When it comes to business, communication is key. Knowing how to use business English idioms can really help you express yourself, make connections and achieve success. These colorful expressions add depth and nuance to our conversations, making it easier to communicate confidently and effectively.
Today, we explore several commonly used idioms you might come across when using English in the workplace, providing examples of how they can be used and shedding light on their meanings.
A ballpark figure means an estimate or rough guess of a quantity or value. It's a handy way to give a general idea or range without getting too into the details. This can be really helpful during negotiations or planning when you don't need exact numbers. Ballpark figures give you a sense of the bigger picture without bogging you down with specifics.
If someone says they are "in the red", it means they are having a tough time financially and are experiencing losses or negative cash flow. This happens when expenses are more than the money coming in, resulting in a negative balance or deficit. The term originated from using red ink in financial records to indicate negative numbers.
A way to describe a really creative and outside-the-box approach to problem-solving or brainstorming. Basically thinking or brainstorming without any boundaries or limits. A manager might encourage a team to do some blue-sky thinking, allowing them to come up with some very imaginative ideas and concepts.
An idiom for attempting an impossible task, originating from a math problem where you can't create a square with the same area as a circle using just a compass and straight edge. Someone may say trying to reach a solution all clients were happy with was like trying to square the circle, implying that it was a difficult and almost impossible task.
This saying suggests that relying on just one strategy or investment is not wise. It emphasizes the importance of diversification and spreading risks for long-term success. To achieve sustained success, a financial advisor may suggest to their client to diversify their investment portfolio and not solely rely on one option.
The meaning of making ends meet involves being able to complete a task or project using the existing income or resources. It requires efficient management of finances to cover necessary expenses, despite having a limited budget or resources.For instance, if someone is working on a project with a restricted budget, they may need to make ends meet as they cannot obtain additional funds to support it.
This means considering every possible factor and handling them carefully to prevent problems or risks. Making sure everything is examined, and anticipating any potential challenges or situations. A business doing a report or analysis may want to "cover all the bases" to prevent any surprise issues or gaps.
The origin of this is likely a reference to baseball. When playing defense, the goal is to protect or 'cover' your bases and stop the other team from getting points.
To solve a problem or task, by focusing on the important details and practical steps needed for success. Avoiding unnecessary distractions and concentrating on what's essential.For instance, a project manager might say, "Let's focus on the necessary steps we need to take to complete this project on time by getting down to brass tacks."
"Playing hardball" means being tough and unwavering during negotiations or business deals. It shows that someone is assertive and firm in defending their interests. If the other party is unyielding, a skilled negotiator may suggest "playing hardball" to get a better deal.
These are just a few of a long list, but by adopting idioms and English phrases like these into your professional interactions, you can strengthen relationships with colleagues and showcase your understanding of the business environment more clearly. Plus, it can give you a boost of confidence in your language learning and in navigating the complex world of corporate English.
If you want to refine your business English skills even further, make sure to check out our blog post5 ways to politely say no in Business English. You can also check out Mondly, an app developed to help you learn languages for various realistic scenarios.
Watching films can be a great way for people to learn English. We all have our favourite movie moments and, even as passive viewers, they're probably teaching you more than you realise. Here's a selection of our favourite scenes, along with the reasons why they're educational as well as entertaining.
US institutions are always on the lookout for ways to enhance their admissions processes. One effective strategy is leveraging the Score Report Website for both PTE Academic and ɫèAV English Express Test. This platform offers numerous benefits that can improve the efficiency and effectiveness of admissions teams.
The Score Report Website provides a centralized platform where admissions teams can easily access and verify test scores. This eliminates the need for paper-based score reports and reduces the risk of errors associated with manual data entry. By using this digital platform, institutions can quickly retrieve accurate and up-to-date test taker scores for both PTE Academic and ɫèAV English Express Test, ensuring a smooth and reliable admissions process.
One of the key advantages of the Score Report Website is its robust security features. The platform uses secure login protocols to protect sensitive student data.
ɫèAV’s score report website also ensures that scores cannot be tampered with, as they are sent directly through the system. This means the score that an institution sees, is the score that was awarded to a test taker. This level of security and accuracy builds trust with both students and institutions, making the admissions process more reliable.
The Score Report Website offers real-time access to test scores, allowing admissions teams to make quicker decisions. This is particularly beneficial during peak admissions periods when timely decisions are crucial. The platform's ability to provide instant access to scores means that institutions can respond promptly to applicants, enhancing the overall student experience.
By embracing a digital score reporting system, institutions can reduce the costs associated with printing and mailing paper-based score reports. This not only saves money but also supports sustainability efforts by reducing paper waste. The Score Report Website aligns with the growing trend of digital transformation in higher education, promoting a more eco-friendly approach to admissions.
ɫèAV's Score Report Website allows institutions to share scores with multiple departments and stakeholders seamlessly. This facilitates better communication and collaboration within the admissions team.
Using the Score Report Website to accept PTE Academic and ɫèAV English Express Test applicants is a strategic move that positions your institution as a forward-thinking leader in higher education, committed to efficiency and security.
Why does progression seem to slow down as an English learner moves from beginner to more advanced skills?
When presenting at ELT conferences, I often ask the audience – typically teachers and school administrators – “When you left home today, to start your journey here, did you know where you were going?” The audience invariably responds with a laugh and says yes, of course. I then ask, “Did you know roughly when you would arrive at your destination?” Again the answer is, of course, yes. “But what about your students on their English learning journey? Can they say the same?” At this point, the laughter stops.
All too often English learners find themselves without a clear picture of the journey they are embarking on and the steps they will need to take to achieve their goals. We all share a fundamental need for orientation, and in a world of mobile phone GPS we take it for granted. Questions such as: Where am I? Where am I going? When will I get there? are answered instantly at the touch of a screen. If you’re driving along a motorway, you get a mileage sign every three miles.
When they stop appearing regularly we soon feel uneasy. How often do English language learners see mileage signs counting down to their learning goal? Do they even have a specific goal?
The key thing about GPS is that it’s very precise. You can see your start point, where you are heading and tell, to the mile or kilometer, how long your journey will be. You can also get an estimated time of arrival to the minute. As Mike Mayor mentioned in his post about what it means to be fluent, the same can’t be said for understanding and measuring English proficiency. For several decades, the ELL industry got by with the terms ‘beginner’, ‘elementary’, ‘pre-intermediate’ and ‘advanced’ – even though there was no definition of what they meant, where they started and where they ended.
The CEFR has become widely accepted as a measure of English proficiency, bringing an element of shared understanding of what it means to be at a particular level in English. However, the wide bands that make up the CEFR can result in a situation where learners start a course of study as B1 and, when they end the course, they are still within the B1 band. That doesn’t necessarily mean that their English skills haven’t improved – they might have developed substantially – but it’s just that the measurement system isn’t granular enough to pick up these improvements in proficiency.
So here’s the first weakness in our English language GPS and one that’s well on the way to being remedied with the Global Scale of English (GSE). Because the GSE measures proficiency on a 10-90 scale across each of the four skills, students using assessment tools reporting on the GSE are able to see incremental progress in their skills even within a CEFR level. So we have the map for an English language GPS to be able to track location and plot the journey to the end goal.
When it comes to pinpointing how long it’s going to take to reach that goal, we need to factor in the fact that the amount of effort it takes to improve your English increases as you become more proficient. Although the bands in the CEFR are approximately the same width, the law of diminishing returns means that the better your English is to begin with, the harder it is to make further progress – and the harder it is to feel that progress is being made.
That’s why many an English language-learning journey gets abandoned on the intermediate plateau. With no sense of progression or a tangible, achievable goal on the horizon, the learner can become disoriented and demoralised.
To draw another travel analogy, when you climb 100 meters up a mountain at 5,000 meters above sea level the effort required is greater than when you climb 100 meters of gentle slope down in the foothills. It’s exactly the same 100 meter distance, it’s just that those hundred 100 meters require progressively more effort the higher up you are, and the steeper the slope. So, how do we keep learners motivated as they pass through the intermediate plateau?
We have a number of tools available to keep learners on track as they start to experience the law of diminishing returns. We can show every bit of progress they are making using tools that capture incremental improvements in ability. We can also provide new content that challenges the learner in a way that’s realistic.
Setting unrealistic expectations and promising outcomes that aren’t deliverable is hugely demotivating for the learner. It also has a negative impact on teachers – it’s hard to feel job satisfaction when your students are feeling increasingly frustrated by their apparent lack of progress.
Big data is providing a growing bank of information. In the long term this will deliver a much more precise estimate of effort required to reach higher levels of proficiency, even down to a recommendation of the hours required to go from A to B and how those hours are best invested. That way, learners and teachers alike would be able to see where they are now, where they want to be and a path to get there. It’s a fully functioning English language learning GPS system, if you like.
