Business English: Grammar, Vocabulary, and Phrases
Business English
Grammar
Second Conditional
- If she wasn’t happy, she would look for another job.
- He would stay until the end of the meeting if he didn’t have a flight.
Modals
- Contract workers have to/should sign in.
- You must/should wash your hands.
- You shouldn’t/mustn’t wear jewelry.
- We can’t/mustn’t eat or drink.
Passive Voice
- Present Simple: is/are conducted
- Past Simple: was conducted
- Future: will be conducted
- Present Continuous: is/are being conducted
- Past Continuous: was/were being conducted
- Present Perfect: have conducted = has been conducted
Examples:
- The plant’s output can’t be increased.
- Our electricity will be supplied.
- The delivery has been delayed.
Reported Speech
- Present Simple: eat = ATE
- Past Simple: ate = HAD EATEN
- Future: will eat =
- Present Continuous: are eating = WERE EATING
- Past Continuous: were eating =
- Present Perfect: have eaten = HAD EATEN
- Present Perfect Continuous: have been eating = HAD been eating
- Past Perfect Simple: had eaten = HAD EATEN
Business Vocabulary
- Broaden (ampliar)
- Cater to (atender a)
- Cut off (interrumpir)
- Invoices (facturas)
- Insight (visión)
- Mass-produced items (artículos producidos en serie)
- Monthly retainer (retención mensual)
- Lazy (perezoso)
- Log on (acceder)
- Overseas branches (sucursales extranjero)
- Peer (compañero)
- Payroll tax (impuesto nómina)
- Rewarding environment (gratificante)
- Responsiveness (sensibilidad)
- Standard procedures (procedimientos estándar)
- Stroke of luck (golpe suerte)
- Tiring (fatigoso)
- Voucher (vale, cupón)
- Wide range (amplia gama)
- Levelled off (nivelado)
- Reached a peak (alcanzó pico)
- Break even (cubrir gastos)
- Loss (pérdida)
- Write off (anotar)
- Crash (hundir)
- Equities (acciones)
- Commodities (productos)
Business Communication
Meeting Arrangements
A. Initiating
- I’m writing to arrange a time for the meeting next week.
- We had arranged a meeting for tomorrow to discuss our business plans.
- I would like to suggest holding the meeting in the small conference room in the Hilton Hotel, Madrid on Thursday morning at…
- I shall be at a meeting with our suppliers next Monday in order to discuss the financial requirements.
B. Responding
- Unfortunately, I’m not available on Thursday morning.
- (out of the office) – (absent from the office for approximately 3 hours)
- Please let me know what time would suit you.
- I would be grateful if you could (give us a sample information) – (send us details of your services).
- If you would attend to any customers in my absence.
- I apologize again for the changes and I hope we can meet in the near future.
C. Closing
- Yours sincerely,
- Thanks in advance,
- I look forward to (hearing from you) – (meeting you next week).
Presentation Phrases
- Hi, good morning. So let me introduce myself, my name is…
- In my presentation, I have to explain 3 points about my business idea.
- First, I will talk about the structure of the product and its essential characteristics.
- Then I’ll tell you our suppliers that can give us the necessary raw materials.
- Finally, I’ll show you the financial requirements and plans about costs and prices about this product.
- If you have any questions you can ask me at the end of the talk.
- Finally, thanks for coming to listen to my presentation.
- Thank you for your attention.
Confirming Details
- Following our discussions, I’m just writing you to confirm the details we agreed about the purchase of this product.
- We agreed that we will give you 20 pieces at 10E each one. But the condition is that you would take back the bottles.
- In addition to this, we agreed to give you a discount of about 10% if you will sell 20 boxes in two months.
- However, after discussing things with my other partner, we could give you one box of any type of wine, as a gift.
- We will achieve this order as soon as we receive your agreement.