Work / Business English Expressions | British Pronunciation

hello everybody this is elliot from etj english today i have an interesting video for you we're going to be learning some very common and very useful british expressions which i think are most often used in the workplace or in a business environment however some of these can be used and transferred into daily life also so we're going to learn quite a few i want to get straight into the video just so you know because i mainly focus on pronunciation i'm a pronunciation teacher we will be focusing on also how to connect our speech with some of these phrases and also how to just make things sound very nice okay in a british style so let's get straight to my list of expressions so i'm going to start with a sentence and then i'm going to teach you what the sentence means what the expression means so the first sentence i have for you off the top of my head i'd say we have about 300 employees okay so the expression i'm talking about off the top of my head notice how the word of becomes of it's what we call a function word it's not important top of my head off the top of my head sometimes it will even become a top of my head the of is not important the important words are top and head mainly off the top of my head i'd say we have about 300 employees and what it means is without thinking too much or without really thinking about it then you make your statement so i don't know that we have exactly 300 employees but off the top of my head the first thing i can think of is that we have about 300. the next sentence have a listen here i leave for work at about 6am and i get off work at about 5pm i leave for work firstly let's look at that i leave for work so we've got the schwa on the word for once again for is not important so we say for work i leave for work a lot of my students they get confused they think that to leave for work actually means to go home from work because i said the time is six a.m maybe it's a bit clearer for you i leave for work at six a.m means i leave my house to go to work at six a.m i leave for work okay and i get off work that's when i finish work when i leave work get off work connected speech get tough get off work that is when you finish work you go home okay i leave for work at about 6am and i get off work at about 5pm another one very very very very very common one i'll drop you an email later i'll drop you an email later and listen to my pronunciation i'll drop you one email you one email connected speech happening there a wha i'll drop you an email later now the word drop is used here and that literally just means i will send i will give you an email later sometimes people also say i will ping you an email later or even i will ping you later and i think the word ping has come from the sound when we receive a message you know that kind of ding sound i'll drop you an email later i'll ping you an email later whichever one is whichever one is best for you really um but that's more common than saying i will send you an email next one i use this a lot with my friends as well as in business terms give me a shout for example give me a shout when you're free give me a shout is a bit like saying let me know or tell me give me a shout when you're free okay so it's just like saying tell me when you're available and also related to email i could say give me a bell later give me a bell later and that also means call me call me later give me a bell some people do also say give me a ring give me a call and those can also be used in the same situation give me a ring give me a bell give me a call whatever you want this one's a good one to use if you're uh if you like talking about other people in the office he's been sucking up to the manager all week i think he's a bit of a kiss ass okay let's take a look at the first part of the sentence he's been sucking up to the manager all week to suck up means to be really nice to someone to really compliment them oh you're an amazing boss oh you're so good at your job oh you're fantastic he's sucking up okay to tell someone how great you think they are maybe even if you don't think it's true okay so he's been sucking up to the manager or the boss all week i think he's a bit of a bitter kiss ass a kiss us is a name we give to someone who likes to suck up so now you know what suck up means a kiss ass is someone who sucks up imagine they are kissing someone's bottom and you'll find the office business work jargon um really bad language is not a problem but you need to feel comfortable with the people that you're talking to to use the bad language so the word ass is not that bad if you're in a comfortable office environment if you're talking to your boss maybe don't use the word ass or other words there are worse phrases some quite rude expressions but um this is a family show i've got two expressions in this next sentence so listen closely everything is a bit up in the air right now i think i need to put off our meeting everything is a bit up in the air right now up in the air so lots of connected speech here up in the air up in the air now if things are up in the air imagine you have loads of plans loads of ideas but they're not coming together that you're not organized that would mean that your plans or things are up in the air not very organized a bit kind of confusing at the moment so everything is a bit up in the air right now notice how i use the word a bit as well this is very common in british english we like to use the word bit so i think we need to put off put off our meeting so i think we need to put off our meeting so connected speech toth put off if you need to put something off very simple postpone change to another day so this guy's plans they're a bit up in the air not organized so he needs to put off reschedule change the meeting one which is very similar to put off so put off means postpone and call off means cancel just so you know so i could say i need to call off our meeting notice the pronunciation of this an american would say carl we say cool notice where my tongue is i'm doing a very round shape with the mouth and the tongue goes back oh cool i need to cool off the meeting call off means cancel the best way to remember put off begins with p and so does postpone cancel begins with c and so does cool off finally last one so we've got two in this one we need to knuckle down and finish this project or else it will all go down the drain first thing we need to knuckle down knuckles these things knuckle down that means get your hands on the table and start working or else so if we don't knuckle down and finish the project soon it will all go down the drain this is such a british expression if things all go down the drain that means it all goes wrong it finishes it's over no chance of continuing it's finished it's all gone down the drain okay so you failed and that's just like water when it goes down the drain when we're draining water there you go there's your expressions i hope you found them useful today this is one of the most requested videos um last week i said what do you want me to make a video about most of you said you wanted this so i hope you're happy please leave me a comment and tell me if you found this useful and if you have any pronunciation ideas for the next lesson next thursday please let me know thank you for watching if you haven't already please remember to press the subscribe button give me a thumbs up write a comment below tell me how much you love me and i will see you in the next lesson next thursday cheers guys bye

Channel: ETJ English

Views: 279,522

Keywords: work vocabulary, work expressions, business expressions, business vocabulary, british english, british pronunciation, british accent, pronunciation lesson, etj english, etjenglish, etj, learn british english, slang

Id: QVVTdjnf5Vg

Length: 9min 22sec (562 seconds)

Published: Thu Jan 25 2018