Learn business English vocabulary related to specific areas such as finance, marketing, legal, project management, IT and technology, human resources (HR), and international trade.
We now have over 150 audio and video English lessons covering key aspects of business English vocabulary. Vocabulary is presented in context using realistic conversations and visuals and each lesson has a downloadable PDF transcript and online quizzes for extra practice. In addition to our vocabulary lessons, we have a great selection of lessons on business English idioms and collocations.
Use these links to jump to business vocabulary for specific areas such as finance, marketing and legal:
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the second in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on quality control for customer service.
For companies that sell products, quality control is critical. Not just for ensuring consistency, safety, and reliability, but for meeting customers’ expectations. When customers buy from your company, they’re thinking about more than just the product itself. They’re thinking about how well you serve them.
Customer service involves a huge range of activities. Pretty much any time a customer interacts with a person or a system in your company, it’s customer service. And you need to think about everything from how easy it is to use the website, to the tone your employees use on the phone.
When we talk about customer service, and the quality of customer service, there are many special expressions we use. Many of these are combinations of words that we call “collocations.” You might often learn individual vocabulary words, but we don’t always think, or speak, in individual words. We speak in chunks of language. These chunks are called collocations. In fact “customer service” itself is a collocation. Those two words go together to create a new idea.
In today’s dialog, we’ll continue a conversation between Emma and Paolo. Emma is a consultant that helps companies with quality control. And Paolo runs a company that makes and services solar panels. As they discuss the work that Emma will do for Paolo’s company, they use many English collocations. We’ll explain those collocations later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. What two goals does Paolo have regarding customer service quality? 2. What does Paolo’s company do after every install or service call? 3. What has Paolo’s company not done yet, in a documented way?
Welcome back to Business English Pod for today’s lesson, the first in a two-part series on quality control. In this lesson, we’ll focus on the manufacturing side of things.
Successful companies understand the importance of quality. At minimum, quality control is about meeting industry standards or regulations. Beyond that, quality is a huge factor in brand reputation and customer satisfaction. And a commitment to strong QC, or quality control, can also lead to significant cost savings.
Given these benefits, no wonder many companies have entire teams or positions dedicated to monitoring quality. And, just like any other area of expertise, quality control comes with its own special language. Much of this language appears in set expressions that we call “collocations.” In fact, I just used one when I mentioned “monitoring quality.” To monitor quality is a common collocation related to quality control.
Collocations are just natural combinations of words. Certain verbs and adjectives always go with certain nouns. And certain nouns often combine to create a special meaning. If you just learn new words individually, you might miss these natural combinations.
In today’s dialog, we’ll hear a conversation between Paolo and Emma. Paolo works for a company that manufactures, sells, and services solar panels. Emma is a quality control consultant. Paolo’s company is looking to hire Emma to conduct a quality control audit, or a review of their systems. During their conversation, they use lots of English collocations, which we’ll explain later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. What does Paolo say they did after completing a safety audit? 2. What kind of testing will Emma’s work not include? 3. What is the purpose of “pulling samples” in quality control?
The past few years have been a very interesting time for the world economy. A pandemic has exposed the vulnerabilities of global supply chains. Geopolitical tensions around the world have intensified, stoking inflation. In response to these disruptive forces, we are seeing a new international dynamic emerge, as Shroders reports:
A decades-long process of globalization is coming to an end as the world becomes more protectionist, favoring opportunities closer to home. Multinational corporations are diversifying where they produce goods and relocating closer to home. This trend represents backtracking from the globalized model of extended supply chains that have defined international trade in the past few decades.
Many saw globalization as an unassailable model for economic development, one that brought universal benefits. And there are many who see deglobalization, as it’s being called, as either regressive or bad for business. But the cracks in the globalized economy are evident.
English can be a difficult language to learn. One reason, which you’ve likely discovered, is that there are so many different ways to say something. It’s not just a variety of individual words, but also the variety of idioms. Idioms can be tricky. You might hear someone say “it’s a dog eat dog world” and wonder: why are they talking about dogs?
In fact, a “dog eat dog world” is not about dogs at all. This is an idiom that describes a tough competitive environment. Just like the business world in which you’re trying to learn English so you can compete. English is full of expressions like this. And it turns out that we have dozens of idioms related to animals.
In this lesson, we’ll rejoin a conversation among three colleagues in a large corporation. Ruby, Dylan and Kyle have been discussing the Chief Investment Officer position in their company, as well as the world of investments. In their conversation they use many idioms related to animals. See if you can spot some of these as we go through the dialog, and we’ll explain them later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. How does Dylan describe his investment advisor’s work habits? 2. What does Ruby say to communicate to her colleagues that she doesn’t have special information to share? 3. What does Dylan believe the company needs to do to prove they’re serious about IT transformation?
Like all our lessons, this one is focused on language that you can use at work and in business. When you work like a dog, you can’t waste your time learning expressions you’ll never use. And when it comes to idioms, you should focus on the ones that are commonly used and widely understood. Like the one I just used: “to work like a dog.”
In fact, there’s a ton of idioms in English that mention animals, especially dogs. That’s probably because so many of us keep them as pets. But we’ve got idioms about cats, horses, snakes, fish, cows, bears and countless other animals. And learning these idioms can add to your language toolbox and make you sound more natural. Besides, a well-placed idiom can add a lot of impact to a sentence.
In this lesson, we’ll listen to a conversation between Dylan, Ruby, and Kyle – three colleagues in a large corporation. They’re talking about the Chief Investment Officer position in their company. They discuss the former person in the role, people who applied for the job, and the person who got it. In their conversation they use many idioms related to animals. See if you can spot some of these, and we’ll explain them later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. How does Ruby describe Greg, the person in finance who applied for the Chief Investment Officer job? 2. How does Dylan describe Brett, the former Chief Investment Officer? 3. What expression does Ruby use to describe the current challenging market?
