長途跋涉到達飯店, 艱難的旅行日, you need to do one last thing before you can take a hot shower and relax in front of the TV – 你需要辦理登機手續. 這意味著透過填寫任何必要的表格並向飯店提供您的信用卡號碼來登記房間.
Today’s Business English Podcast lesson is on making a hotel reservation.
It’s something all of us need to do: Whether it’s for a company business trip, or for personal travel – we all need to, at some time or another, call a hotel to reserve a room. 當然, making reservations is not only useful for hotels but also for all sorts of situations – conferences, restaurants, airplane travel, and any other type of event that requires us to book in advance.
That is the skill that we will be practicing in this episode – making reservations. 一路上, we’ll also be learning vocabulary for staying in hotels.
在聆聽中, Sarah Johnson is going on vacation with her husband. She calls the reservations desk at the Majestic Hotel in New York, where a staff member, 托尼, picks up the phone. 當你聽, pay attention to the language Sarah uses, 並嘗試回答以下問題.
聽力問題
1) What kind of room does Sarah want? 2) What extra request does Sarah have? 3) Tony makes a mistake while taking Sarah’s reservation. 它是什麼?
They say there’s one rule of conversation that you should always follow in business – don’t talk about politics, sex or religion. 實際上, 然而, it seems like 90% of casual conversations are about just those things – politics, sex and religion. So in this episode, we’ll be focusing on one of these topics – politics. We’ll be learning some language that will help you cope with this difficult topic.
There’s a trick to talking about politics in business. In international business culture, it’s usually better not to express strong opinions. The focus is generally on the exchange of information rather than on debate, because the main goal is to maintain harmonious relations. 經常, we state our opinions non-committally. That means we don’t commit ourselves to an opinion – 換句話說, we don’t voice a strong view one way or the other. 代替, we prefer to be vague, or ambiguous. This strategy helps avoid conflict.
So in this podcast, in addition to covering some general phrases and vocabulary for discussing politics, we’ll be studying how to soften your questions and be non-committal when necessary.
We’ll be listening to Ricardo and Lars, old colleagues who have met each other again at an international conference. They’re talking about the political situations in their home countries, Brazil and Denmark.
聽力問題
1) Ricardo says he has heard that the Danish government is pretty far “正確的”, 那是, conservative. But Lars seems to think that this has a good side. 它是什麼? 2) Lars mentions that Brazil has won its bid to host the World Cup. Ricardo says that Brazil has a lot of work to do in which areas? 3) Lars talks about a certain kind of problem that has “cropped up”, 那是, appeared or occurred during Brazilian President Lula’s presidency. 它是什麼?
In many countries, having a drink after work with colleagues is a popular way to relax: This kind of socializing helps us get to know each other and to build team spirit. To attract customers who are just getting off work, many bars and clubs have a “happy hour.” This is a promotion in the early evening, usually lasting an hour or so, when pubs and bars offer a special prices on drinks, 如 “buy one get one free” 或者 “all drinks half price.” So in this business English podcast, we will explore language that we can use to socialize with colleagues during happy hour or during other informal occasions.
Whether you drink alcohol or not, in many places around the world you will likely be invited to the bar or pub with colleagues. It’s important to know how to offer to buy drinks for others and how to make polite excuses when you’ve had enough or when it’s time to go. The same skills are also useful for other types of after-work social activities.
在對話方塊中, we join Greg, a manager, and three people in his team – Joanna, Gary, 和本 – as they order.
聽力問題:
1) Who is paying for the first round of drinks? How can you tell? 2) Who is the person who doesn’t drink? 3) When it’s time for her to go, what excuse does Joanna make?
