Welcome back to the Breakout Business English podcast.
My name is Chris.
I'm a business English and communication coach and I've personally worked with over 1000 international professionals likely, just like you, to improve the way that they communicate at work in English.
Thank you so much for listening and for your time.
And our topic today is Christmas.
So as I sat down to write this week's podcast episode, I suddenly realized that I've never done a Christmas episode.
I think this is my first year of being really consistent every week with the podcast.
So it does make sense that I've never done this before, to be fair.
I've definitely been running this podcast for more than a year, but in the past it was sometimes months between episodes.
So this is my first really consistent year.
I did do a sports-themed episode around the last Olympic Games, but definitely nothing festive.
So, with that in mind, let's take a look at some phrases that we might hear around this time of year, and also a couple of fun idioms and phrases that include festive vocabulary.
Season's greetings.
I hope this email finds you well.
I'm looking forward to taking some time off over the festive period.
Feel free to wear seasonal attire to the office on Friday.
Feel free to wear seasonal attire to the office on Friday.
Now, what type of word is Christmas?
Any guesses?
Is it a noun, a verb, an adverb or something else?
The word Christmas is, in fact, a noun.
More specifically, it's a proper noun, more commonly known as a name.
So, just like any other name, we can't use articles in front of it when it is on its own, when it's alone.
For instance, I'm looking forward to the Christmas would be wrong.
I'm looking forward to the Christmas would be a mistake.
However, we do use it with articles when it has an adjective in front of it.
For instance, I hope you have a great Christmas.
I hope you have a great Christmas.
Interestingly, however, Christmas can also be an adjective.
For instance, when talking about Christmas trees, Christmas dinners, or maybe at work you might have a Christmas party.
This actually happens quite a lot in English.
We often use nouns as adjectives.
So, can you think of any?
Can you think of any nouns that can also be adjectives?
Well, maybe as you are leaving the office on a wet day, you might put on a raincoat.
That's the noun rain functioning as an adjective when talking about a raincoat.
You might keep your pens and pencils in a pencil case in a pencil case and brush your teeth with a toothbrush a toothbrush.
So, teeth and pencils, all of these are nouns.
So, as you can see, it's not uncommon to use nouns as adjectives in English.
However, Let's take a look at a couple of adjectives that we can use in more formal professional situations to describe something related to Christmas.
In the second example, we heard the adjective festive.
As in, I'm looking forward to taking some time off over the festive period.
I'm looking forward to taking some time off over the festive period.
There's a chance that you haven't heard the word festive before, but I'm guessing that you have heard the word festival, festival.
There are many places where you'll hear this word.
Maybe a couple of your favorite bands are playing at a music festival.
That's probably the most common place to hear this word these days is a music festival.
Or you might celebrate the changing of the seasons by attending a harvest festival, or maybe a cherry blossom festival, when the cherry trees are starting to change colour.
Well, you can add Christmas to this list because it's also a festival.
The adjective form festive can technically be used to talk about things connected to any festival.
However, in practice, native speakers usually use it to talk only about things related to Christmas.
A common place to hear.
This is talking about the festive period at work, which is the few weeks around Christmas and especially before it.
Maybe starting around the beginning of December, maybe the second week of December and extending maybe into the first week of January at the latest.
So a CFO might say something like, we make 80% of our revenue for the year in the festive period.
We make 80% of our revenue for the year in the festive period.
Whereas someone from Human Resources, from HR, might say that we've decided to offer permanent contracts to a couple of temporary staff that we hired for the festive period.
Maybe you even called them festive staff.
Festive staff.
You can definitely call people that if they're hired just for that period of time.
And you'll hear this word used even more broadly too.
Something that's decorated for Christmas, or even just designed in a way that reminds you of Christmas, can be called festive.
For instance, when your colleague puts a little Christmas tree on their desk and tinsel around their monitor, you might describe it as very festive.
Or you could even simply say that you're in a festive mood or feeling festive.
Season's greetings is a very formal way to say hello around Christmas time.
Again, similar to the way that we use festive, we can use this for most of December.
It's quite old-fashioned and you might sound a little like the author Charles Dickens when you use it.
For this reason, people often use it in slightly sarcastic contexts when they're being sarcastic.
In the first example, we heard season's greetings.
I hope this email finds you well.
Season's greetings.
I hope this email finds you well.
So you can see that you might use this to begin an email.
However, in the third example we heard the adjective seasonal seasonal, as in feel free to wear seasonal attire to the office on Friday.
Feel free to wear seasonal attire to the office on Friday.
Attire, I should say just briefly means clothes.
Attire is a very formal way to say your clothes or what someone is wearing.
Now seasonal can again be used to talk about anything that has a connection to a particular time of year.
If you are able to get a certain type of fruit during the summer but never in winter, then this is likely to be a seasonal vegetable.
However, it's most commonly used, like the word festive, to talk about things related to Christmas.
So, what did I mean when I talked about seasonal attire?
What is seasonal attire?
Well, the word attire, as I mentioned, is a formal word that means clothes or clothing.
So Christmas attire would likely be a Christmas jumper.
In the UK and US, we have a modern tradition of having really bad and ugly Christmas jumpers.
So usually jumpers with very elaborate and exciting patterns and festive or seasonal designs on them.
More formally at work.
You might again talk about seasonal temporary staff, a seasonal increase in sales volume, maybe seasonal opening times for a shop or seasonal changes to the staff schedule.
And if you want to give yourself the Christmas gift of improving your English, then maybe we can work together.
My full-time job is helping international professionals who use English at work to improve their communication skills.
So if you need English to do your job but you don't speak it natively, then I would love to meet you.
If you'd like to book some time to meet with me through one-to-one video calls just you and me then you can go to breakoutbusinessenglishcom.
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And the mistakes that you make most often are cause the biggest problems with your communication.
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I've worked with over 1000 non-native English speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you.
Okay, let's look now at a couple of phrases and idioms that reference Christmas and see if there's anything seasonal that you could use in your professional communication.
It looks like Christmas has come early.
They've increased our budget for the project.
It looks like Christmas has come early.
They've increased our budget for the project.
Our figures for Q4 really put a bow on what has been a very successful year.
So everyone likes Christmas.
I think I can say that with confidence.
In fact there's a very famous English Christmas song, English language Christmas song, by a band called Wizard, called I Wish It Could Be Christmas Every Day.
And even though it was released all the way back in 1973, you can still hear it on the radio and in shops every year without fail.
I must say that Christmas Every Day does sound incredibly stressful.
I think you can have too much of a good thing there.
So if everyone likes Christmas and some people even wish it could be every day, is it any surprise that we can use the phrase Christmas has come early to talk about surprising and positive events?
To talk about nice surprises?
If you want to give someone a promotion at work, for instance, then you might tell them that Christmas has come early this year.
I'm promoting you.
Christmas has come early this year.
I'm promoting you.
Or you might use it to express your surprise.
For instance, when you get an unexpected tax refund, you might say Wow, Christmas has come early this year.
I got a tax refund.
Wow, Christmas has come early this year.
I got a tax refund.
Has that happened to anyone this year?
Have you got any money back from the taxman?
It happened to me around 12 years ago.
A long time now it feels, but never since.
Maybe I'll get a tax refund this year.
To put a bow on something is definitely more American sounding, but you'll definitely be understood, no matter where you use it.
In the second example we heard our figures for Q4 really put a bow on what has been a very successful year.
Our figures for Q4 really put a bow on what has been a very successful year.
Now let's double check our terms here, double check our understanding.
What do we mean by a bow here?
A bow is a long, narrow strip of fabric used for tying something for decoration.
It's usually a knot tied with two loops and two loose ends, just like you tie your shoelaces, but we use it for these decorative ribbons and when it is tied it forms a bow.
That's B-O-W, bow.
If you say that something puts a bow on something, then you mean that it makes that thing complete and perfect.
I'm going to guess that you understand why we use this phrase, but I'll explain it for the sake of completeness.
When you wrap a present for Christmas, for instance, the last thing that you do is to put a bow on it.
The bow is what completes it.
And after that, there's nothing else that you need to do.
For instance, you might say that you just need to add a couple of details to a report and put a bow on it before you send it to the client.
Or maybe at the end of a conference you might say, the final keynote speaker really put a bow on a great week.
The final keynote speaker really put a bow on a great week.
Don't forget that if you would like to discuss any of the ideas, vocabulary or grammar etc.
In today's episode, or just generally improve your English communication skills for work, then you can book a session with me to work together by going to wwwbreakoutbusinessenglishcom.
That's the title of the podcast breakoutbusinessenglishcom, or you can click the link in the show notes.
And right now you can use the code podcast30 that's podcast30 at checkout to get a 30 discount off your first booking.
As I mentioned, I've worked with well over 1000 non-native English-speaking professionals, from new graduates up to CEOs and government leaders, to help them to achieve their goals, and I look forward to meeting you.
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That's five of the most common grammar mistakes for native Slavic language speakers to make when speaking English, and hopefully you'll find it useful.
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That is it for today.
Thank you so much for listening and for your time.
I know how valuable it is and i really appreciate and respect your choice to spend some of your time with this podcast.
I hope you have a great week and indeed, Merry Christmas, Happy Holidays, Season's Greetings, Happy Hanukkah and however you are celebrating at the end of the year.
If this is a big time of year for you and your community, I hope you have a fantastic end to the year and, however you choose to spend the last few few days, i hope they go really well for you.
And yeah, i think this actually is the last episode for the year.
I think after this we are into january.
Let's take a quick look.
Um Oh okay, so we've got one more left in this year.
Next Wednesday will be the 31st.
Maybe I'll have to do a New Year's episode as well.
We'll see what I decide to title the podcast and to make next week's podcast.
So one more left in this year.
But for now, I'll say...
Merry Christmas, happy holidays, happy Hanukkah, and have a great Christmas time.
Have a great festive period.
Thanks a lot, everyone.
Talk to you soon.
