This is the All Ears English Podcast.
Don't let business English overwhelm you.
Welcome to the All Ears English Podcast, downloaded more than 200 million times.
Are you feeling stuck with your English?
We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection not perfection with your American hosts Aubrey Carter, the IELTS Wiz, and Lindsey McMahon, the English adventurer, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
Did you know that there's more than one way to use the word overwhelm?
Today, get two new and creative ways to up -level your English at work by using this keyword and to build office relationships.
Hey listeners, do you need to see real measurable improvement in your business English in the next 30 to 60 days?
Does your career depend on it?
If so, then you need a study plan and a curriculum that will ensure results.
You can get this special offer on our Business English course this week, but it expires October 20th at midnight, save up to $100.
Go to allearsenglish .com slash business.
Hey there, Aubrey. What's shaking?
How are you doing? I'm great.
How are you, Lindsey?
Excited to be on for this this bonus episode today.
Aubrey, when is the last time you have felt overwhelmed?
Any particular moments that come to mind?
I feel overwhelmed a lot, but I feel like never more than when I was working in the corporate world and I would sometimes have to perform on the spot.
You know, I would have to present or maybe I would be brought into an interview to be part of the panel and there was no chance to prepare.
There are no second chances.
That's extremely overwhelming.
It's so true. It's especially with in -person work, but even online, you know, when you are in a Zoom meeting or something and someone asks you to speak, there are moments when we have to just improvise and this can be overwhelming, right?
But as you said, no chance to do it over.
There's no do overs in business, right?
You are building your reputation on the spot in the moment.
OK, so super important.
What are we getting into today?
We're getting into this concept of being overwhelmed and how to how to use this word.
Yeah, yeah. So you guys are likely familiar with the way we used it here at the top of the episode.
Overwhelmed as an adjective, overwhelming to mean stressed out, you know, over like just too much happening, a lot of idioms for this in English, I'm drowning.
But there are a couple of other meanings of the words overwhelm and overwhelming that you might not be as familiar with.
We use them a lot in business English.
So we're going to share those today.
Yeah, we're going to help our listeners really refine their English, especially for work here in this case, really to move up into that B2C1 level for a better performance at work.
But first, Aubrey, we want to make sure our listeners know that currently this week only we have something special going on.
What is going on? Yes, and this episode was actually inspired by vocabulary from our business course, I was looking through and I saw we taught overwhelm as a noun.
So impressive. And this week you can get into our business course for up to one hundred dollars off, which is amazing.
If you sign up before, is it the 20th, Lindsay?
Yes. Before October 20th at midnight, you can save up to one hundred dollars.
And we don't know when this deal will be available again or if it will.
And so this is the time to get in.
You get lifetime access when you join and operate so many ways to speak now.
How was Open Conversation Club this week?
Oh, man, it is so fun.
People from all over the world speaking English together, practicing, really owning that connection, not perfection, just taking these opportunities to practice in advance so that we're prepared for these in person on the spot opportunities in work and in life, right.
It really is weekly.
Yeah, it's really about that is actually practicing for those key moments when, when the stakes are high at work.
So you want to get through that, have the preparation done so that when the stakes are high and the spotlight's on you at work, you perform.
And so these are new bonuses, new benefits to listeners in our courses.
If you join, you will be invited as well to Open Conversation Club every week.
Exactly. So guys, go to allersenglish .com slash business to sign up for our business course.
You can save up to one hundred dollars this week.
It's amazing. Excellent.
Excellent. So let's get into these two surprising ways to use overwhelm.
And why do we say surprising, Aubrey?
Unique. Yeah, more unique, a little less common.
I wonder now that we're sharing them with you, you might start hearing them a lot.
We definitely want you to start using them because overwhelming doesn't always mean like it's not always negative.
We often use it as a positive as well.
Oh, I love it. I'm excited to find out how it works.
And, you know, a lot of what came out of the business course, the vocabulary you learn over there is based on our our connection method, which means our real conversations that we had with native speakers and we bring those into the lessons for you.
Right. Yes, it's a real English, not like what you find in a textbook, right?
Business professionals, interesting conversations who are using the vocabulary we actually use at work.
All right. So let's get into it now, Aubrey.
What would be the first surprising way to use overwhelm?
What is that? So overwhelming also means very great in amount, but can be super positive.
For example, she was amazed by the overwhelming response of the crowd.
Maybe if you give an amazing presentation, someone might say this to you.
The response was overwhelming.
And if you don't realize that this has such a positive connotation, you might be confused if you've only thought of overwhelming as like stressful.
Right. Exactly. The obvious way the way we all learned is stressful.
But in this case, it just means over the top, intense and outpouring of support, right?
And outpouring. Yes, right.
Might say he appreciated his parents' overwhelming support and generosity.
You could say this about coworkers.
If you're thanking someone, thank you so much for the overwhelming support and generosity.
That just means you're trying to emphasize how positive it is, how useful and beneficial it is.
And Aubrey, do you think this would work as let's say you've been introduced.
Let's say you're a keynote speaker and someone at a conference or an event, someone has just introduced you and then people are really excited to hear from you and they clap.
They give you a standing ovation as you walk onto the stage.
Would you say that it's OK to say that at that point?
Thank you so much for the overwhelming support.
Right. Yes. Thank you for this overwhelming response.
So exciting. Yes. That just means like really positive, a great amount of support and a positive reaction.
And I think a lot of our listeners are looking to level up their career in that way where they get to the point where they're making those keynote speeches, where they're inspiring people, where they're leading companies.
Right. This is where we want to get you guys to if that is your goal.
All right. Good. Absolutely.
Yeah. All right. Let's move into our second one here, which this is the word overwhelm as a noun.
So it's not just a verb to say, I'm I feel overwhelmed.
I'm over, you know, this is overwhelming.
We also use it as a noun just to come straight from our business course.
We might say we don't want you to experience any overwhelm.
So you can see it's used here as a noun.
This sounds quite a bit more polished and professional, wouldn't you say, Lindsay?
Yes. 100 percent. So we're in the same meaning ballpark as the way we all know.
But it's used as a noun.
And again, this comes from module eight in our business course.
So if you join this week, you can go straight there and check it out right away.
We do recommend following the study plan itself, but you'll get there eventually.
So your sample sentence here, Aubrey, one more time.
We don't want you to experience any overwhelm.
I do agree. I think it's higher level to use it this way.
It doesn't mean we don't use it.
I'm overwhelmed, but this is another alternative option.
Yeah, exactly. Right.
And this is often used if you are we'll often collocate it with a feeling of overwhelm or, you know, yeah, just feelings of overwhelm.
But we also use it without that.
We might say, you know, my job is to take the overwhelm out of hiring.
So it's sort of implied there.
The feeling of overwhelm.
Yeah. Or could you say something like the overwhelm this week is insurmountable or something like that?
Like there is this thing and it is the overwhelm could be a creative way to say it.
Absolutely. Right. You can be creative with this.
And just if you realize you're talking about these feelings of, you know, feeling overwhelmed, but then you use it as a noun, the overwhelm in this room is palpable, I would mean like I can feel that everyone is overwhelmed.
Oh, yeah. And this is everyone as a professional has weeks like this.
Right. I'm personally having a week like this this week.
But, you know, but the key is being able to articulate it, to talk about it, right, because that immediately reduces that stress.
OK. Yes, absolutely.
And these it's interesting because as I looked into these words, this is one of those things where on forums online you might see people arguing.
Right. Someone's like, I don't think you can use overwhelm as a noun.
And then you check the dictionary and sure enough, right.
It's been used as a noun since the fifteen hundreds.
But sometimes you can't trust what you see online or even in older textbooks because English is evolving or because if a word is a little less commonly used, some people might not be familiar with it.
Yeah. And I would say just in general for our listeners, you know, if you guys are spending your time in those forums, you're not out connecting and trying things out these days.
You can get away with a lot of mistakes or non mistakes or creative uses of a word and you can find that connection moment.
And that's what we're all about here is the connection, not perfection.
Always keep that in mind.
They're always going to be linguists in those forums that are going to argue that all day long.
But I think we want to be out meeting people and connecting.
What do you think? Absolutely.
Yes. And come here.
We will let you know we know what are we speaking right now.
Right. So let's dive into a role play to see how this would be in a conversation today.
And we're co -workers in this role play.
I'll start us out. OK, I heard it's your birthday.
Happy birthday. Thank you.
I've had an overwhelming response from everyone here at the office.
Did you know Mario brought in a cake?
Oh, that's awesome.
I think everyone was excited to have a reason to celebrate.
It's been crazy around here.
I know I'm not the only one experiencing a feeling of overwhelm.
And again, this is a key relationship building skill because being able to say this and you probably share the same feeling.
Maybe your company is going through some kind of product launch at that moment or it's a heavy sales season.
Maybe it's like Black Friday season.
You need to be able to articulate it that builds the relationship with the other person because they're all actually you have the solidarity.
You're both going through it.
You recognize a lot of us are in the same boat.
We're all feeling this.
What great vocabulary to build that connection.
Hundred percent. So you said, oh, I heard your birthday.
Happy birthday. And I said, thank you.
I've had an overwhelming response from everyone at the office.
Yeah. And that would mean like extremely supportive.
Everyone's saying happy birthday.
This is very positive to say it's been an overwhelming response.
Yeah. In this case, you're not using it in that negative connotation.
I'm very stressed out by the response.
No, it's not that it's not that.
OK, exactly. And then I said, oh, I know I'm not the only one experience a feeling of overwhelm.
So this means like a lot of us are feeling this.
So and then instead of saying, you could also say a lot of us are feeling overwhelmed or we feel like everything's overwhelming.
This is another interesting way to say that feeling of overwhelm.
Exactly. And you know, just to transition to other places that we can see overwhelm when we're learning English, especially business English, there's a lot of resources out there.
Right. operate there everywhere.
YouTube, podcasts, web blogs.
How do we know who we can trust and how how to do it?
What to do each day to actually get to an outcome with contradicting information like that forum, those forum responses I shared, right?
You need to know who you can trust.
We have created this amazing business where all of our courses we have put in so much time and we each have master's degrees in ESL.
So you can trust us to teach you the way natives are actually speaking English today.
You got it. 100 percent.
So don't forget, guys, right now go and take advantage of the special offer.
Save up to one hundred dollars off the business English course.
It expires on the 20th at midnight.
So go to allersenglish .com slash business and we will see you there.
I'll bring any final thoughts around, around creative vocabulary.
You know, leveling up our vocab in different ways at the business English level.
What do you think? Right.
For a word like overwhelm or overwhelming.
You may have mastered one meaning of it.
Yeah. There are other ways to use it.
Like you said, to up level, to be more creative with your language.
And we don't want you to feel overwhelmed at work or with your English learning.
We are here to help you every step of the way.
Exactly. And this shows a level of competence at work.
When you can start to bring out words like overwhelm, use them in new ways that your average person is not using them, you show a sense of competence because people start to listen to you more.
So I love it. Give it a try.
Aubrey, thanks for being on the show.
Awesome. Thanks. See you next time.
All right. Bye bye.
Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
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