Expressions – English Online

How to change the world

Daniel Fuchs — Tue, 03 Nov 2015 09:00:32 +0000

When we started about a month ago, I asked you what you would like to change in order for our world to become more sustainable. Here are your answers.

Now that you’ve got some more experience with both English and business, it’s time to think about how these changes might be achieved.

Write 2-3 sentences to point out necessary actions to achieve the change you suggested.

Send your texts to me (dfuchs@hnee.de) as Word or OpenOffice files to get a written feedback. No PDFs!

Grammar tip:

You can use conditional phrases using in order to … (um … zu) and … will have to / would have to (… muss / müsste):

In order to reduce CO₂ emissions from agriculture, people will / would have to eat less meat.

If there’s a direct subject in your clause, it’s included with for:

In order for agriculture to effectively conserve soils, incentives will have to be created to promote organic farming.

What the British say (and what they mean)

Daniel Fuchs — Fri, 16 Oct 2015 18:29:23 +0000

British people don’t always say directly what they mean. Beware! As a traditional Brit, you want to be polite and restrained, but still be effective in conveying your message. The tool of your choice is understatement, and it works both ways: whether you are going to praise someone to heaven or tear them to pieces, always use moderate words.

To interpret these, here is a small phrase book that may help you understand British understatement (via BuzzFeed).

Related: Swearing at work (The Poke).

Describing a brand

Daniel Fuchs — Tue, 29 Sep 2015 08:00:29 +0000

Source: http://www.vroomseo.ie

Your homework for Monday, 5 October:
Pick a popular brand (one your fellow students are likely to know) and prepare a short presentation about it.

Your description should answer the following three questions:

What kind of products are marketed under the brand?
Who buys (or is expected to buy) the products?
How would you describe the image and qualitites of the brand?

If you have the Market Leader Course Book at hand, have a look at page 6, exercise A3. You will find some adjectives there which you can use to describe brands.

And here are some expressions you can use to talk about brands:

I’m going to talk about a (car/computer/fashion/…) brand.
The brand comprises … (list of products)
The brand’s target group are …
The brand stands for … (+ noun)
The brand is said to be … (+ adjective)
The brand has a reputation of being … (+ adjective)

Prepare yourselves to say 3-6 sentences in class.