Author: Xela

Learning English has many different parts and much of the basic learning is all about day-to-day life. However, as students get more advanced they may start wanting to learn more specific terms aspects of the language. For many students learning English for work and business purposes is a big factor so below we have got 10 important business English words we think everyone should know.

Competitor

This is a word used to describe another business selling or offering the same thing as the business you work for. They are trying to do better and be more successful and so are competing with you.

Marketing

This term describes the way companies advertise themselves. Marketing can be TV commercials, websites, social media pages and more. In many jobs, it is important to be aware of what marketing your company does and your competitor companies.

eCommerce

This is a type of business that sells things through a website. Some businesses use a shop or shops others just use a website. Some companies use both. But a company selling anything online is considered at least partly an eCommerce business.

Client

Client is another word for customer. It is used when customers are very important as a way of making them different. You might be a customer in a supermarket but you would talk about clients if you worked for a marketing company. Client is an important term in many types of business.

Appraisal

The word appraisal can be used in many different ways. It means to look at something and see if it was done well or badly or how successful it was. In business and the workplace, in general, an appraisal is a meeting where a member of staff talks with the boss or bosses about how well they are doing. It is a very important part of work in the UK and other countries.

Agenda

An agenda is a list of things that need to be talked about at or in a business meeting. You may be asked to create an agenda ready for a meeting. But you may also be sent one before a meeting so you know what the meeting is about.

Notice

Notice is a term used when someone is leaving a job. The notice period is the amount of time the company gives you to find another job if you are asked to leave. It is also the amount of time you have to carry on working if you want to leave, so they can find someone to replace you. It is important to understand your notice period when you take a job.

If you found this useful why not check out our ultimate guide to business English vocabulary.

LinkedIn is a powerful tool and one that is used right across the business world. It is great for people looking for new jobs, people learning more about their own careers and much more. However, how people communicate on LinkedIn can have a very big impact on if they are successful. Approaching people with badly written messages in the hope of getting a job does not work very well, and the same goes for commenting and joining in with discussions. For many people, LinkedIn is a great way to look for work in the UK and other English speaking countries but to be successful you need to make sure your English is good enough.

Conversations and Comments

One way to be successful on LinkedIn is to join in with discussions, comment of articles and posts and join groups. This is a great way of interacting with other users in a less formal way and also being noticed. It is really important to say useful and interesting things in comments so that people reply to you and engage with you. If your English is not as good as you would like you may notice people do not comment and reply as much as they do with other people. This may be because they are not sure what you meant, or they feel you may not understand their reply. By improving your English and earning more your comments and discussion points will get more response and help you build more connections.

Linking with People

If you have a shared interest or you frankly want to work with someone you can just request to connect. Along with this connection, you can add a message. Once again, if the message is written in poor English this may put the person off, and they may not accept your request. Do not forget, most people get connection requests every day and a lot of them are from salespeople or others whom they have no connection with. If your message is well written and it uses really good English you are far more likely to succeed.

After the Connection

If someone does accept your request it is really important to follow it up with something useful and engaging. If you just connect in the hope they will offer you a job, you are going to be disappointed. Once they have accepted you perhaps comment on some of their posts, get involved with discussions and become a useful connection yourself. Think about posting interesting articles you have read and information about your work. Once again, in order for this to work and to attract English speaking managers, recruiters and business owners you will need to make these posts count, and they need to be well written.

Learning English

By building on your English skills and learning more all the time you will find you become more successful in connecting and engaging with potential employers. Learning English is a powerful tool to have if you want to work in the UK or English speaking countries like the USA. We offer a range of courses and access to many hours of video lessons so you can make sure your English is as good as it can be. It is something you should always keep working on and keep trying to get better at in order to give yourself the best chance at success in working in an English speaking environment.

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How Many People Use English?

OK so here are a few facts that show how widely used English is. The British council states English is the first language for around 373 million people. But it is a second language for another 500 million on top of that number so nearly 900 million people can speak English. These numbers are very approximate but give a strong idea of the real number. The really big fact is that it is estimated another 1 billion people are learning English. As a language it is recognised officially in 80 countries and spoken widely in another 100 countries.  Another estimate suggested by 2020 another 2 billion people will be learning English. There is no doubt in this globalised world English is very very important.

Big Business

It is worth pointing out that English is not the most widely spoken language in terms of a native tongue. However, according to Unicode.org people speak in English live in countries that make up 29.3% of the words GDP. This means there is a lot of business power behind the language and the countries that use it.

English in Business

Due to the fact most big corporations have offices all over the world there was a need for a single language to be used in meetings and the like. English has become that language. It is now the default choice for teams and executives meeting up online and in person across the world. For example if a sales manager from Berlin were to meet the head of HR from Korea they would most likely choose to speak English. People that can’t speak English may well find it hard to keep up with meetings and even get the bigger jobs in the first place.

Branding and Language

Again, as companies become more global so too does their use of language. Corporate identity and language are becoming simpler and many big firms are choosing to use English. Nokia, Daimler and Renault are just a few big names that have done this. This not only means that, as mentioned before, all meetings and company literature uses English but also the values of the company and even names of services and products all start to rely on English and understanding it is critical.

English in Science and Technology

Science and Tech are big growth areas and probably always will be. If anyone wants to make a huge impact on the business world then these are the sectors where they head. Recent data suggested that around 95% of all scientific papers written in the Science Citation Index were in English. Nature is written in English as is the Lancet both of which are very important publications. What this all means is that when a publication or company wants to communicate with the most possible people they use English and this is only going to get more popular.

Learning English is popular, there are lots of ways you can do it. Perfectly Spoken offer a chance to do a structured course but you can do it online and it doesn’t cost as much as many other courses. Visit our online English course page for more information and find out how you can improve you English and join the global business and tech community, improve your job prospects and more.