0:01

Business English Power, Episode 62. Aloha

0:07

and welcome to Business English Power, the

0:09

show for ambitious English students who want

0:11

to level up their business English skills,

0:13

become global communicators and international business leaders.

0:17

My name is Al, also known as

0:19

Al Sensei here online, and during

0:21

my 18 years spent as

0:24

a corporate trainer in Japan and

0:26

English teacher. Thank you

0:28

so much for joining me today. We are

0:30

going to do something new

0:32

today. We're going to try out something and

0:34

I hope you enjoy it. I think you

0:36

will. But before we

0:39

do that, please subscribe to Business English

0:41

Power. I really appreciate that. And

0:43

also, you don't want to miss a single episode because, hey,

0:46

let's face it, we have one of the best shows out

0:48

there. You don't want to miss a single episode and

0:51

we're coming out fast and furious

0:53

as always. All right? So

0:55

thank you so much for joining me. Please

0:58

subscribe. Please follow on whatever

1:00

podcast, app or platform you use.

1:03

And I would prefer it if you share

1:05

this episode with a friend, a classmate, a

1:07

colleague, anyone who could get some value out

1:09

of this as well. And

1:11

that would be very much appreciated. Just

1:13

hit share on your favorite social media

1:15

platform and that would be greatly

1:18

appreciated. All right, so let's

1:20

get into it today. Now, as I said, we're

1:22

going to do something a little bit new here

1:24

on the show. We're going to do pronunciation practice,

1:26

which is not new. But

1:28

the way we're going to do it is

1:31

I'm going to pick up an article

1:33

here and I'm

1:35

just going to choose some random

1:37

terms in business that

1:40

are common. Of

1:42

course, that's one of my criteria here

1:44

on my show, Business English Power,

1:46

as well as going back to the English 2.0 podcast

1:49

days. But still

1:52

holds true that we definitely

1:54

want to be using the

1:56

most common words and vocabulary

1:58

and terms. that

2:00

are out there because we don't want

2:02

outdated words and slang and jargon. We

2:04

want to be using the terms that

2:06

our people are using at the moment

2:09

very commonly and increase

2:12

our productivity and our

2:16

efficiency and our proficiency when

2:19

we speak and use English especially in

2:22

business. So we're

2:24

going to check out an article. I've

2:26

already looked it up. It's from

2:29

Oxford Royale. The title

2:31

of this article is called 35 Terms

2:34

to Enhance Your Business English Vocabulary.

2:37

I'll link to this in the show notes as well

2:39

so you can follow along. They've

2:41

got 35. We're not going to do all

2:43

35 but I'm going to handpick a few of them

2:46

here on the fly as we go. There's a

2:48

good idiom for you right there. On the fly

2:51

means without preparing. We're

2:54

doing it spontaneously right now. On

2:57

the fly. Very good. That's our

2:59

first business term idiom today. Let's

3:03

get into it. Follow along if

3:05

you can with this article. If you don't have it,

3:07

that's fine because I'm just going to pick some terms

3:10

you don't need to be looking at this but if

3:12

you do want the other terms that we don't hit

3:14

today, make sure to check out

3:16

the article later. The

3:20

first term that I want to go

3:22

over here is number three on their

3:25

list which is startup. Startup.

3:30

Now what does that mean? Startup

3:32

is usually referred to a new company

3:35

that is starting up of course. It's

3:38

typically not all the time but

3:40

it's typically a tech firm or

3:42

a tech company. It's

3:46

in the first few months of getting

3:48

started. Now

3:51

again this is pronunciation practice so that's what

3:53

we want to do. Let's

3:56

take a look at how to pronounce it. Words.

4:01

Of course are start and

4:03

up. Which. I think you can all

4:05

do. For the reason I'm

4:07

choosing this term is because we put

4:09

these two words together. It. Can

4:11

sound a little different because you never greeley

4:14

going to here in native speakers a start

4:16

up know very clearly, right? and I can

4:18

separate the words like that They're going to

4:20

say start up. And. So

4:23

let's. Begin. With start.

4:26

Case. Of course we ever as t sounds stuff.

4:29

And. Then we add E r

4:31

S. That's. A tall a

4:33

followed by ourselves and our. Like.

4:35

That word are are you are the letter

4:37

r. K followed by

4:39

T and the ending position. So many

4:42

put it all together. it's star. Know

4:44

like a star in the sky. With.

4:46

The teeth of start. Start

4:50

of course it up now

4:52

up of course is our

4:54

natural while sound the ah

4:57

ok. The. Dub short

4:59

you are flat. He was. I call it.

5:02

In. General. It's called a Schwab

5:04

says that. Very. Basic

5:06

English sound. The gets the most natural

5:08

sound they can make in English, and

5:10

that's why you know when you're thinking

5:12

about something New Year? Native speakers thinking.

5:15

You know they'll say they'll say something

5:17

like ah, I'm sorry ah. And

5:19

something like that not that sound rather so

5:21

it be up. To

5:24

so does but the p at the end it's up. Is

5:27

a start. Up Now when he

5:29

put these together and he said naturally, The

5:32

ending. t of start is

5:34

gonna. Gonna. Become soft and

5:37

that's what I call the soft

5:39

cheese. in other words, more like

5:41

a hard to d sound. Is

5:43

had stirred up. His

5:45

instead of starts it. Up. As

5:48

think about as a d sound connecting

5:50

the word up such a sound like

5:53

this start up. Again,

5:56

so please try it. Start. Up.

6:00

Okay, now let's put it into

6:02

a sentence in an example. Okay,

6:04

so please repeat after me. Hey,

6:07

did you hear about that new startup? Okay,

6:13

very good. One more time. Hey, did

6:15

you hear about that new startup? Okay,

6:18

excellent. So

6:22

it can be used as a noun. All

6:25

right, very, very good. All

6:29

right, the next one we're going to do is number

6:31

six on their list. Now, some

6:33

of them actually are going to kind of

6:36

overlap the episode where

6:38

we talked about the different departments

6:42

in the company. So number seven is HR, which

6:44

we talked about. But number six is

6:47

not a department, but it's a

6:49

very common term used in business and

6:51

it's USP. Now,

6:54

of course, this is an abbreviation. So what does

6:56

USP stand for? Well, it stands for unique

6:59

selling proposition. Okay,

7:01

so unique selling proposition. So

7:03

that typically refers to your company

7:06

or your brand. What

7:09

is their feature? What

7:12

stands out about your company or your

7:14

product or your brand over

7:16

the competitors? What is your unique

7:19

fit? What stands out

7:21

about you compared to all the

7:23

others out there? And that

7:25

is called your USP or

7:27

unique selling proposition. So a

7:30

lot of times we will boil it down to

7:33

the abbreviation USP. So we need to

7:35

know how do you say that? Well, again,

7:37

simply saying the letters all together. U

7:40

S T. Okay,

7:44

and when you put them together, say them, you

7:46

know, start slowly. But as you put

7:49

them together, it starts to sound like this. U

7:52

S T. U

7:54

S P. U

7:56

S P. U S P. So.

8:00

To start slowly but put them together Now

8:02

you may be tempted to say for example,

8:04

Usa if you're it's used to saying Usa

8:06

but instead of that to switch it out,

8:08

switch out the A for the T U

8:10

S P. And you if they're

8:13

pretty quick a birth a good one to go over

8:15

because it's very common. A term we use

8:17

and business You hear a lot of people say hey,

8:19

I'm. Maybe you're

8:22

doing a brainstorming meeting together New might

8:24

you might ask yourself in the meeting,

8:26

what's our U S P. Guess

8:28

you can try that. Please repeat: What

8:30

Are U S P. K.

8:35

Farragut. Or it's a let's

8:38

try another one here. I'm screwed on the

8:40

list. To.

8:45

The it's got a number Eleven

8:47

Here in this term is minutes.

8:49

Or it. As a good one some

8:52

minutes. What does that mean in business? So

8:56

the minutes are basically a record

8:59

of a meeting in a written

9:01

record of. Your. A meeting?

9:04

Again more of a new document that

9:06

old he used to reach your go

9:08

of course record what happened in the

9:10

meeting the maybe to. Give. To

9:12

people that were unable to attend the meeting

9:15

at the time. And castle. Those.

9:17

That's called the minutes. And.

9:19

Usually you have someone assigned

9:21

in the meeting to take

9:24

the minutes. Okay

9:26

or record the minutes of the

9:28

meeting. So it's kind of course

9:30

recognize the team members who attended

9:32

the meeting the time that which

9:34

is started and ended. And

9:36

the key points on the agenda. Things like

9:38

that the key decisions that were made Anything

9:40

like that would be put in the minutes.

9:43

Games. So how do we pronounce that

9:45

was not exactly the word like hours

9:47

and minutes, the unit of time. But.

9:51

Again, just make sure we

9:53

pronouncing it accurately and naturally.

9:56

let's break it down here so i'll start

9:58

with again the first part Again,

10:00

we have two syllables here, min and nit.

10:03

So we're going to start with the first one, which is min. Okay,

10:06

so when we do M-I-N, min, again,

10:08

we're talking about that vowel sound that is

10:11

tricky. I know a lot from my Japanese

10:13

students. So we don't want the ee

10:16

sound. We don't want min. Okay, we want to

10:18

loosen our throat a little bit and say min and

10:21

get that short i sound or

10:23

again what I call the flat i

10:25

sound, min. Okay, so

10:28

if you're saying min, just loosen

10:30

your throat a little bit so it's not min

10:32

but min. Okay,

10:35

min. Very good. And

10:37

then the second syllable is if you

10:40

want to include the n, it's nits or

10:42

just without the n, it's. Okay,

10:45

simply like it is, okay, it's. Okay,

10:48

min-its. Okay,

10:51

now again, don't think about the spelling because

10:53

the spelling will throw you off because of

10:55

that you in there.

10:57

Don't think about that. Just listen carefully

10:59

to me and listen to native speakers

11:01

talk. And that's how you're going to

11:03

improve your pronunciation. Okay,

11:06

use your ears, not your eyes when

11:08

you speak. Very important. It's

11:11

okay. When you put it together,

11:14

it's min-its. Min-its.

11:18

Okay, so let's put it into a sentence.

11:21

Okay, I'll take the minutes for

11:24

this meeting. Okay,

11:26

please repeat after me. I'll

11:29

take the minutes for this meeting. Okay,

11:34

very good. So that's

11:37

how you can use min-its. All

11:40

right, let's use a couple more. Now we're going

11:42

down the list. Here is office jargon and the

11:44

second part. Jargon as we went

11:47

over a few episodes ago just simply means specialized

11:50

terminology, particularly for your

11:52

area of business, your

11:54

field, maybe your department,

11:57

your company has special

11:59

terms, but. This

12:01

is special terms used in the

12:03

business world as opposed

12:05

to in general English. Let's

12:10

take a look here. Okay, this is a

12:12

good one, number 17, and

12:14

this is stakeholders. Okay,

12:17

stakeholders is a good term to know and you're going

12:19

to hear it a lot as

12:21

you continue to attend business

12:23

meetings and talk to people

12:26

from overseas that use this term

12:28

a lot. So stakeholders, what does that mean? Well,

12:31

of course you have heard of stockholders,

12:33

I'm sure. So if

12:35

your company is somewhat large or

12:38

incorporated, they're going to

12:40

have stockholders, people

12:44

that own stock

12:46

of your company. Okay,

12:48

so that could be anybody, anybody who

12:51

owns stock in your company is a

12:53

stockholder. Now we

12:55

want to separate that from stakeholder

12:57

because stakeholder can mean

12:59

anyone who is

13:01

involved in the decision, anyone

13:04

who is involved in that particular

13:07

meeting topic is

13:10

a stakeholder. Okay, so it

13:12

could be the, it could be go all the way

13:14

to the CEO. Okay, it

13:16

could be just the people in your department. It

13:19

really depends on the meeting and it depends on

13:22

who is going to be affected by the

13:24

outlook. The outcome of that meeting or the

13:26

outcome of that project or that decision and

13:28

those are the stakeholders. Okay, and

13:31

it could spread pretty wide even to the

13:33

customers. So you have to

13:36

be aware of who is affected

13:38

by this. Okay, so let's

13:40

practice a pronunciation. How

13:43

many syllables do we have? Well,

13:45

we have three stakeholders. So

13:48

the first part is steak, just like you eat

13:50

steak. So we have that ST and

13:52

then we have a true A sound,

13:54

stay. Okay,

13:56

and just add the sound

13:59

at the end so we have... of

14:02

course the silence e there, so we

14:04

say steak then

14:06

we have hole it's like a hole

14:09

in the wall so you have your H sound again

14:12

if you're doing an H

14:15

sound if you are a Japanese student

14:17

definitely go all for that H sound and

14:20

don't have that F sound kind

14:22

of come in you want to go a

14:24

hole H ho okay with

14:26

the L at the ending position so hole hole okay

14:30

because your tongue should be pretty tight there

14:32

hole and

14:34

then DRS okay now DRS of

14:37

course we have the D plus the ER

14:39

sound ER sound again

14:42

we're going to lock that

14:44

tongue in place put your

14:46

sides of your mouth pretty tight and

14:48

make that er sound and

14:50

for more on this definitely check out my pronunciation

14:52

course because this is a challenging sound for a

14:55

lot of you and this is

14:57

one that needs to be mastered if you

14:59

want to get pronunciation down like

15:02

a native okay so hole

15:04

DRS and add the S at

15:06

the end more of a Z sound stake

15:09

holders okay put

15:11

it together little by little okay one

15:14

more time stake holders okay

15:19

so let's make a sentence

15:21

with stakeholders okay

15:25

let's come to a decision

15:27

because it affects all stakeholders

15:34

okay very good one more time please

15:36

repeat okay let's come to a

15:38

decision because it affects all stakeholders

15:47

all right excellent okay

15:51

so we've got I think those are that's

15:53

for let's do one more here again in

15:55

the jargon

15:58

section here I'm looking At

16:01

Okay, here's a good one here.

16:03

Number Twenty Six: Best Practice is

16:05

a Best Practice. This is a

16:07

good term and best Practice simply

16:09

means in your department or in

16:11

your area. What is

16:13

the common way to go? That.

16:16

Is also effective. And

16:18

efficient. Hey, what do most.

16:20

People are most teams are most

16:22

companies do. In. Your similar

16:25

position and your similar field and

16:27

that is called a best Practice.

16:30

Or it. Okay, so

16:32

how do we. Say. That is

16:34

of course have two different words here.

16:36

Best of course arena have that be

16:38

sound. Make sure your. Top.

16:41

And bottom lips are coming the other making

16:43

them he sound not to v. E.

16:46

And were saying that short He

16:49

sent beth. Okay, not

16:51

say how we don't want the case

16:53

on what the heck. Again, loosen that

16:56

throat. that. Can.

16:58

Than add the as he just.

17:01

Just. Just.

17:06

And then practice case are putting the

17:08

key or together press and were using

17:10

that short. A sound The

17:12

and. Okay, Crest.

17:16

There. So. I call a flat

17:18

is a kind of has an image of having

17:20

a. Mouth.

17:23

And that's where you want you on that ass

17:25

sound. Not. Ah ok not

17:27

a but we want air crash.

17:30

Okay, crash and then put that

17:32

see some chris. Pratt

17:35

crack. Crack.

17:38

And. Then hes can now out

17:40

the t cause that's short

17:42

I hit. Her not

17:44

to use but Ces. This

17:47

ambition that throat. To. See.

17:50

And in once. They. Get his

17:53

sound at the end. We don't

17:55

sue his what practice. Okay,

17:58

so he can put together. practice. Okay,

18:02

now put it together. Best practice.

18:08

All right, very good. So best practice, let's

18:10

make a sentence, let's make it into a

18:13

question this time. All right,

18:15

so please repeat after me. What's

18:18

the best practice for this situation? Okay,

18:21

very good. One

18:24

more time. Please repeat. What

18:27

is the best practice for this situation? Okay,

18:35

excellent, nice job. So

18:37

that is some good

18:39

practice with our terms today,

18:42

pronouncing them. Again, this is from an article

18:44

called 35 Business

18:46

Terms That You Should Know. And I'll put a

18:48

link to that in the show notes. And

18:51

we've gone over some good terms here. These are

18:53

very common, very good to know. Of course, to

18:55

hear but also to say. That's why we're pronouncing

18:58

them, practicing them. So

19:00

please, again, practice, always

19:03

practice and get these down. And

19:06

go over the article for more terms that

19:08

you may want to master in the future.

19:11

But that's the five that we want to get down for today.

19:13

I hope you enjoyed this episode. Let me know if you did.

19:16

That way we can have a way

19:18

of continuing on. I know what you guys

19:20

want and like. If you hated this episode,

19:22

let me know as well because I want to know that. If

19:25

you're on Spotify, you can also leave

19:27

a comment. There's a question

19:29

on the episode. What did

19:31

you think of this episode? And leave me your comment

19:33

there. I would love to hear from you. I went

19:36

over a couple on the last few episodes. So thank

19:38

you guys for sharing those. I'd like to read a

19:40

few more on the next episode. So

19:42

let me know what you think about this. And

19:45

I will share it here on

19:47

the Business English Power show. Alright

19:50

guys, you can always email

19:52

me, al.at.businessenglishpower.com. You can

19:55

always follow on all the socials. Of course

19:57

Twitter, formally called Twitter, now known as X.

20:01

Facebook at English fluency or

20:03

sorry there'll be speak

20:05

natural English on facebook.com

20:09

speak natural English also

20:11

we've got a new account on Instagram

20:14

business English power and tick tock business

20:16

English power alright guys that's it for

20:18

today I will see you again very

20:21

soon thank you so much for joining

20:23

me and I will see

20:25

you next time until then please remember

20:27

to always level up your

20:29

learning and level up your life