This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 120.
Avoid confusing your co-workers with this impressive grammar.
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Hey, Aubrey, what's going on in your world today?
How's it going? I've been having so much fun playing Jackbox with my kids lately.
And I've been really impressed by them and the clever answers they come up with.
Have you ever played Jackbox? I don't think so.
I don't think I have. It's a game where everyone uses like their phone as a remote and it's just on like the TV screen, the game.
And there's tons of different games. They're sort of like a board game, but everyone has their phone as like their remote to submit their answers, right?
It became really popular during the pandemic because people would play over Zoom.
Celebrities would play over Zoom and you could watch.
I played with my family over Zoom. When you couldn't get together with people, you could play Jackbox together.
It was really cool. Very cool. But now that my kids are getting older, it's fun because they're coming up with these really fun, impressive answers.
That is fun. So you said that you've been impressed by your kids' answers.
Are you impressed by things a lot? Do you tend to be impressed easily, would you say?
I'm not easily impressed, no. So this is impressive that they are impressing me because I'm not easily impressed.
And I used all three of them in that one sentence.
You did. Very impressive, Aubrey. Very impressive.
In case you guys can't tell, we're talking about these words today, impressed, impressive, impressing.
We hear students make mistakes with this often.
So we are going to dive into the grammar of it and help you guys know which to choose.
Those and another related one that we also hear mistakes a lot with, confused and confusing.
Which can be very confusing. It's easy to get confused by those confusing words.
These are questions I used to get a lot when I used to teach students in New York City at the level, the intermediate to upper intermediate level.
These are things that you don't want to mess up.
Like you don't want to say I'm boring when you actually want to say I'm bored.
Or I'm confusing when you mean I'm confused.
There's a very different meaning. Yes. You just, it's a high stakes situation.
So let's clear it up today for our listeners.
What do you say? Yes. So let's jump first into confused and confusing, right?
The mistake is someone might ask us, might send in an email and ask us to teach something and say, it's very confused to me, right?
We've, we've seen this lots of times. It's an easy mistake to make.
Yes. And so we're going to dive into the grammar here first of confused and confusing.
Okay. So let's break it down for our listeners once and for all.
This is the final time we're going to clear this up for them.
And they're going to be really clear when they come away from today's episode.
What is the difference between confusing and confused?
Yes. So... First, just a note that we use past participles and present participles as adjectives.
So what's a little tricky here is both words confusing and confused can be right.
Present participles or past participles.
That's what's really tricky. Right. So confused is always the past participle.
That's going to be an adjective. I am confused.
I'm describing myself. What gets tricky, and this is what really messes students up, is that confusing can be an adjective, right?
This exam is confusing. I'm describing the exam.
But it can also be a present participle, verb ing.
And these you're going to use at work a lot.
If you're describing something outside yourself, that's when you're using a verb ing ending.
Let's give some examples. Okay, so for example, here's one.
These instructions are confusing. Okay. Yes, right.
Or let's clarify our message here. It might be a bit confusing.
And here, the grammar's a little different.
Okay. Okay. So then with the past participle, that is the verb with an ed.
This is where you're describing a feeling.
And that's when we use the ed ending. Yeah.
We also use this at work a ton. Okay. Yeah.
So for example, he felt confused by our message.
Right? Yeah. Or in same, he was confused by our message.
It's just same, right? Depends on which sort of auxiliary verb you're using.
Or we don't want the client to be confused.
So let's clarify this message. Now you see how you're describing the way a person or your client feels.
It's creating this feeling of confusion.
Yeah, kind of a reaction to the thing, right?
That is confusing. I am confused. It's how I feel.
It's my mind state, kind of, in a way. Yes.
And we want to highlight another thing that the reason that a lot of students make mistakes with this.
We understand. We have solidarity. English is confusing with these words.
We also have the phrase, find confusing.
And it's tricky because it means the same as to be confused.
So you might say, let's clarify our message here.
The client found it confusing, which means the same thing as the client was confused.
Oh my gosh. Okay. I am not confused. I'm a little confused.
It's tricky. This is tricky. This is sort of the exception where you're seeing the ing word and you're like, wait, this is being used like the past participle.
And this is why it's this phrase find confusing.
You just have to think about it means the same thing as to be confused.
I love it. So let's go into a fresh new verb here and add a slash adjective and let's break it down again.
Our listeners get another crack at it here.
So the second one here is impressive, impressing and impressed.
Tell me the difference. What is the mistake that we see a lot?
Right. We often see this mistake. The way they treat each other is so impressing.
And this is especially confusing because if you look at the grammar, that mistake is made because you're expecting it to follow the grammar of like confused, confusing.
You'd think you'd say, you know, the way there is confusing at an ING.
No, we have a separate adjective, impressive.
So this creates confusion. We will break this down so you know which one to use and why.
Okay. All right. So where do we start? So impressive, right?
Take us into this one. I'll bring it here. like conducive.
There are a lot of adjectives that end in I-V-E.
It means the same thing to say, I was so impressed by the way they treat each other.
We're just flipping the sentence and saying, I found it impressive.
I think it is impressive. And it's very impressive, right?
Especially to an IELTS examiner when you can do that.
Yes, exactly. When you can flip it like that, that's what gets you that high score on IELTS.
But that is another show for another day.
But our listeners should know, by the way, Aubrey, that you and Jessica are on the IELTS Energy podcast three, two days a week.
Yeah, two days a week. And we teach vocabulary, but also grammar, pronunciation, all of these things that you need to get the score you need on IELTS, but that are also just great if you are learning English for business.
So if you work in English, the IELTS Energy Podcast actually is also really great for you.
Yeah, check it out. Okay, let's go deeper here. right so we have the three here impressive always an adjective okay impressed is the past participle that ends in ed and that's used as an adjective or a verb and then impressing is a present participle used as a verb right it's present continuous tense the tricky thing is you have to think about how it's being used in the sentence So we're going to state, you know, how it would be used in the sentence and a couple of examples here.
And then keep in mind, of course, the more you take in English when you're listening to podcasts, TV, they just start the right one start sounding right because you've heard it right so many times.
Right, but we need that bridge. So what you guys wanna do is as you're listening to English, native English, think about why impressive was used, impressing was used, impressed was used.
That's gonna be your bridge to that final fluency that you're gonna get to where you just feel what's right.
Right. Exactly. All right. So let's dive in here.
So impressive. You're going to use this if describing a person or a thing as admirable.
For example, I didn't know you graduated from Yale.
Impressive. Or she'll probably get the job because they think she's quite impressive.
Exactly. So both cases here, we're describing a person as admirable.
We admire them for some for some reason.
So we're going to use impressive there. OK, love it.
And now a feeling describing a feeling is using impressed.
Yes. So there's a few different ways as far as the grammar here.
And as long as it's always describing a feeling, it will always be impressed.
But it might be as an adjective. He was impressed by her interview.
Yeah. Or were you impressed by his performance?
Or it might be a verb. She impressed him with her skills because it's also just the verb in past tense.
Right. And you said at the beginning of the episode, you've been impressed by your kid's skills in Jackbox, Jack in the Box.
Exactly. Jackbox, not Jack in the Box. I don't know.
It probably did come from Jack in the Box.
I think there's actually their logo is like a Jack in the Box popping out, but they just one word, Jackbox.
Love it. Love it. And then the third way, if it's used as a verb, is impressing.
Yeah. Impresent continuous, right? So for example, the sales team is impressing us with their numbers this quarter.
Okay. And so in this case, we're using that present continuous because maybe you had a presentation yesterday.
You learned some of the numbers. Now you're going to have one tomorrow.
So it's ongoing. Is that right? Exactly.
Right. Otherwise, you'd just say, oh, the sales team impressed us.
Yeah, or whatever, but because it's ongoing, exactly, would have that continuous tense.
Okay, and what else? Is there another one?
Yeah, you could say, the video during the presentation was impressing everyone until we realized how long it was.
So we still use continuous. See, this is past continuous, right?
Because we're talking about an action that continued.
But then we say, well, that changed once something else happened.
I love it. And there's another episode that we've done actually on IELTS Energy about using this, using the word amazed and maybe amazing too, right?
Yes, exactly. We taught bored and boring, amazed, amazing, charmed, charming, and disgusted, disgusting, all as high level vocabulary.
And on that podcast, we're always sharing how to use it to impress the examiner, because sometimes we'll see students use one of these words as a verb, but not as an adjective.
So we want to show you how you can up your language level.
And that applies to business English. That applies to all English all the time.
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So now I think this is going to be the, what's going to make this really clear for our listeners by putting a role play in here.
Aubrey, should we do it? Yes, absolutely.
So in this role play, you and I are debriefing after a meeting. and what does debriefing mean by the way that's a bonus yeah that means after a meeting to sort of discuss how it went discuss maybe what you would do differently or what was good okay here we go all right you've been impressing me with your presentations lately well thank you was there anything you found confusing at all no i think it was pretty clear and straightforward very impressive maybe one thing i was a bit confused about next steps Ah, gotcha.
We do need a clear plan going forward. I can see how that could be confusing.
Nice. Yes, you can see how we have all of these uses here, right?
The first one I used, the present continuous.
You've been well and really have been impressing is present perfect continuous.
So this is an even more complicated verb tense, but it sounds right to you guys, right?
Because it's something that started in the past, but not at a specified time.
We use present perfect when time doesn't matter.
You've been impressing me lately. Time doesn't matter.
And just so we don't get confused, just come back to any other verb, putting any other verb in there.
You've been working hard lately. Right. It's the same use, right?
So don't let that throw you off, right? Exactly.
It's just the present participle. If it ends with ing, present participle.
If it ends with ed, past participle. And then, yes, the grammar is a little tricky with the verb tenses and which one you need, but it makes sense.
Like you said, you've been working hard.
You've been going out to eat a lot. Collaborating.
Yeah. Yeah. It could be anything. You've been working out a lot lately, right?
Going to the gym. It's gonna be so many things.
Okay. So don't, don't let that throw, throw you off guys.
Okay. Next one. I said, thank you. Was there anything you found confusing at all?
Yes. And that was kind of our little bonus, the tricky one that we wanted to call attention to that find confusing.
Anything you found confusing means the same as anything you were confused by.
It has that same meaning. Right. The thing is confusing.
I am confused. I find it very confusing.
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Or. OK, good. And then what else?
And then I use impressive just as that adjective.
I'm saying very impressive describing your presentation.
And then I did say I was a bit confused.
Here again, an adjective describing myself and my feeling.
I felt confused about what do I do next, about next steps.
Exactly. So again, as I said before, the thing's confusing.
I feel confused. Anytime we have the ED, you're talking about your feeling, right?
Yep. Good. And then I said, gotcha. We do need a clear plan going forward.
I can see how that could be confusing. And here I'm just kind of empathizing.
I'm mirroring what you've said. Exactly.
Right. Oh, this is so good, you guys. I feel like we use these all the time in business English without even really noticing.
I think about that next steps vocab there.
We say that all the time, right? Okay, let's think about next steps.
And then we don't always highlight it or think about, you know, when are you going to learn this in a textbook?
No, never. Right. Never. Only on All Ears English Business English podcast.
I love it. So good. Aubrey, what's the takeaway for today?
We did go pretty deep into some grammar here.
But where should our listeners leave us here?
Yeah, this is pretty confusing grammar and mistakes are made all the time.
I think you can understand why, right? It's tricky.
But today's tips will help you know which one to use and why so that your meaning is clear.
So you can impress your coworkers with your impressive grammar.
Yeah. And I think this would also be a really good, very specific thing for you guys to commit to getting clear on, getting correct on, right?
So again, I've heard students at the intermediate to advanced level making these mistakes all the time, my whole career in ESL.
And you have too, right, Aubrey? Yes, absolutely.
Very, very common. So this would be a way to move yourself up into that C1, C2 level.
You could kind of tick the box and really master this.
You can do it, right? This is a very specific thing to work on.
Yes, absolutely. It's so smart to really zero in on something specific like this when you, you know, you're speaking very well, you're speaking at a great level.
Everyone at work understands you, but can you take it a little, can you challenge yourself, right?
Take it to the next level. It's always good to have something we're working on, right?
Or we'll get stagnant. We'll plateau. Yeah, don't stagnate.
I think a lot of people are worried about that.
This is how to not do it. Decide this summer.
This is the thing you're going to finally figure out.
I love it. So good. So good. Awesome, Lindsay.
Thanks for chatting with me about grammar.
All right. I'll talk to you very soon, Aubrey.
Thanks for hanging out today. All right.
Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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