Hello, English learners, and welcome back to another great lesson with EnglishPod.
My name is Marco. And I'm Erica. And today we're bringing you a great intermediate lesson with some really useful vocabulary.
Some vocabulary you can use to describe your job.
Yes. This is a really common situation when someone asks you what you do and you have to tell them.
Exactly. So today's lesson is all about that.
So before we jump into our dialogue, let's start with our vocabulary preview.
Vocabulary preview We have two simple phrases today that you'll hear in our dialogue for our vocabulary preview. the first one is VP VP VP so the VP of a company is the vice president The vice president, exactly.
Yeah, simple little acronym. And the next word is Fortune 500 Company.
Fortune 500 company. Fortune 500 company.
So a Fortune 500 company is... I'll let you explain.
Well, Fortune magazine ranks the 500 biggest companies in the US.
So a Fortune 500 company basically is... One of the 500 biggest companies in the US.
Okay, that's simple. Yep. Alright, well with those words, it sounds like we're going to be talking to some important people today.
Yes, we are going to be talking to some important people.
So let's listen to our dialogue for the first time.
Now it's going to be a little bit fast, but you don't have to worry about it.
Because we'll come back and explain all of the important vocabulary.
Oh look, there's Caroline and her boyfriend.
She's always going on about him at the office.
Oh man... Jessica! Arthur! Hi! I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Greg.
He's the VP of Quality and Safety for a top Fortune 500 food company.
Nice to meet you. This is my husband, Arthur.
Hey, how's it going? Hello. Caroline talks about you all the time.
I guess you must be pretty busy at work.
Well, yeah, VP position is not easy, you know.
I implement policies and procedures nationwide in various departments, as well as train junior managers in FDA and EPA regulations.
I also have to oversee daily operations of our quality control for the entire East Coast.
That alone means I have 1,500 employees under me.
Wow, yeah, that sounds exciting. And what about you, Arthur?
What do you do for a living? final approach.
All right. Great music for our dialogue again, huh?
Chosen by? By moi. Of course. Yeah, Top Gun is one of my all-time favorite movies.
And Top Gun pilot, what a cool profession.
An excellent profession. Much cooler than being the VP.
How boring is that? Anyway, this guy was a bit of a jerk, don't you think?
Yeah, you can tell a little bit of the sarcastic tone he had in his voice.
Definitely. But he did use some interesting phrases and we can talk about those now.
Right, so let's take a look at Language Takeaway.
Language Takeaway for language takeaways is implement, implement, implement, implement.
Let's listen to some examples of this word to help us understand its meaning.
Example 1. Our company has to implement this sales strategy.
Sarah will be responsible for implementing the plan.
Example 3 I implemented several new policies okay great examples and just in case To implement means to... Put into action.
To put into action. Exactly. Our second word for language takeaway is... policies, policies, policies, policies.
So policies are basically Rules and regulations.
Exactly, formal rules. For a company or an organization.
Exactly. Policies, great. Third word, oversee, oversee, oversee, oversee.
So when you oversee operations, it means... Like you watch it to make sure it's okay.
You supervise it. This is an excellent word to use when you want to talk about your job responsibilities.
Right. Oversee. Great. And our last word for language takeaway, it's kind of tricky.
So let's listen to how it was used in our dialogue.
That alone means I have 1500 employees under me.
That alone means I have 1,500 employees under me.
So this guy has 1500 employees under him, meaning he supervises 1500 employees.
Right, he manages 1500 employees. He must be a busy man.
Yes, for 1,500 employees. How many employees do you have under you, Erica?
Two. Two. Yeah, not quite as much as $1,500.
Yeah, I guess I'm not a VP right yet. Not yet, but you will.
Okay. Alright, so with this in mind, we are ready to listen to our dialogue for a second time and this time it's gonna be slower.
Oh, look, there's Caroline and her boyfriend.
She's always going on about him at the office.
Oh, great, they saw us. They're coming this way.
Oh, man. Jessica! Arthur! Hi! I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Greg.
He's the VP of Quality and Safety for a top Fortune 500 food company.
Nice to meet you. This is my husband Arthur.
Hey, how's it going? Caroline talks about you all the time.
I guess you must be pretty busy at work.
Well, yeah. A VP position is not easy, you know.
I implement policies and procedures nationwide of various departments as well as train junior managers in FDA and EPA regulations I also have to oversee daily operations of our quality control for the entire east coast That alone means I have 1,500 employees under me.
Wow, yeah, that sounds exciting. And what about you, Arthur?
What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a top gun pilot.
Okay, great stuff. With this, now we can start with our Fluency Builder for today.
We heard some excellent phrases in this dialogue, some phrases that sound really natural, hey?
Yes, especially the first one that we have today is...
Whenever someone talks and talks and talks and just and continuously talks without stopping, you would say, She's always going on about him at the office.
She's always going on about him at the office.
This is a really natural way of saying keeps talking about.
Right. Keeps talking about him. So we have a few examples of how this phrase works. let's listen example one my boss is always going on about how we need to save money It's all he talks about.
Example 2 Gary is always going on about his kids.
He's always talking about how smart they are.
Example 3 My mom is always going on about how I should get married.
Okay, excellent. It's clear now. Yes. Okay, so let's move on to our second phrase for today.
And this is a great one to use whenever you meet someone for the first time. or when you start to talk to someone for the first time great hey how's it going hey how's it going So this is a really relaxed and natural way of saying, how are you?
How are you? Yeah. So yeah, you can just say, hey, how's it going?
Yep. Great. Really natural sounding. Now our third phrase is the most important one of our dialogue.
Yes. And it's a really common situation.
When someone asks you about your job, they might say this.
Arthur, what do you do for a living? So this is a really great way of asking what work do you do or what is your job.
Yes, I know a lot of students sometimes say, what is your job?
Yeah, and that is, it's kind of correct, but not really.
It doesn't sound very natural. Right. So you want to use what do you do or... what do you do for a living?
Sounds great. That's the way you ask someone what is their job.
And that's how you sound supernatural. Okay, so we're ready now to listen to our dialogue a last time.
And now you are ready to understand everything.
Oh look, there's Caroline and her boyfriend.
She's always going on about him at the office.
Oh, man. Jessica! Arthur! Hi! I'd like you to meet my boyfriend, Greg.
He's the VP of Quality and Safety for a top Fortune 500 food company.
Nice to meet you. This is my husband, Arthur.
Hey, how's it going? Hello? Caroline talks about you all the time.
I guess you must be pretty busy at work.
Well, yeah, VP position is not easy, you know.
I implement policies and procedures nationwide in various departments, as well as train junior managers in FDA and EPA regulations.
I also have to oversee daily operations of our quality control for the entire East Coast.
That alone means I have 1,500 employees under me.
Wow, yeah, that sounds exciting. And what about you, Arthur?
What do you do for a living? Oh, I'm a top gun pilot.
Okay, so I have a little challenge for our listeners today.
What is it? Two challenges actually. Okay.
The first one, who performs the song that you heard and what is the song called?
Okay, I don't know the answer, so I'm looking forward to seeing what you do.
Question is, what is the number one company in the Fortune 500?
I also don't know this answer. Two great questions, so I expect to see your answers on the comments page, but also we want to know about your Yes.
Tell us about your job. Tell us what you do and use some of the great phrases you learned today to describe your answer.
Great. So we hope to see you there, but we're out of time now.
So we'll see everyone at EnglishPod.com.
Leave all your questions and, of course, all the comments.
And Marco and I are always around to answer your questions.
Well, until then, it's goodbye. Bye.
