then you have a part-time job. In the US, 40 
hours per week is considered a full-time job.  

But a lot of jobs are part-time jobs. So you 
might say, yep, I work a part-time job on the  

weekends at a restaurant. I work a part-time 
job. Maybe it’s your main way of making money,  

you just work less hours or maybe it’s just 
a side thing, or maybe you’re also a student  

and you have a part-time job at the same time. 
That’s a great way to describe something that you  

work less than 40 hours a week on.
Vanessa: 

Now let’s talk about unemployment. Unfortunately, 
over the last few years, a lot of people  

became unemployed. This is really scary. You don’t 
know how you’re going to survive, feed you family,  

take care of your future. You might be laid 
off, laid off means you didn’t personally  

do something wrong, but the company either cut 
your position, they couldn’t pay for you anymore  

and it’s not something personal. It’s usually 
a problem within the company. So when a company  

is suffering usually financially, or they 
change their whole system, their whole model,  

and they don’t need some people anymore. They 
might lay you off. This is a great phrasal verb.  

Of course you don’t want it to happen to you, 
but it’s a great phrasal verb to know, to explain  

the situation, because it’s not that you were 
fired, to be fired means you did something wrong  

and they said, “sorry, you can’t work 
here anymore.” And there was a problem. 

Vanessa:
Maybe you were late to work too many times,  

you got fired. This is different than 
being laid off. When you’re laid off,  

it’s not your fault. And it’s not embarrassing to 
say, ah, man, I was laid off during the pandemic.  

That’s not embarrassing. That’s fine. It’s 
not your fault. But if you say, I was fired,  

usually there’s a little bit of embarrassment 
to talk about that because it means there was a  

problem. We can also say, I lost my job. This 
is a little more indirect than being fired.  

It might be because you did something wrong. I 
was late to work so many times that I lost my job.  

This means you were fired, but you didn’t directly 
say that. But it could also mean that you were  

just laid off. During the pandemic I lost my job.
Vanessa: 

That’s not your fault, you didn’t do anything 
wrong, there were just problems with the economy,  

problems with the world in general. So you 
lost your job. So this expression to lose,  

my job can be used either way. It can be used if 
you get fired or if you get laid off. Now, let’s  

talk about how you feel about your job. Let’s 
imagine that you are a waiter at a restaurant.  

Well, you might say, I’m a waiter, but it’s just 
a job. I’m looking for something else. It’s just  

a job. This is a common expression to talk about 
a job that you don’t really love. It’s not your  

dream job. This is the opposite. If you 
love your work, for me, I love being your  

teacher. I love being able to be your teacher 
online, too. It’s really a great combination. 

Vanessa:
Great for you, I can touch a lot of people  

and also my life can have a lot of flexibility. 
Working online as your English teacher is my dream  

job, but there can also be some problems with 
work. You might say, it’s hard to find a good  

work/life balance. This expression, a work life 
balance is often used when you’re working so much,  

or maybe like me you work from home. So it’s 
hard to have a good line between your personal  

life and your work life. So maybe if you’ve been 
working a lot, you might say, I just need to take  

a break and find a better work/life balance. 
That’s really important. If you’ve been working  

a lot, maybe you’ve even been studying a lot, 
you might face burnout, burnout. This doesn’t  

have to do with fire, but it kind of has the sense 
that your figurative flame and love of your job  

has gone out.
Vanessa: 

So if you experience burnout, it means the thing 
that was your dream job, the thing that you felt  

passionate about, you no longer feel passionate 
about. This might be temporary. This happens to  

a lot of people like me who create content on 
YouTube. You have to be creative and come up  

with a lot of ideas and sometimes there aren’t 
many good ideas. Maybe I just have some kind of  

temporary writer’s block and don’t come up 
with a good idea. And I feel overwhelmed.  

Well, that might mean I am burnt out. I 
am experiencing burnout, or we might say,  

I’m burnt out. I’m burnt out on my job, I’ve been 
working for 12 hours a day for the last three  

weeks, I’m burnt out. I need a break. I hope that 
you can avoid this before it gets too serious,  

but it’s something that’s really common if you are 
working too much or if you’re studying too much. 

Vanessa:
Now let’s talk about four common  

phrases for describing your job. And just a little 
note, a while ago, I made this video a hundred  

jobs in English. So if you would like to learn how 
to pronounce your personal job, or if you would  

like some more information about specific jobs 
in English, you can check out that video and get  

some more details about that. But let’s talk about 
four common phrases to talk about what you do. You  

might say, I am a teacher. I am a doctor. I’m a 
healthcare worker. I’m a construction worker. I’m  

a designer, whatever you might be, I am. But 
we could also say I work in… Plus a field.  

I work in education. I work in healthcare. I 
work in business. I work in marketing. So here  

we have a general term. It doesn’t talk about your 
specific position, but it’s a common expression  

used when you’re describing your job.
Vanessa: 

I work in education. Maybe you’re not specifically 
a teacher, maybe you help to create a curriculum  

or maybe there’s something that’s a little 
complex that you don’t want to explain.  

You might just say, I work in education. Cool. 
You could also talk about the company you work  

for. I work for Amazon. I work for Google, 
especially if this is a well known company,  

even if it’s just well known locally, this 
is a common expression you might use. Yeah,  

I work for Samsung. I work for Duke Power, which 
is the power plant in my city. If I said this to  

somebody who lived in France, they would have no 
idea what I was talking about because this is a  

local business. But if I said that to someone 
locally, they would understand exactly. So it’s  

kind of all about the context here.
Vanessa: 

What if you have your own business? What if 
you run your own business, you can use that  

expression, to run. For me, I run my own business. 
We could say I run an online education business.  

Well, that means that I teach online, 
but it means I’m the CEO, the boss,  

I wear all the hats. I run a business. So we could 
use this for a lot of different situations as  

long as you are the entrepreneur, you’re the one 
who’s in charge of the business. I run a business. 

Vanessa:
Before we get to our  

sample conversation, of course, we need to talk 
out some common job questions. This is essential  

for daily conversation because usually these are 
the questions we use in small talk. So that’s why  

this topic is really important to know about. One 
of the most common small talk questions after you  

say, hey, my name’s Vanessa. Oh, nice to meet 
you. What do people say next? What do you do?  

What do you do? The full expression for this 
is possibly, what do you do for work? But we  

often just say, what do you do? And this doesn’t 
mean I’m sitting here right now talking to you,  

what are you doing right now? This 
means what’s your job. What do you do? 

Vanessa:
So you might use one of  

those expressions as we talked about earlier and 
say, oh, I work for Google. I work in marketing.  

Awesome. What do you do? Or what do you do for 
work? When you tell someone what you do, if they  

are a good conversationalist, they might ask more 
questions. Or you could ask this question too.  

What’s that like? What’s that like? So you’re 
asking about their experience. What’s it like to  

be a nurse in the hospital these days? Well, you 
might say, well, I like the doctor I work for, but  

it’s just been really intense lately and it’s not 
my dream job. I really want to be a photographer  

for foster and animals and help them to find a new 
home. That’s what I would love to do. I’d love to  

get into photography.
Vanessa: 

Okay. Well, here, you just answered the question, 
what’s that like, with a lot of juicy details  

that can further the conversation more. So when 
you ask someone what’s that like, if they give  

you some details, don’t miss that opportunity, 
you can pull any of those details and say, oh,  

you like foster animals. Have you ever had 
any foster animals? Oh, I have a dog too.  

And you can kind of snowball the conversation. So 
this is a great way to get more information and  

learn about someone else. If you’re talking with 
someone who you already know, maybe you kind of  

think you know what work they do, but you’re not 
sure or you haven’t talked with them for a while.  

You might ask this question, where are you working 
these days? Where are you working these days? 

Vanessa:
These days means  

now. But if you haven’t seen someone for five 
years, maybe you knew what their previous job was  

and you’re trying to make small talk conversation 
again and get to know maybe something’s changed  

in their life. So you could ask, where are 
you working these days? And you might say,  

oh yeah, actually I’m still working at Google. 
I’ve had the same job for the last five years,  

I feel really lucky that I didn’t get laid off, 
so that’s where I’m at. And let’s say you’re  

talking with someone and you know what job they 
have. Well, you could ask this question. How’s  

work going? This is similar to asking, how’s your 
family? Oh, how was your vacation? This is just a  

common, small talk question about someone’s job.
Vanessa: 

How’s work going? And maybe they’ll just say, 
oh, it’s going fine. Okay, that’s fine. But if  

they give you more information, they might say 
something like, oh, it’s going okay, it was kind  

of my side-gig for a while and then I got hired 
full time, but I’m having a hard time finding a  

work/life balance, so I think I’m going to look 
for something in a different field soon. Oh,  

well, you just had a great conversation there 
and you’ve got lots more information to be able  

to have more conversation with someone, just 
from the simple question, how’s work going? 

Vanessa:
All right. Now it’s time to see a sample using all  

of these expressions or many of these expressions 
that we just talked about. You’ll see my husband,  

Dan and I having a little chit chat about our 
jobs. And I hope that you recognize some of these  

expressions and questions that we talked about 
because in a moment after the sample conversation,  

it will be your turn to use them and to have a 
conversation with me. Are you ready? Let’s watch. 

Dan:
Hey Vanessa, where are you working these days? 

Vanessa:
Oh, Hey Dan. I run an online business so  

I can work from anywhere, it’s pretty great.
Dan: 

Wow. What’s that like?
Vanessa: 

Well, I help students learn English and 
speak with confidence. It’s my dream job,  

but I have to be careful to avoid burning out.
Dan: 

Oh, that’s awesome, but I understand.
Vanessa: 

What about you?
Dan: 

Well, unfortunately I just got laid off 
at the coffee shop when they closed,  

but I got a job working part-time at a hotel.
Vanessa: 

Oh man, that’s a bummer. Have you ever worked 
in marketing? I’m looking for someone to help  

if you want a side-gig behind the scenes.
Dan: 

That’d be great, tell me more about it.
Vanessa: 

I wonder if Dan will get the job in marketing, 
working for Vanessa. All right, now it is your  

turn. And what I want to tell you is I will be 
asking you some questions and having a little  

conversation, but I recommend going back and 
reviewing this. You’re welcome to pause the  

video and answer longer if you would like, this 
is a great chance to have kind of a structured,  

no pressure conversation in English. All right, 
are you ready to get started? Let’s imagine we  

were at a gathering and the host said, oh Vanessa, 
this is your name. And we get introduced to each  

other. And then the host leaves. Here we 
need to have some small talk. So I ask you,  

so tell me what do you do? And now 
it’s your turn to talk. Go ahead.  

And what’s that like, do you enjoy your work?
Vanessa: 

Oh, me? Oh, I run an online English business 
where I teach English online to students around  

the world. It’s really my dream job. I feel pretty 
lucky. Well, good luck with your work. I’m so glad  

to meet you. And I’ll talk to you later, bye. How 
did you do? Did you have a chance to speak out  

loud and practice with me? Feel free to go back 
and review that last segment or this whole video  

as many times as you would like 
to boost your confidence because  

when you have small talk in English, you will 
absolutely encounter this conversation topic. 

Vanessa:
Don’t forget to download the free PDF worksheet  

for today’s lesson, with all of the important 
vocabulary, questions, sample conversation,  

and Vanessa’s challenge question at the end of the 
worksheet. And now I have a question for you. What  

is your dream job? Let me know in the comments, 
I would love to see what it is. Maybe it’s your  

current job. Maybe it’s a job you would love to 
have in the future. Let me know, what’s your dream  

job and I will see you again next Friday for 
a new lesson here on my YouTube channel, bye. 

Vanessa:
The next step is  

to download the free PDF worksheet for this 
lesson. With this free PDF, you will master  

today’s lesson and never forget what you have 
learned. You can be a confident English speaker.  

Don’t forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel 
for a free English lesson every Friday, bye.