20 Business Expressions you Should Know for Fluent English

hi i'm lisa if you use english at work and if you would like to sound more confident and more like a native speaker i believe this video will help you a lot we will continue our series of listening to native speakers in los angeles you will listen to my conversation with a business coach also called an executive coach his name is gene sullivan he works with people who are already successful at their jobs he helps them develop their businesses and develop their leadership skills i'm excited about this video because gene uses so many valuable expressions that i would like to teach you these are expressions that native speakers use all the time in a professional environment and as usual we will talk about some rules about english pronunciation and the american accent [Music] before we start i want to remind you to pause after each expression that i teach you and then i would like you to create your own sentence in addition to the sentences you hear me saying that way you're much more likely to not only remember them but to be able to use them when you're speaking english and that's the difference between passive knowledge and active knowledge active knowledge means you are actually using the words when you're speaking english and that is the true test of fluency isn't it all right let's watch the first clip of jean and then i will come back and i will teach you the expressions that he used tell me about what you do what is your job title technically i'm an executive coach sometimes i just go by the term business coach and i work with people who are senior in their companies or entrepreneurs to help them develop their businesses or their leadership skills i see can you give me an example of what types of skills they would need to develop that they don't naturally have many of my clients are already successful particularly technically they they know their business they know what they do and it's more the interpersonal skills how to relate to other people what kinds of things from their personality type get in the way of them being effective leaders that sounds kind of like emotional intelligence that's a big part of it that's a big part of it many of my clients are technical people so they're engineers they're accountants they're vps of finance they've really grown the success in their career by their ability to know their technical stuff it sounds like it's not something that people innately know how to do some people are some people do but mostly no absolutely right mostly no we don't get that training in college we don't we don't we don't get emotional intelligence training and the other bucket is conversational skills like how do you phrase something so the other person can hear it what do you mean by here understand what you mean understand what i mean but also if i'm very direct with somebody who's not very direct they're going to get emotionally triggered and what happens is it's called an amygdala hijack a what an amygdala hijack and uh in our the part of our brain that controls emotion is called the amygdala and when we get an excessive amount of emotion the amygdala takes over and it takes our executive function the frontal part of our brain it takes it offline so all our logic all our good common sense all goes away when we're too emotional so if i'm delivering a message to you and i say i say it in such a way that triggers you then you may not be able to hear anything i'm saying it's really important to get on the same page to understand what's important to this person in their job and is what you're talking about supportive of that or does it potentially conflict and you want to be aware it doesn't mean you don't bring it up but you want to be aware of what's likely to happen when you bring the topic up i see listen to the way i used job title that's a compound noun and we stress the first word job title tell me about what you do what is your job title instead of saying what is the name of the job that you do you can say what is your job title what kind of work do you do what is your job title he got a promotion and now he has a new job title let's listen to the way gene used the expression go by sometimes they just go by the term business coach instead of saying that's another name that i have or that's another job title i have you can say i go by and it's commonly used like this my name is robert but i go by bob you can also say people call me bob but it's really common to say i go by let's listen to the way gene pronounced entrepreneur and i work with people who are senior in their companies or entrepreneurs the most common pronunciation mistake with this word is the en we say it the french way because the word is borrowed from french so we don't say entrepreneur we say entrepreneur entrepreneur repeat after me he's a successful entrepreneur let me give you another pronunciation tip let's listen to the way gene pronounced how to relate to he didn't say how to relate to listen to what he did with those t's he said how to relate to how to relate to other people how to relate to instead of saying how to he said haru haru i don't know how to do this i'd like to learn how to swim so very often native speakers don't say how to they say hi to how to do that i don't know how to do that the next expression is to get in the way of let's listen to the way gene used it what kinds of things from their personality type get in the way of them being effective leaders gene said things from their personality type they get in the way of them being effective leaders to get in the way means to prevent something from happening or to prevent someone from doing something and often it's related to achieving a goal to get in the way of the goal for example you can say this i won't allow anything to get in the way of my goals we sometimes let our emotions get in the way of making rational decisions don't allow your party lifestyle to get in the way of your studies listen to the way gene used emotional intelligence that sounds kind of like emotional intelligence it's very important for leaders to have emotional intelligence what is emotional intelligence it's the capacity to be aware of control and express one's emotions and to handle interpersonal relationships well i heard another person say that emotional intelligence is the key to professional and personal success let's listen to another definition emotional intelligence written about by dan goldman knowing who you are having a self-awareness knowing how to read a crowd knowing how to motivate other people how to build your teammates how to be authentic how to be real let's listen to the way i use the word innately and listen to the way i pronounced that t i held the t i said innately it sounds like it's not something that people innately know how to do i said it sounds like it's not something that people innately know how to do innately means instinctively naturally if something is innate you're born with it you naturally know how to do it children have an innate ability for language and now let's listen to the way gene used the verb to phrase like how do you phrase something so the other person can hear it to phrase something is to express it in a particular way and if you have emotional intelligence it means that you know how to phrase things well so that the other person can respond well you can say be careful how you phrase it or i didn't phrase that well i should have phrased it differently be careful how you phrase your criticism of him don't hurt his feelings the next expression is to get triggered let's listen to the way gene used it if i'm very direct with somebody who's not very direct they're going to get emotionally triggered you can say he got triggered or he is triggered if you get triggered then something affects your emotional state you have a strong emotional reaction of anger or fear you can say he started yelling because he was triggered let's listen to the way gene used the phrasal verb to take over he talks about the amygdala taking over when we get an excessive amount of emotion the amygdala takes over and it takes our executive function the frontal part of our brain it takes it offline he said when we have an excessive amount of emotion the amygdala takes over to take over means to take control and we can say the new boss will take over next monday i'm really exhausted could you please take over he said it takes our executive function offline and executive function is a group of important mental skills that allow us to plan and achieve goals to think clearly and logically and to have self-control and when our executive function is offline it's disconnected we're not using the executive function and the opposite of offline is online right when you're on your computer and you have access to the internet you're online let's listen to how he used the expression common sense so all our logic all our good common sense all goes away when we're too emotional he said all our good common sense goes away when we're too emotional and common sense is good judgment and good sense in practical matters the ability to think logically and intelligently listen to his advice he has a lot of common sense or you showed a lack of common sense when you made that bad decision and listen to the way he used the expression to deliver a message and it doesn't mean to deliver like you deliver a package it's slightly different so if i'm delivering a message to you and i say i say it in such a way that triggers you then you may not be able to hear anything i'm saying to deliver a message is to express yourself in a particular way to communicate in a particular way let's listen to how another person used to deliver a message if you don't deliver a message with confidence you're never going to go anyplace the next one is a really common expression to get on the same page let's listen to the way gene used it it's really important to get on the same page to understand what's important to this person in their job to get on the same page means to think in a similar way to agree to have the same understanding of a situation so we can say we're on the same page we agree or we're not on the same page let's try to get on the same page i want you to listen to how he stressed the verb to conflict he didn't say conflict he said conflict is what you're talking about supportive of that or does it potentially conflict when we stress the first syllable and we say conflict that's a noun so we can say we're having a conflict this is a conflict but if we say conflict that's a verb you can say our opinions conflict let's listen to gene or does it potentially conflict he said does it potentially conflict let's repeat that does it potentially conflict let's listen to the next clip of gene where he's talking about his job and then i will come back and i will teach you some more expressions are a lot of companies investing in this type of training a lot of companies are but most companies aren't so this is this falls into the category of soft skills training and um it's becoming more and more clear to big organizations and even to smaller organizations how important it is you know one of the things that research tells us is that employee engagement is low so that means how interested people are in coming to work and how much they enjoy it and how involved in solving the problems that the business needs solved what is the opposite of employee engagement going through the motions sometimes i work with groups and teams sometimes i work with individual executives let's say somebody has been moving up through the company fairly rapidly they've been very successful and they've been very successful as a technical expert okay and then what happens is they get to a place where now they're managing a small group of people or even a large group of people and that that requires different skills their expertise while it's important they have to make the shift from being an expert to being a leader there's a trend that happens in most companies where people are promoted because they are the expert in a particular area they've really mastered that area and then when they're raised into the management ranks what happens is they need a whole new skill set because their expertise is is why they got promoted but now they need a different skill set they're happy about the promotion but many of them do not know what they're getting into that right they've they've had this career that's progressed because they're expert in their field right and they've demonstrated their ability to do many things specific things and now they're in a position where mostly their work is judged by what the group produces previously they've been judged on what they produced and that shift is not something they're necessarily told about and some companies are very good about helping people with that transition but many times it's just like congratulations you've done a great job here's your new job and now you need all these new skills but you'll learn them because you're sharp that's not enough it's not enough and that's where you come in exactly how do people get in touch with you the best way for people to get in touch with me just send me an email my email address is jean g-e-n-e at jean sullivan coaching.com oh great and you are available for one-on-one coaching and corporate group coaching absolutely that's fantastic thank you very much for your time thank you very much lisa do you know the expression soft skills let's listen to the way jean used it so this is this falls into the category of soft skills training he said this falls into the category of soft skills soft skills are non-technical skills that relate to how you work for example soft skills can be management skills or communication skills or leadership skills and when i train people in companies and i do accent reduction with corporations i teach soft skills you can say that company invested a lot of money in soft skills another very common and useful expression for you to know is going through the motions let's listen to the way gene used it what is the opposite of employee engagement going through the motions i asked gene what is the opposite of employee engagement and he said going through the motions if you're doing something only because it's expected or it's required but you're not really excited about it you're not really interested in it you're only going through the motions you're not making any effort you don't care you can say he doesn't care about his job he's just going through the motions let's listen to the way gene used the expression moving up through the company let's say somebody has been moving up through the company fairly rapidly to move up through the company means to get promotions inside the company and he said if you're moving up through the company fairly rapidly so instead of saying pretty fast or quite quickly you can also say fairly rapidly you can say that employee moved up through the company fairly rapidly let's listen to the way he used the expression to make a shift they have to make the shift from being an expert to being a leader when they move up through the company they have to make a shift from being an expert to being a leader to make a shift means to change to move from one position to another you can also use shift as a verb to shift you can use it in the past tense she shifted her opinion on the topic or he refused to shift his position the next expression is also really common to get into let's listen to the way gene used it they're happy about the promotion but many of them do not know what they're getting into he said they're happy about the promotion but many of them do not know what they're getting into to get into something means to get into a situation and often it means to get into a difficult situation to get involved in something challenging you can say to someone you have no idea what you're getting into you can say you want to quit school and move to new york without a job you have no idea what you're getting yourself into let's listen to the way a few other people used it understand what you're getting yourself into and evaluate your own ability to provide the solution you can be a parent at a very early age and have really no uh training or understanding of what you're getting yourself into let's listen to the way gene said you'll learn them because you're sharp and now you need all these new skills but you'll learn them because you're sharp sharp means intelligent you can say he's a very sharp guy he's smart and listen to the way he said because he didn't say because you are sharp he said cause you're sharp and now you need all these new skills but you'll learn them because you're sharp let's repeat that you'll learn them because you're sharp let's listen to the way i use the expression to come in that's not enough it's not enough and that's where you come in exactly i said and that's where you come in and that means and that's where your job starts that's your role that's your responsibility that's where you're needed that's where you come in in part two of my conversation with jean he will give us a lot of really valuable tips about how to develop leadership skills make sure you watch the second part there are a lot of other expressions that i will teach you the gene uses and these are particularly valuable if you work in an english-speaking environment and to have an active knowledge of the expressions that you just learned make sure you make your own sentences using these expressions create your own sentences from your own life and say them out loud thanks for watching and keep practicing your english to get the two courses the american accent course and the 400 advanced words you must know for fluent english go to accurateenglish.com

Channel: AccurateEnglish

Views: 282,013

Keywords: business English, professional English, English for work, work in the US, American expressions, English expressions, English idioms, Lisa Mojsin, Accurate English, American accent, English pronunciation, Gene Sullivan business coach, Gene Sullivan, executive training, like a native, Mastering the American accent, TOEFL, IELTS, real people in LA, English teacher, advanced english, advanced English lessons, business expressions for fluent english

Id: T_M7WWfSPhU

Length: 19min 44sec (1184 seconds)

Published: Sat Apr 03 2021