This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 471, Soon vs. Quickly in English.
What's the difference?
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 Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA.
B1, B2, or C1. go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score that's allearsenglish.com slash f-l-u-e-n-c-y-s-c-o-r-e hey there michelle how are you i'm good lindsay how are you good michelle are you doing any traveling anytime soon yes actually i am going on a cruise with my family for my dad's birthday.
Oh, very nice.
You must be excited for that.
That's fantastic.
Yeah, I am excited.
And Lindsay, for you, aren't you going somewhere too?
I'm going to be going to Norway in September.
Actually, probably when this episode is coming out around that time, I'll be just back from Norway.
So much fun.
Oh, I can't wait to hear about that.
Yeah.
We'll tell our travel stories on the show.
Yes.
We're going to have a lot to talk about.
Yeah.
So today we're going to talk about a common mistake that comes up, and this was inspired by our Open Conversation Club.
Right, Lindsay?
Yep.
Yep.
We have a really great opportunity to chat with our students twice a week.
If you join our courses, you are invited to Open Conversation Club.
Yeah.
So sometimes we do hear mistakes happening over and over again.
We like to point them out in the club and we also like to bring them to the show.
Yeah.
Right.
So we can make sure all of our listeners can benefit.
Yeah, absolutely.
So today the topic that is come up from Open Conversation Club is the difference between soon and quickly, because we hear some mistakes.
Lindsay, so is this a common one, would you say?
Yeah, well, I do remember hearing this one in Open Conversation Club.
I don't remember or care who said it, right?
But I did hear it.
And so I thought to myself, this will be a great one.
This is just a bit of grammar cleanup or vocabulary cleanup here for our listeners.
Right.
To make sure we're up to date and we're just keeping up with things.
Yeah, absolutely.
And yeah, both I mean, both of these show words show a bit of urgency.
So and they're both adverbs.
And they're also really useful for business.
So this is a perfect one for the Business English podcast.
So we're going to get into it in just a second.
But guys, we want to remind you to hit follow wherever you're listening to the Business English podcast, so you never miss anything from us.
Yep, hit that follow button right now guys, and share the show with one friend while you're at it.
Right?
If you have a friend who does business in english occasionally or all the time, and they want to improve, send the podcast to them, right?
Yes yeah, absolutely.
I'm glad you said, michelle.
You know these come up in the business world soon and quickly, because urgency does come up all the time at work, doesn't it?
Yeah, all the time.
So this is huge for the workplace.
Um, all right.
So let's start with soon.
So soon is the point near to now at which something will occur.
The point near to now at which something will occur.
Okay.
Got it.
Okay.
Check.
So happening.
Soon.
Let's give some examples here to make that really clear.
Yeah.
Expect a call from her soon to discuss the budget.
So it's not now.
It's near to now.
Right.
And it's not far away from now.
Right.
Not far away from now.
Yes.
Yes.
Right.
Or my laptop is going to die soon.
So let's try and finish this up.
OK, so. the emphasis isn't really about speed here.
It's more about time markers, right?
If you think of time on a continuum, where on that continuum are these events happening?
Right.
Right.
Even if you plot it out, like a little timeline, you wrote a little line.
I mean, this is, yeah, really.
I mean we, we do a lot of this in the classroom.
You know, writing out the timelines to teach grammar and how it would happen.
Yeah, exactly.
Soon is, can be on that timeline, but, So this is an emphasis on time.
You could not plug quickly into these examples without changing the meaning.
So you couldn't say expect a call from her quickly.
You could say my laptop is going to die quickly, but that would be a little bit different.
Yeah, it does slightly change the meaning.
You're right.
My laptop is going to die quickly versus my laptop is going to die soon.
The meaning is not exactly the same.
That's the interesting part.
I mean, maybe overall the meaning is similar, you know, that it will be in a short time.
Right.
But when you say quickly, the emphasis is more, I would say, about the speed, whereas soon is about the time marker.
So but let's talk about quickly after we take a little break.
Okay.
New fall arrivals are at Nordstrom Rack stores now.
Get ready to save big with up to 60% off Vince, Kurt Geiger London, and more.
How did I not know Rack has Adidas?
Because there's always something new.
Join the Nordy Club at Nordstrom Rack to unlock exclusive discounts on your favorite brands.
Shop new arrivals first and more.
Plus, get an extra 5% off every Rack purchase with a Nordstrom credit card.
Great brands, great prices.
That's why you Rack.
Okay.
Yeah.
So quickly being about speed, not about time.
How fast does something happen?
You know, if I buy... like a low quality something, the battery will die quickly.
But that's not really linked to right now and how soon something is going to happen.
It's not planted on a timeline.
Right, exactly.
You can't do a little X on the timeline as you would with the word soon.
So here's some examples with quickly.
I can quickly explain the instructions again if you need.
And you would never interchange that and say soon.
I can soon explain.
No, no, no, no, no.
Right?
Right.
Or what's another one?
I'm just going to quickly drop this package off at the post office.
And again, soon does not work here because it's how fast are you going to do the thing?
Okay.
Exactly.
Yeah.
So well, let's do some examples where it could overlap in some ways or it could get a little confusing.
So, Let's combine in this early example.
So let's show how this could work.
My laptop is going to die soon.
So let's try and finish this quickly.
So we're kind of overlapping how they're used.
So my laptop is going to die soon.
So near to now.
So let's quickly finish up.
So now we're talking about the speed.
Yeah, I guess you could also say my laptop is going to die soon.
So let's try and finish soon.
Don't you think?
Yeah, you could.
Right.
Exactly.
You could.
Right.
It's just where the emphasis is.
But that that is very true that you could say, let's try and finish soon.
Very interesting.
Here's some more examples.
I'm going to drop this package off quickly and then call you.
So again, that's not connected to like what time I'm going to go drop the package off.
It's connected to how I'm going to do it.
The nature of the way I'm going to drop it off is fast.
I'm going to quickly, I'm going to break the speed limit and I'm going to drive 60 miles an hour.
And then I'm going to screech into the, you know, into the mail, the UPS parking lot.
And then I'm going to run out of the car.
Oh my gosh.
What an image.
Yeah.
Um, yeah.
And you know, it might be soon as well, right?
It sounds like it is also soon, right?
It sounds like this is going to happen soon, but here we're just emphasizing the speed at which it's happening.
So, but just to be clear, like I'm going to drop this package off soon and then call you.
So maybe it's 12 o'clock and I'm going to drop it off at 1230.
Okay, so that's about a time compared to now.
Yes, exactly.
So both of these are fine.
They're just slightly different meanings.
Or let's do one more.
We need to hire a new accountant soon.
So maybe it's September and I need to hire someone in October.
Okay, timing.
We need to hire a new accountant quickly.
Now this one feels very similar, right?
Yes.
Yeah.
Well, to me, the quickly sounds a little bit more urgent.
Yeah, it's soon, but it's also maybe we're not going to, we just need someone, right?
We need to get it going.
Soon sounds, it's not, I don't know, it's sometime soon, maybe next month, right?
It could be a little less specific.
Yeah.
Yeah.
For me, the difference I hear here is timeline for the first one.
Again, September, it's September.
We need to hire someone in October versus the way I'm going to go about hiring the person.
In the second example, we need to hire a new accountant quickly.
Maybe we're going to cut corners.
We're not going to check references.
We're going to have a quick phone interview instead of an in-person interview.
It's going to be quick, a quick hire.
Right.
Exactly.
It's more urgent.
Yes.
And also quickly can be moved around a little bit more.
Let's talk about placement in the sentence.
I mean, you could say, I'll quickly drop this off.
Or you could say, I'll drop this off quickly.
And you can say, I'll drop this off soon.
But do you really say, I'll soon drop this off?
I think technically, like an old English, you might.
Yeah, technically, probably you can get away with this.
But only if you're like repeating a sonnet from, I don't know.
Right, exactly.
Yeah.
From the old English time, Shakespeare time.
I will soon see my love.
You're never going to say that in daily English to your partner.
I'll soon drop this in the mailbox.
No way.
No, they would look at you like you had four heads.
So now don't do that.
So it just doesn't sound quite quite right to me.
But you could use it earlier in the sentence.
You could say soon we will do this soon.
We will be looking to get a new system for our computers.
Right.
For sure.
So we have some options here and there's real nuance here on this topic today, Michelle.
Yeah.
Pretty incredible.
Yeah.
But I mean, this is huge for business.
I mean it talks about, I mean urgency, speed scheduling plans, all of these things that we're dealing with all the time.
Oh, for sure.
For sure.
Speed matters.
Speed and quickness matter when it comes to business.
Uh, especially if you're a young company, you know bigger companies move like move, like the Titanic, right.
Like you can't really turn them fast, but if you're a young company you can move more like a speedboat or a jet ski.
Uh, and you know, yeah.
That's so cute, Lindsay.
I like it.
Oh, thank you.
So we need to be able to talk, the talk to, to decide how important is something that we change it quickly.
All right.
Yeah.
Good.
Exactly.
Role play time.
Okay.
Here we're colleagues, Michelle, and we just got notified that our presentation was moved up by a day.
Oh no.
Panic moment.
Okay.
Okay.
Here we go.
Okay.
So this is intense.
We need to figure this out quickly.
I know I wasn't expecting this to happen.
Okay, so let's get started.
Soon we will hear exactly what we can get printed for tomorrow.
Just waiting for a callback.
Yeah, I hope they call back quickly.
Nice.
I like these examples.
Very realistic conversation here.
Yeah.
So I said we need to figure this out quickly.
So I could have said we need to figure this out soon.
To me, quickly sounds more urgent than soon.
Don't you think?
Yeah, and there's real urgency in this moment, right?
We just got an unexpected change of our presentation date.
We're kind of panicking a little bit.
Come on, we need to do it fast, right?
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm.
And then the next one you said, okay, let's get started.
And then you said soon we'll hear exactly what we can get printed.
So here we're coming back to the timeline.
Let's say it's, let's say it's like 11 PM and we had to stay late at work.
And we're thinking maybe we'll get that call at 1115 or 1120.
So that's just timeline.
OK.
Yeah.
This role play is making me anxious.
No, I'm just.
And then and then I said and then you said, yes, I hope they call back quickly.
So you you could have said, I hope they call back soon.
Quickly just makes it a little more.
I really, you know, I don't want them to dilly dally.
Yep.
That is that overlap that we've said.
There are times when you can overlap and that's just a nuance.
Our listeners have gotten a little glimpse into today.
But guys, you'll have to pay attention out there in in the native speaking world and listen to what people are saying.
Okay.
I really do think that, with that nuance when it does, when there is an overlap, in my opinion it sounds more just that urgency, right.
I hope they call back soon.
I hope they call back quickly.
We need to figure this out soon.
We need to figure this out quickly.
To me, quickly just sounds more like, okay, gotta go, gotta go, gotta go.
I love it.
I like that differentiation there, Michelle.
What is another episode we could check out?
All right, guys, check out.
I am going to actually come to a different episode, because I just realized that this is the same one that I gave for last time.
So I apologize for that.
Okay, Lindsay, guys, check out episode 463.
That was expert excerpt and expect.
What's the difference?
That was fun.
Excellent.
Love that.
And while you're at it checking out different episodes, go over to allearsenglishcom.
Slash high stakes.
And the reason is, is that our brand new course, Professional English Level 2, is coming out soon.
Michelle, are you ready for this?
I am ready for this.
I am so excited.
It's coming out soon.
Yeah, it's coming out soon.
It's our best course yet.
It is our most interactive course, right?
It's very interactive.
This is not a course that you passively consume videos.
This is a course where you are constantly doing activities.
You are learning, you are meeting native speakers through prerecorded interviews.
But not just that.
It goes so much deeper, into the high stakes situations that that we encounter at work in business English.
Okay.
So guys, all ears, english.com slash high stakes spelled H I G H S T A K E S.
You got it.
And if you are wondering what those situations are, you got to go ahead and get right into the course to find out what they are.
But there are moments that matter, matter for your career, for your reputation at work and for your company's success right.
Moments when your English, your interpersonal skills, your cultural skills, your business etiquette could make or break the whole scenario.
Okay.
So again, get on that list at allersenglish.com slash highstakes.com.
And we will let you know, you'll be the first to know when we go live in the next couple of weeks.
All right.
Very exciting.
Can't wait.
Anything we want to leave our listeners with today, Lindsay?
Yeah, Michelle, time urgency matters, right?
If you are not worried about urgency and time at work, you should be.
You should be.
You should know what's urgent, what can be left for later.
And this is where these conversations come in.
All right.
I love it.
All right.
Well, guys, thank you so much for listening.
And Lindsay, I'll talk to you soon and not quickly.
Not quickly.
That would not work at all in that scenario, right?
I'll talk to you quickly.
It's the timeline.
Love it.
So good.
Michelle, talk soon.
Have a good day.
All right.
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.
