【Learning Notes】 Derak Callan‘s Business English P38~40

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Introduction

Note that this is the short version. The content of Section 37 is repeated with Section 31, and will not be elaborated here.

How good is your email grammar

So in this email grammar quiz, we’re going to focus on prepositions.

1. Thank you for your interest in our products.
2. I have some questions about the new sales strategy.
3. I am writing with regard to the order we placed last week.
4. Please pay particular attention to the first two pages of the attachment.
5. We sincerely apologize for the inconvenience caused.【apologize to sb & for sth】
6. Please get back to me as soon as possible.
7. Cound you please forward this mail to the responsible person?
8. We offer a discount of 10%.
9. This phase of the project needs to be completed by the end of March. 【We used “by” for deadlines.】
10. Thank you for bringing this matter to our attention.
11. I’d just like to follow up on the conversation we had last week. 【follow up on 跟进】
12. Can you please give me an update on your progress?
13. I am writing on behalf of our CEO, Fiona Buckley.
14. I will look into this immediately and get back to you within the next hour.

Talk about salary and pay

verb	define
Growth salary	the amount you earn before tax and other deductions.
deductions	amounts of money that are taken away from your salary, usually for things like tax, health insurance or pension contributions.
pension contributions	an amount deducted from your gross salary and paid into a pension plan, which is like a long term savings plan for your retirement. 【gross 总共的】【pension 养老金】
net salary/ pay	the amount you earn after tax and deductions, the money that’s paid into your bank account by your employer every month. 【growth salary = gross pay】

e.g. The company is offering a gross annual salary of $45000.
e.g. Companies automatically make tex deductions from their employees’ salaries.
e.g. How high are your pension contributions?
e.g. What kind of pension plan does your company offer?

here are some different ways to talk about “net salary”.

e.g. I take home about $2000 a month after tex.
e.g. My take-home pay is about $2000 a month.

A pay rise or pay raise is an increase in your salary, and this is something that you can ask for at anytime. But it’s most often discussed during a performance appraisal or performance review. This is a meeting you have with your boss or supervisor to discuss your past performance and future goals.
【performance appraisal 绩效评估】

e.g. I’m going to ask my boss for a pay rise at my next performance review.

Continue reading the following words：

verb	define	e.g.
overtime	the time that you spend working at your job after you’ve work the normal hours.	- Do you do much overtime in your job?
time off in lieu	time off for the extra hours you worked 【time off 休假，就是休假补回来你加班的时间】	- Does your company offer time off in lieu?
underpaid	not paid enough for the work you do	- He always says that he’s overworked and underpaid.
well-paid	a well-paid job pays a lot of money	- If you have good qualifications and a lot of experience, you have better chances of getting a well-paid job.
overpaid	paid too much for the work you do	- A lot of people think professional footballers are overpaid.
commission	a percentage of the amount you sell 【n.(通常为政府管控或调查某事的)委员会；佣金】	- Paul ends a 15% commission on every robot he sells.
bonus	an extra amount added to your salary	- If we don’t meet our targets, we’ll lose our bonus.
Perks 【补贴】	things that an employer offers in addition to salary to make them more attractive to potential employees.	Some examples of perks are discounted memberships at local gyms, free healthy snacks, or different types of health insurance.

How to end a conversation

I’m going to show you how to end the conversation with an office colleague in four different scenarios. Let’s see how many of these common scenarios you know. For each scenario, we’ll practice a short dialogue together. And then i’ll show you some extra examples.

scenario 1

how to end a conversation with a colleague who is very busy and doesn’t really have time to chat.

e.g.
Jack: A few of us are going for drinks after work. Want to join us?
Nina: I’m not too sure, to be honest. I’d love to go, but I still have to finish that presentation for tomorrow.
Jack: Oh, okay. Do you need a hand with it?
Nina: No, it’s okay thanks. I can manage - I just need to focus and get it done.
Jack: Alright. Well, I can see you’ve got a lot on your plate so I’ll leave you to it. Good luck with the presentation!
Nina: Alright, thanks. Might see you later if I get everything finished.
Jack: Okay, sounds good.

Now let’s look at some other ways to end the conversation in this scenario:

e.g. Listen, I can see you’re busy so i’ll let you get back to work, chat to you later.

You notice that we use “listen” at the start of this example here. Listen is used as a filler word, which is a word that we use to fill a gap in speech or to signal that we’re going to change the subject, or in this case, that we want to bring a conversation to an end.

e.g. Alright, it looks like you’re pretty snowed under so i’ll get out of your way. Let’s grab a coffee when things settle down.

If you’re snowed under, it means that you have too much to do. When things settled down, they become calmer or less busy.

e.g. Listen, I don’t want to keep you any longer so i’ll head off. Speak to you later.

I’ll head off is a very informal way to say that you are going to leave.

scenario 2

This time, you want to end the conversation because you are too busy to chat.

e.g.
Nocole: Yeah, you should’ve seen her reaction. - it was so funny!
Pablo: I can imagine.
Nocole: Anyway, how was your weekend?
Pablo: Pretty good, but listen, would do you mind if we chat later? The boss wants me to finish this report before lunch.
Nocole: Yeah, sure. No problem. Talk to you later.
Pablo: Okay. Great, thanks.
So Nocole asks “anyway, how was your weekend” because she wants to keep the conversation going. Pablo is busy. So he says, "would you mind if we chat later? " This is a nice, polite way to ask if someone is okay with something, "would you mind? "

more examples:

e.g. Listen, don’t take this the wrong way. - I’d love to keep chatting but I have a really busy morning ahead of me. Maybe we could grab a coffee in the afternoon?
【don’t take this the wrong way 别误会】

e.g. Listen, I’d love to chat more, but I should really get back to my desk. I’ve got a ton of emails to reply to. Let’s try and grab lunch together soon.

e.g. Sorry, but would it be okay if we continue this later? I have a meeting with Frank in 15 minutes and I still need to check a couple of things.

scenario 3

How to end a conversation when you run out of things to say, maybe you want to chat more, but there’s nothing left to say.

e.g.
George: … and then in the evening we were feeling kind of lazy, so we just ordered a takeaway. 【ordered a takeaway 点外卖】
Rob: Oh yeah, what did you get?
George: We just ordered pizza from Luigi’s.
Rob: Oh yeah, i’ve heard of Luigi’s. Any good?
George: Yeah, was really good actually.
Rob: Cool.
(Silence)
George: So yeah, it was a pretty good weekend. Anyway, better get back to work. Talk to you later.
Rob: Alright. See you later.
So George and Rob are chatting about the weekend, and then there is some silence in the conversation. There is nothing left to talk about at the moment. So George uses the filler “So yeah”, this is another simple way to signal that you are ending a conversation.

more examples:

e.g. Alright then. Are you going to that meeting after lunch? (other person replies) Okay, I’ll see you then.

“Alright then” is another simple filler to signal the end of a conversation. And here it’s combined with another useful technique, which is to ask about a future appointment where you know you will see each other again.

e.g. Okay then. I think I’ll grab a quick coffee and get back to work.
e.g. Right. I think it’s time to go and check my inbox. See you later.
【inbox 收件箱】

scenario 4

How to end the conversation with the office chatter box. You know, those people who never stop talking. Every office has one.

e.g.
Andre: Yeah, so this is the third time she’s been out sick in the last four weeks.
Daniela: Uh- huh.
Andre: Yeah, I think she might be pregnant. I was talking to her a few months ago and she mentioned that she wanted to have another baby. Her little one is 4 now, so it’s probably a good time.
Daniela: Okay.
Andre: Yeah, so I think that’s it - she’s probably expecting. Or it could be something else? Maybe she broke up with her husband and she is depressed?
Daniela: Maybe. Anyway, I better get going. I have a pile of work to do.
Andre: Oh! Okay.
Daniela: Yeah, see you later.
So Andre, the office chatter box thinks that his colleague is pregnant, and he also uses the phrase “she’s probably expecting”, which is another way to say that someone is pregnant, then Daniela ends the conversation quite directly with “Anyway, I better get going”. You could say " sorry, but I better get going". But sometimes we need to be a bit direct, especially with colleagues who don’t know when to stop talking.

more examples:

e.g. Listen, I don’t mean to be rude, but I really should get back to work.
【I don’t mean to be rude 无意冒犯】
e.g. Sorry, but if i’m not back at my desk in 2 minutes, the boss is going to start asking questions.
e.g. Oh look! There’s Simon. He’s the guy you should talk to about this.

• Reference video【40集】工作英语 | 外企上班族必备！Derek Callan的商务英语学习教室【合集】