Hi, I'm Rebecca from www.engvid.com . Do you
sometimes feel that you're stuck at a certain level when you're trying to speak at a meeting
or at an interview or with a client? Well, that can happen for many reasons and
one of the reasons is that, lots of times, people have a lot of nouns in their vocabulary,
okay, like success or opportunity, but you don't necessarily have strong adjectives. So, in this lesson, I'm going to focus on
some strong business collocations, or business expressions that you can learn and use so
that you can sound much more advanced and professional in a business context, okay? So, this is one of our continuing lessons
in the "Speak like a Manager" series. So, whether you're already a manager or you
aspire to be a manager, you would like to be a manager, these expressions can help you
to sound much more effective, okay? So, let's see what they are, and they're really
quite easy. They're easy because I've divided them into
two categories. The ones at the top all refer to something
which is very good or very big, and the ones down here all refer to something very bad
but also very big, okay? So, this is something bad and big, and this
is something good and big, so all of these adjectives that you're going to learn refer
to those points, okay? So, let's see what they are. Now, along with understanding the meaning,
I want you to try to say it after me, okay, so that your pronunciation is also accurate
and correct and understandable in a business context. Alright, so suppose you want to say that something
is a success, okay? You know the word success, you could say it's
a very big success, or it was a very good success, okay, you wouldn't say that - it
was a big success. But what can you say instead of saying "a
big success"? You can say it was a resounding success. Repeat after me: it was a resounding success. Resounding means very big, gigantic, enormous,
okay? But this an expression that is used together. These two words are often used together. When two words are used together like that,
it's called a collocation in English. It means that people expect to hear these
two words together, okay? And it makes sense to them when you use that
expression. Right away, they get it, they understand,
and they also understand that your English is pretty good, okay? Alright. So, a resounding success means a big success. Now, let's say you're talking about an opportunity,
and again, you want to say it was a very good opportunity, but instead of just saying "very
good" or "very big", you can say it was a golden opportunity. Say it after me: a golden opportunity. So again, golden, you can understand, it means
like beautiful, fantastic, amazing, beautiful, right? So, it was a golden opportunity, okay? A great opportunity. A very good opportunity, alright? Now, suppose you're talking about a choice
that somebody made, okay. They made a choice, they made a decision,
alright, and you can say - you want to say it was a very good choice or a very good decision. So, instead of saying "very good", you can
say you made a wise choice. Say it after me: You made a wise choice. Good. Alright? "Wise" meaning very smart, very intelligent,
okay? It's a little bit more than just saying "very
good", so you're also communicating better ideas, higher level ideas, deeper ideas, okay? Next, so suppose you want to say that somebody
gave you really good advice. So, instead of saying "very good advice" or
"really good advice", you can say "My parents always gave me sound advice.", okay, or my
manager gave me sound advice. Now, that might sound a little strange to
you because sound - isn't that about things we hear, sound? Yes, that's a very common meaning of the word
"sound", but sound can also mean very strong, very good, very solid, okay? And therefore, instead of saying "very good
advice", you can say they gave me sound advice. My professor in university gave me sound advice
about how to develop my career, okay? Or the campaign was a resounding success. Getting this job was a golden opportunity,
okay? He made a wise choice to continue his education. And, someone gave you sound advice. Again, all of those are positive words and
all of these expressions are positive, meaning very good or very big. Now, let's look at some negative expressions,
okay? Because sometimes that happens too in life. Okay, so again here, all of these refer to
something that's either very bad or very big, okay? So, instead of just saying it was a really
big failure, you could use the higher-level word: it was an abject failure, okay? So, repeat it after me: abject failure. It means very bad. Very powerful. Powerfully negative, okay? Extremely poor, okay? So, abject failure. It was a huge failure, alright? So, that's one expression you can use. Another one: you want to say there was a very
big loss. The company made a mistake and they experienced
a very big loss. Instead of saying very big or very bad, you
can say a huge loss. Repeat it after me: a huge loss. And not just - don't just repeat it for the
pronunciation, you can also repeat it to learn intonation, because we express certain ideas
in certain ways, right? And you can learn to do that. Don't just say "It was a huge loss.". No, because there's no emotion there, and
this is an emotional kind of subject, right? So, you want to put some emotion and intonation
into it. So, it was huge loss. Got it? Good. Here, now suppose you said that somebody was
in big trouble. So, instead of saying "big trouble", you could
say they were in deep trouble, alright? This is another business collocation, "in
deep trouble", alright? Repeat it after me: deep trouble. Good. And another word that we hear very often in
the business context is criticism. Criticism is the opposite of praise. Criticism is when someone, usually makes negative
comments, okay? You can have positive criticism, but usually
criticism is a little more negative, okay? So, here, in this case, the person received
very negative or very bad comments or criticism, okay? And therefore, you could use the expression
"harsh criticism". Say it after me: harsh criticism. That's a little bit tricky, that word. Harsh. Harsh. Okay? So, there's a "shh" sound at the end, and
make sure you're saying the endings of those words, okay? If you say "har criticism" and you're trying
to say it too fast, people won't understand, okay? So, with all of these adjectives, make sure
that you're saying the endings correctly and fully, so that people can appreciate and understand
this higher-level vocabulary that you're using. So now, when we come back, you're going to
use these expressions in some actual sentences, okay? Be right back. Alright, so now let's try them out. Now remember, you can do this in two ways,
okay? So the first is that you could just pause
the video, alright, and then I'll stand here, pause the video, and work these out, write
it down on a piece of paper, write down the answers before I start to go through them,
or just stay with me and go through them, okay? So, what we're going to do is I'm going to
read the sentence and whatever is in blue is where you have to replace it with one of
the expressions that we learned. For example, number one: They had a very bad
loss in sales. Okay? So instead of saying "very bad loss" or "very
big loss", which one of these words do we use? Do you remember the expression? Okay? Is it something positive or negative? I have the positive words written for you
at the bottom, and the negative words written for you down here, but do you remember the
expression for very big loss, or very bad loss? It is a huge loss, okay? So, they had a huge loss, okay? Then you don't have to say "very", because
huge already means very big, okay? They had a huge loss in sales, alright. Number two: She has a very good opportunity
to join a consulting firm. Alright? So, what's that? She has a very good opportunity to join a
consulting firm, that's something positive, right? So, we can say she has a golden opportunity. Very good, okay, I hope you got that. So just sort of say them to yourself: golden
opportunity. Or I should say: a golden opportunity. A huge loss, okay? Good. Number three: My supervisor gave me very good
advice. So, what's that? Instead of saying "very good advice", what's
the expression we can use? My supervisor gave me sound advice, okay? It's down here, it's among the positive, okay? Sound advice means very good, strong advice. Solid advice, okay? Alright. Number four: Their law firm is in very big
trouble. That's something negative, it's going to be
one of the words down here, so what do we say? What's that business collocation for very
big trouble? It is deep trouble, okay? Their law firm is in deep trouble. Very good, okay? Are you with me? Good. Number five: Completing your MBA was a very
good choice. Alright? So, what can we say instead of "very good
choice"? A better expression is a wise choice. Good. Okay? That's down here, okay, instead of "very good
choice", a "wise choice". Next, number six: The new policy was a very
big failure. So, which strong word can we use to describe
something that's extremely poor, extremely bad? What's that word? Abject, okay? This one. Not "object", but "abject", okay? There's an A there, there's a short A sound
when we say the word: abject, okay? Don't be afraid to open your mouth, say abject. It was an abject failure, okay? So, that's over here, alright? Abject. Number seven: Our sales campaign was a very
big success. This is good news, right? Your sales campaign was a very big success. However, you want to express yourself more
effectively than that, more powerfully than that, so you're going to use the expression
not "very big success" but which word? A resounding success, okay? Now remember, when you're saying this word,
even though it's written with an S, that S as a Z sound. "rezounding". Say it after me: resounding success. Good. Alright, now you're not only using the right
word, but you sound correct, alright? Good. Number eight: The General Manager, GM, the
General Manager received very bad criticism for his comments. Okay? So, what's "very bad criticism", which expression
could we use? We could say, the one that's left, which is
here: harsh. The General Manager received harsh criticism,
okay? Very good. I hope you got those and if not, don't worry,
you know, take the - backtrack with the video, stop, pause it, try to work them out by yourself,
alright? You can do it, I know you can, and the reason
that I marked these is because I wanted to tell you something about these three. So, these words, right, advice, trouble, and
criticism, so these are called non-count nouns. So, you might have noticed that we didn't
say "a", or "an advice", or "a trouble", or "a criticism". No, we cannot say that because we cannot count
these nouns, right? So, when you cannot count a noun, you don't
need to put the article "a" before that, but with the other ones, like "an opportunity",
"a loss", there we can count them, so we did have to add the article "a" before them, but
with these, we didn't. We just said, "sound advice", "deep trouble",
"harsh criticism", okay, and there was no need for any article before that. Alright, you've got it! So, what's another way to make sure that you've
got it? So, first of all, go to our website www.engvid.com
, do the quiz over there just to review and make sure that you really can remember these
expressions, know how to write them, know how to spell them, know how to pronounce them,
know how to use them, okay? That's one way. Another thing you can do is leave me a comment
on engVid, on YouTube. Leave a comment, choose one of these expressions,
and tell me about something in your life that was a resounding success or - not the negative
things - tell me about a time when you received sound advice, okay? Let's stay positive, alright? The negatives are just to describe things
you might hear, but we don't want to put that negativity into our heads, okay? Alright. So, don't forget to subscribe to my channel
and that way you can continue to get more lessons from this series, which is on "Speak
like a Manager", and also lots of other English training videos, alright? Thanks very much for watching, bye for now.
