This is the Business English Podcast Episode 102, In the Table or On the Table?
How to Comment on a Spreadsheet at Work.
Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.
Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business.
For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English with your favorite American hosts, Lindsay and Michelle, coming to you from New York City and Colorado, USA.
Still translating in your head when you speak English?
It's time to change that. The Connected Communicator course from All Ears English helps you train your ear, speak naturally, and finally connect with real people.
In our tailored study plan, you'll hear unscripted interviews from tattoo artists to entrepreneurs from all across America. and you'll use new AI tools to practice speaking anytime you want.
No more stiff, scripted English. Build confidence, fluency, and cultural insight all in one course.
Plus, get real-life speaking experience at our Open Conversation Club every single week and build community with Allers English teachers and students.
Go to allersenglish.com slash connection to save $50 this week only.
Offer ends August 10th. allearsenglish.com slash connection.
Hey, Lindsay, how are you? I'm feeling great, Michelle.
How are you? What's going on in your world in New York?
I'm good. Everything is good. It's a pretty nice spring day, so I'm excited about that.
And Lindsay, do you have anything on your kitchen table right now?
On my kitchen table, we just cleaned over the weekend, so luckily it's very zen.
But usually there's a little cactus thing there or maybe some magazines or just junk, actually, sometimes, to be honest.
Oh, yeah. Well, yeah, me too. Of course.
Yeah. So do you have like a... eat in kitchen or what do you what do you have?
Do you have a kitchen? Yeah, we do have a kitchen.
Yes. Now I need to eat in kitchen. Oh, that's a good question.
I don't do you mean like, bar stools like eating at a breakfast bar, that kind of thing would be an eat in kitchen? right where you have like a room for a table like sometimes people like for example i have my kitchen and then and then it's the living room and then we have like a window and then our table is there so i don't have a my my kitchen is tiny oh well there's no there's no kitchen table in the kitchen so it's your kitchen table so you so you walk through the living room to get to your kitchen your table one big room one big space open open floor plan okay yes yeah we i guess we haven't eaten kitchen i mean we have a little more space in colorado than than new york i will admit um but we still we don't have a huge space for by any means don't get me wrong um yeah so there is the kitchen and then there's a little room it's kind of a hallway sort of but it's it's also kind of an open floor plan with a small table tiny little table i mean okay small spaces yeah Yeah.
All right. Well, again, so the theme today is tables, but not kitchen tables.
Not kitchen tables, actually. We have a great listener question today from Ahmed.
And it's a really good one that we're going to dive into and give our opinions, our thoughts.
So, Lindsay, could you read the question for us?
All right. Here we go. All right. Dear Lindsay, this is Ahmed from Egypt.
Yay. Oh, man. I wish I could meet Ahmed when I go to Egypt this month.
Hopefully I will. Yes. I know. I'm a big fan of your podcast.
Maybe I will. I'm a big fan of your podcast and I listen to them every day, especially because I'm applying for a PhD program at ASU and listening to podcasts from Arizona is pretty useful and exciting for me.
Pray for me that I get accepted and I come to Arizona to study.
On the podcast about prepositions, do we say in... or on the table.
For example, table here is the rows and columns of information.
I see, Michelle, what you're saying. Thanks so much in advance, Lindsay, Michelle, Aubrey, and Jessica.
Best, Ahmed. Nice. Love it. Great question.
And we do hope that you get into the PhD program in Arizona.
So we are giving you positive All Ears English and business English vibes. yeah exactly let us know if you do get in there so exciting i love it i love that our listeners use all those english podcasts to get ready for a big life event like passing isles moving your whole family abroad or going to a phd program michelle it's inspiring Right.
Yep, exactly. So amazing, amazing. So guys, an episode that could be also helpful is on the All Ears English podcast.
That's episode 1921, and it's called Pesky Prepositions of Place in English Grammar, In, On, or At.
Because this is tricky stuff, right? This is a grammar question.
We're using it on Business English because a lot of times you might need to talk about, you know, something on Excel, some sort of chart.
So we snatched this topic for Business English for you guys.
But definitely listen to the All Ears English podcast, especially that episode will help you more with prepositions. yes and i also want to make sure our listeners know we have three podcasts right now in the allers english network michelle we have a third which is called the ielts energy podcast which you will hear aubrey's voice on there and jessica now we're talking about life events michelle what could be a bigger life event than taking this exam passing it and then moving your family to a new country or you're going to a new country for school right oh yeah this is huge I I I'm just very excited and uh hoping hoping for good things I hear Arizona's great yeah that's where Aubrey is oh yeah Aubrey lives in Arizona too exactly I don't know how close she is to ASU I'm not really sure where ASU is I don't know either right?
Small world. Yes, that's right. So this listener is asking about things like Excel, like a table you might make for work.
So we're going to talk about the question and talk about expressions with and prepositions with the word table.
Yes. Yeah. Yeah. So Lindsay, what do you feel like?
What's your first instinct? Would you say in the table or on the table?
Well, the first thing I have to admit, Michelle, is I'm not much of an Excel person.
Yeah. I never really built the skills of running formulas, writing formulas.
Luckily, I have people in my life that do the formulas for me so I can figure it out.
But when I look at like a pivot table, which sometimes we have people help us build pivot tables to look at our podcast growth in the last four years.
For example, I was looking at one last week and I would say, the numbers in the pivot table.
That's what I would say. But would you agree?
I don't know. That's what I think. I mean, I would say in the table because generally you're talking about specific items in specific cells.
So in a table, you would be describing details.
So let's give a couple examples here. So you could say...
In this table, there are four rows and two columns.
Totally, yeah. In the table, or here's another one.
In the table, four of the cells support my claim.
OK. What is a cell? Let's just make sure that our listeners understand.
Yeah. So the little the place where really one number can go.
Yeah. It's like a box, little box inside an Excel spreadsheet.
Right. Exactly. So with cells, you could say in this cell, you can see the number of clients we helped in twenty twenty two. yeah so here we're focusing on what's inside like inside the table or inside a cell right michelle right right right right inside so um this is huge for at work i mean when you're giving a presentation when you're just talking to a colleague and you're showing them some some um important data whatever it is this is really huge to be able to talk about this Oh my gosh, 100%.
So let's go over some other prepositions, right?
I mean, so we started by talking about our kitchen tables, and then we went to our Excel tables, right?
And now we're going to go more broadly out to furniture.
Is that what we're doing? Well, now we're going back to, you know, we're just doing a little bit of a review.
We gave you guys the Ollie's English episode, but just before we, you know, move on, I just wanted to give Some idea in case our listeners have any questions about that.
So if you are let's talk about an actual table So if you say at the table, it's like you're sitting like Next to the table your your chair is, you know pulled under the table.
Maybe you're eating something you're at the table, right and yeah so you could say you know we sat at the table to review the information in the table in the pivot table that's right right right you could do that what's the next song on the table right so if you sit on the table how would this be different the physical table the kitchen table Right.
You are literally your tush is on top of the table.
So you're probably not going to sit on the table unless you're super casual.
I could see it. I could see it. But more so you'd be talking about something on the table.
So you might say like, oh, could you grab me my binder?
It's on the table. It has my presentation notes in it.
Yeah. The only time I would imagine someone sitting on the table would be like, if you're camping, you sit on the picnic table or something, you know, maybe you're not eating or some scenario outdoors.
Right. Probably not at work. Not sitting on a table.
Right. Exactly. But you might be just talking about what's on the table.
And this is important for work too. Just to review this, you might say it's on my desk.
So in the table. yeah in the table so what's this getting at michelle would you clarify this one for me here i mean you might be talking about like like what is the what are the materials used in the table like uh there's uh in this table there's uh wood and i don't know yeah table expert but um you know or you could say like oh there are some grooves in this table um you know there's some um natural uh i don't know design in this table something about like the makeup Oh, for sure.
We could do another episode on like the IKEA revolution, right?
The whole IKEA, how, you know, IKEA is so popular now and how young professionals, families, young families will buy IKEA, but you don't expect IKEA to survive more than three years, right?
You don't buy IKEA furniture and think it's going to last 25 years, right?
Whereas our parents' generation, I think, bought real wood.
Ikea is usually not real wood. No offense to Ikea, but it's usually composite.
It's like a combination. Whereas I know my mom, I mean, my mom's like 75 now.
So we may be talking about two generations back, but all of her furniture is solid wood.
And if she sees the furniture that we have nowadays, I think she's kind of like, ah, what's going on?
Yeah. Right, right, right. Because we move around a lot.
Professionals, young professionals, young families move around, right?
And so it's hard to be taking these huge wood pieces, pure wood, around the country and moving everywhere all the time, right?
Right, right. It's true. It's true. It's helpful.
Yeah, it's interesting. Yeah. Abercrombie's Viral Denim Sale is back.
And Spotify listeners get an extra 15% off with code SPOTIFYAF.
Abercrombie is known for their denim. With 30-50% off all jeans, find out how denim should feel.
Shop the viral denim sale in the Abercrombie app, online or in stores.
Valid in stores and online through August 11, 2025 in US and Canada.
Excludes clearance, price reflects discount.
Code valid in US and Canada through August 11, 2025.
Exclusions apply. See details online. Anyways, are you there, Michelle?
Oh, we have one more. I'm sorry. I didn't realize that we had another one.
Sorry. Okay, so then we have over the table, right?
So maybe there's a light or something hanging over the table or whatever it may be.
So you can just say like, oh, can you turn off the light over the table before you leave the room?
Oh, yeah. Okay, good stuff. Okay. Wow. We have a lot of expressions here.
What's going on here, Michelle? Do we have any expressions with the word table?
I mean, we really could do a whole other episode on just expressions with the word table.
Maybe we should. Maybe we should. I'm thinking we have a lot going on here.
And yeah, I'm thinking that we're going to cut this into two episodes and save this for another time.
We're going to do a follow up. Because we've done a lot today.
But the main idea, right, Lindsay, for in, you know, the table is that generally we would say in the table.
Yeah. In this situation. Yes. For our listener, for his question.
Exactly. So really, anytime you're looking at an Excel spreadsheet, it's mostly in the table, right?
In the table or in the cell. We're generally using in Excel.
I'm not an accountant. I don't run a lot of numbers in Excel, but I'm having a hard time thinking of when you would ever say on the table referring to Excel.
It doesn't really make any sense, Michelle.
What do you think? Right, right, right. I don't think so.
You might say at the table, look at the table. right like you know to direct someone's attention but I wouldn't say you would say on the table no in the table no and this is a really good like very specific business question if you guys have more specific business questions about you know accounting or specific language for business let us know and we'll go into this right we'll get the information that's needed and we'll make sure you know it okay good stuff definitely Well, this was a great question.
Like Lindsay said, I love that it was very specific.
So guys, don't be afraid to ask those real nitty gritty questions.
We will get to them. Yeah. Oh, my God. Any takeaway for today, Michelle?
Anything we want to leave our listeners with?
A good question. You might need to, you know, describe a table at work.
And now you have the tools to do so. And we went over some other prepositions.
Listen to that episode of All Ears English to hear more.
It's all about those tables. And it's always on my list, Michelle, to learn how to write Excel formulas every year.
It's like, okay, I'm going to take that online course.
I've got to learn it. One day, one day. I really need to because it's incredibly useful, right?
I always end up having to go to other people.
Can you write this formula for me? Can you show me how to analyze this?
I'm tired of that. I want to be self-empowered.
So this will be the year, 2023. all right all right i believe in you lindsay all right good stuff and guys make sure you hit follow on this podcast because we will be coming back to another episode around english expressions using table right that'll be more kind of metaphorical expressions non-literal expressions right michelle That's right.
That's right. Well, this was fun. And Ahmed, again, good luck.
And we're thinking of you and good luck to all our listeners on whatever you're pursuing.
All right. Great stuff. I'll talk to you soon.
Take care. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
Want more from All Ears English? Don't miss our biggest and best podcast with 8 million monthly downloads.
Just search for the All Ears English podcast and hit follow to get four new episodes per week on fluency, American culture, grammar, and so much more.
Or tap the link in the show notes. Remember, we believe in connection, not perfection when it comes to learning English.
Follow the All Ears English podcast now.
