This is an All Ears English podcast.
Learn roughly five new ways to stay broad in English.
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, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA.
And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglishcom.
Forward slash subscribe.
Do you ever want to give an approximate answer instead of citing an exact number?
Today, find out how to do this so that you can stay broad while also being clear in English.
Do you ever start speaking English and suddenly the words disappear?
You pause too much, you hesitate.
You know what you want to say, but only later, not in the moment when it matters.
And get clarity on your English level and how you can improve this year.
Starting today.
One more time, go to allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E.
Hey, Lindsay, how are you?
Hey, doing great, Michelle.
How's it going for you?
Good.
Yeah, it's been so It's so nice to get back to recording.
Guys, we were on a little break and now we are happy to be back.
But Lindsay, approximately how many episodes do you want to record today?
I would say we should record roughly five or six episodes today.
Michelle, what do you think about that?
I think that's a good idea.
All right, we'll go for it.
Let's go for it.
So guys, today we are going to teach a very functional vocabulary to help you give out information without being completely concrete.
And guys, we know that a lot of you listening to the All Ears English podcast are really also listening to learn for the workplace.
So this is a really great topic for business. but also could be for anything in your regular life.
So whether you're here to learn about business, regular life, regular English, we got you covered.
We got you covered.
Exactly.
And so just real quick, Michelle, why would we want to be vague here?
It's essentially being a little vague.
I don't know if vague is the right word, but broad, broad in what we're saying.
Maybe we don't.
Why would we want to be broad in our answers?
Right.
Well, I mean, sometimes we can't give numbers or information that is 100% accurate.
So we want to use words to show that there is some wiggle room.
We don't want to be totally stiff.
And this is for those moments I can't say okay, I can't tell you we will be finished in 20 minutes.
But, oh, I know, 20 to 30, roughly 20 minutes.
So today's examples, actually, we're going to do are business oriented.
And we've been touching on this already, Lindsay, but we have this whole other podcast.
I know.
Lindsay, you want to tell us about it?
Yeah, it's crazy.
Maybe some of our listeners don't know, but we have another show called Business English from All Ears English guys.
Uh, to find this show, all you have to do is open your search bar right now.
Type in business English and you'll get it.
You'll see the yellow that will come up and you'll know it's us.
Hit follow on that show.
We do publish there three days a week and we focus really very much on our listeners who do use English at work, whether it's once a month in that conference or that presentation, or whether it's every single day, or whether you aspire one day to work in English.
So go check out that show.
All right.
Absolutely.
So, Let's get started.
So the first one we threw out was approximately.
I asked you approximately how many episodes.
And this is kind of for me for asking the question in that way.
It kind of showed a little bit of respect also.
It showed that I am willing and I am open to whatever like, like i have time and okay, it's okay.
If we want to record five, we want to record six, right?
Yeah, i think this word's a little more formal, so that's why it's good for work, right?
I mean, you might not ask your friend um like, approximately how many people are coming to the party, right?
Because that feels a little too formal for the friendship world, right?
Do you agree with that?
I guess you could get away with it.
I mean, you could.
I mean, we're going to get to another word that I think that would be more appropriate for that.
The third word down on this list I think might be best.
But, yeah, this means just about or basically.
So, for example, there are approximately 10 charts we still need to get through before the end of the day.
Yeah, or we should reevaluate these figures in approximately three months.
Okay?
Mm-hmm.
So great to use if you're a manager, you're making a presentation.
Really, anytime you're at work, it's fine.
This is good.
This is up leveling, making your English a little fancier.
Okay.
Yeah.
The next one is roughly.
And this is the same as approximately a little less formal sounding, but not by much.
Yeah, I like this one.
I wish I used it because I tend to use about, right?
About there are about five people coming, which is super common.
And it's just it's nothing, right?
It's just it's everywhere.
I wish I used roughly a little bit more often because it sounds more interesting to me.
So maybe I will.
Go for it.
New Year's resolution.
New Year's resolution um, they're roughly.
Did you ever say?
The first example?
No no okay, there are roughly 250 corporate employees and we need to get holiday bonuses to all of them okay um, or we will be done at roughly 9 30, nice.
And then there's one more.
Well, there's a few more, but we'll give our listeners one more before we go for a break.
It is around.
How is this one different, michelle?
So this one is less formal than the other two, for sure, but it could also be used for work.
But Lindsay, this is the one where I was thinking.
If you're saying – if you don't want to say approximately how many people are coming to the party, for your friend you might say around how many people are coming.
Or this would go with what you said about right, about how many people are coming around.
How many people are coming.
Sure.
Both would work.
Our meeting will be over at around 4 p.m.
You could also say our meeting will be over around four.
Yeah, you could do that.
You don't need the at in every case.
What's another example?
There are around 20 new patient forms to finalize.
Yeah.
So around or about also work really well, right?
Same, really.
I'm going to add about to this list.
Yeah.
Officially.
It's good stuff.
So, yeah.
So here we have we started with three approximately, roughly and about or around.
And we're going to do one more after the break and talk through.
Oh, wait.
Oh, wait.
Actually, we have a special one, too.
OK.
Stay tuned for that.
When you first start your own business or go into management, no one tells you how hard but important hiring is.
I've learned that I need to hire for attitude and willingness to learn as much as i need to look for hard skills.
If you're hiring, stop struggling to get your job post even seen on other job sites.
Give your job the best chance to be seen with indeed, sponsored jobs.
They help you stand out and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need.
If i needed to hire a new software developer, i'd be super specific in my job post with indeed, I'd specifically look for someone with AI experience and who has built tools in our industry language learning in the past.
With Indeed sponsored jobs, you only pay for results.
No monthly subscriptions, no long-term contracts, just a boost whenever you need to find quality talent fast.
Spend more time interviewing candidates who check all your boxes.
Less stress, less time, more results now. with Indeed sponsored jobs.
And listeners of this show will get a 75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves at indeedcom slash a e e.
Just go to indeedcom slash a e e right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast.
I-N-D-E-E-D dot com slash A-E-E.
Terms and conditions apply.
Hiring, do it the right way with Indeed.
All right, Michelle, we're back from the break.
And now you have our listeners' attention.
So what is the special one?
Oh, it's coming up.
Well, this isn't the special one.
It's the next one.
Okay.
Okay.
So this one is nearly.
Nearly is like almost.
Almost.
Right.
So this is not, this is different really from roughly or approximately.
This is more about, we're very close to this.
So for example, we nearly tripled our revenue from last year or she nearly beat the record.
Almost, almost did something.
Right.
Okay.
So now here's the, here's the special one.
This is one that has to do with years.
So it doesn't have to be just with years, but i think that's the most common way.
Okay, so it's circa yeah yeah, this is special, michelle.
Right, it is a special one.
We see this a lot.
Um, i feel like you see plaques on buildings yep right, say like circa 1775 or something, when the building was was built right yep yep, Yeah.
So it says, yeah, I'm just looking at the AI overview here just to give a little more context.
A Latin word meaning around or approximately used before a date to indicate an estimated time.
Yeah.
So, yeah, you will.
Yeah, exactly.
You might see it on a plaque, whatever it may be.
Also on a plaque.
Do you ever see like E.S.T.?
?
Yeah.
Established, right?
Established.
So similar.
Whenever I see EST though, even though I know it means established, I still think estimate.
And I'm always like, it just seems weird to me.
But so Circa, their company has been around since Circa 1980.
Yeah.
Or we established the scholarship Circa 2005.
So it's just a fancy way of saying around that time, we did this, right?
And you're not going to say this.
You're not going to say this all the time.
Like Lindsay said, you might see it on a plaque.
Um, you could definitely use it in a presentation, things like that.
But I, I don't think that it's something that I would say to my friend.
It doesn't come up as often, but it is a special one.
That's good to know.
Yep.
Or categorizing items.
Like, if you go on I like to go on historical tours and they might tell this furniture is circa early 1800s or something like that.
Yeah.
That's kind of fun.
By the way, ghost tours are the best ways to get history, to learn history about things.
It's amazing.
Yeah, i did one in new orleans.
Where did you do one?
Again, a bunch of places.
We just did one in rome right oh, you did one in rome.
We did one in rome, which was super cool, and i've done one in um actually, i think uh, south carolina charleston, south carolina and a few other places.
But yeah, i highly recommend ghost tours if you guys are traveling random tip Um.
So let's do a role play and put these together.
So here we are meeting about an upcoming conference.
Yes, here we go.
Okay.
Okay.
So how many people will be there?
I heard there will be nearly a thousand attendees.
Wow.
So how many bags should we make?
Roughly 400, I'd say.
That sounds about right.
I heard each day ends around four.
So Maybe we can also organize some extra activities for potential clients.
Good idea.
There are approximately 30 companies I have my eye on.
Yeah, and this conference is huge.
How long have they been holding it?
Oh, wow.
I don't know.
I'd say it started somewhere circa 2000.
I think you're right.
Wow.
Okay.
All right.
So planning a conference, something our listeners might end up doing in English, right?
Or planning to meet at the conference.
So I said first, there will be nearly a thousand attendees.
And I could have said about a thousand attendees.
I could have said approximately a thousand attendees, right?
Yeah.
And I think just the difference is you could have said approximately, and it's a thousand fifty, or it could be eleven hundred.
But nearly is like nine hundred fifty, you know, less some less than almost.
So almost.
Right.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So that's the difference there.
And then I said, how many bags should we make?
So maybe we're doing like a gift bag or a promotional bag.
You said roughly four hundred, I'd say.
Good.
And then you said that sounds about right.
I heard each day ends around four.
Right.
Four p.m.
So maybe we can organize extra activities.
Mm hmm.
Right.
And then you said, good idea.
There are approximately 30 companies I have my eye on.
Yeah.
And just to go back to the last one, I could have said, I heard each day ends at about four.
But be careful there, guys.
Because if you use about, you do need the at.
You can't say, I heard each day ends about four.
That would be weird, right?
We'd miss the preposition.
Yeah.
Yeah.
What about circa?
Did you use the circa?
Yes.
You said...
I'd say it started somewhere circa 2000.
Yeah.
And this is fun to slip in sometimes.
Yeah.
You're not going to – it definitely points to like a more articulate speaker, right?
It makes you seem like a more articulate speaker when you use it.
It's the special one of the episode.
So of course it does.
It's the special one.
Yeah.
Um so, but yeah, these are just all really useful.
Um, for you know, because very rarely in life are we just this, is this and this is that.
There's so many times in business and regular life there's just wiggle room.
There's just room to, to move around and things can change.
And this language just gives you the opportunity to express that.
But also, be not shy away from giving numbers or information.
Yeah flexibility, you don't want to get locked into something, and i think that is the bonus for today.
Wiggle room i actually love that expression.
Yeah, me too.
Right yeah, you add a little wiggle room for this and that, and maybe, if you're making a budget, you you round up to give yourself wiggle room.
Um, but guys, write down that phrase and start to use it.
It's a great one.
Maybe we'll do a whole episode.
Yeah, maybe that one deserves its own episode.
Yeah, i love it all.
Right, what's another business english episode?
Or what is an episode over on business english?
I should check out, make the journey over there.
Yeah so guys, if you want to hear more business english uh episodes, go on over to that podcast.
And episode 524 was who assigned what how to know in english.
So another really good one.
What's the final takeaway for today, Michelle?
I mean, I think you kind of said it earlier.
It's that we don't want to get locked in to having to give exact amounts of things, because life is never exact.
That's what I've learned.
Right.
And there is a time when it does need to be exact.
You know tax season and going over specific numbers.
And, you know, there's definitely a time and place for that.
But these are the words to use when you're not in that kind of situation and you do want to have that wiggle room.
And guys, stay tuned.
Hit follow because we will do one. an episode, a whole episode on Wiggle Room coming up.
All right.
Good stuff today, Michelle.
I'll see you next time on the podcast.
You have a good rest of your day.
All right.
You too.
Bye, guys.
Bye.
Thanks for listening to All Ears English.
Would you like to know your English level?
Take our two minute quiz.
Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score.
And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything.
See you next time.
We're leaving today and entering a world of Mickey Mouse waving princess, meeting and greeting lightsaber clashing the Twilight Zone, Tower of Terror dropping Banshee, flying Space Mountain, launching galaxy, rewinding galaxy rewinding fireworks, igniting world of other worlds for whatever you love.
Infinite worlds await at the most magical place on earth.
Walt Disney World Resort.
One in four taxpaying Americans has paid the price of identity fraud.
What do I do?
My refund, though.
I'm freaking out.
Don't worry.
I can fix this.
LifeLock fixes identity theft guaranteed and gets your money back with up to $3 million in coverage.
I'm so relieved.
No problem.
I'll be with you every step of the way.
One in four was a fraud-paying American.
Not anymore.
Save up to 40% your first year.
Visit LifeLock.com slash podcast.
Terms apply.
