Hello, my friends, and a very warm welcome back to the Easy English Podcast, the best place to practice your English listening skills and increase your vocabulary.
I'm your host Oliver, and today we are going to be tackling a very important and common topic that you will face and have to deal with regularly.
And that is talking about your job or your career, or we could also say profession.
Knowing how to describe your work, your responsibilities and your ambitions and goals for the future are very important.
Skills in B1 to B2 level English.
But it's not just, as always, about the vocabulary and the phrases.
It is about the cultural context.
If you haven't noticed already, in this series and in this podcast, I love to tell you about some of the cultural reasons for things in English and some of the ways to approach or to deal with certain topics.
So in this episode we're going to explore why in some countries, it is asked so commonly and so early about what your job is and also about how to navigate sensitive topics like your salary or income in places We're like the UK where it is considered something that we don't talk about.
So as always, we are going to have our key vocabulary for today.
But first, if you are new there's so many new listeners the last few weeks make sure you are subscribed and following the podcast so you don't miss new episodes every week.
We have a new episode every single Monday.
And you may notice that I am holding this nice new mug.
You can see an Easy English podcast mug, which is now released.
So we have a nice logo here, our colours, our brand colours on the inside and the handle.
And on the other side, it says a cuppa cheers.
So two British slang words and phrases a cuppa, as in a cup of tea, a cup of tea, a cuppa.
And cheers, as in almost like a yes or a thank you.
So i decided i really wanted an easy english mug, because i drink a lot of coffee and tea and hot drinks.
I wanted a mug that is high quality but also um fits my brand, Which is, of course, easy English.
Now, to be honest with you, making mugs is actually quite expensive.
So they're made to order.
So every time one of you will order these mugs, it will be produced, created and sent directly to you.
So they are a little bit expensive, to be honest.
I don't expect anyone to buy them, but I'm making them available.
So if you want to support the show by purchasing a mug that you can drink from while you're learning English or listening to the podcast, then you can do so.
But again, I don't expect anyone to be buying these, but they are an option.
So if you want to get your mug, you can click the link in the description below and you'll get access to this lovely, easy English mug for drinking your black tea with milk.
Or if you like coffee a little bit more like myself, maybe a nice coffee while you listen to the podcast.
So you can check them out in the link in the description below.
Okay, let's look at our key vocabulary.
And we have for today's topic, five essential terms and phrases for professional conversations or casual ones about your work.
And the first is occupation.
Occupation.
You'll often see this on maybe some forms or documents and it will be asking for your occupation and, as you might have guessed, occupation means job or profession.
For example, You know, you might be a teacher, a doctor, a builder.
These are all occupations.
The second word today is responsibilities.
Responsibilities.
And responsibilities are the duties that you are required or expected to handle as part of your job.
So my main responsibilities in my job include talking to customers and typing up reports.
These are responsibilities in my job.
Our third word today is ambition.
Ambition.
This is a great word.
Ambition is a strong desire.
So a strong desire to perhaps do or achieve something.
And it's usually when we're talking about something we want to achieve or do in the future.
So we have an ambition to achieve that, to get there.
For example, I might say in my job that I have an ambition to be in a position of leadership in the future.
Our fourth word today is taboo.
Taboo.
And a taboo is a social or religious custom which maybe makes it seem like something that we can't do or talk about.
So, for example, in the UK we have a social taboo about salary.
So about talking about our salaries?
And we'll talk about that a little bit later.
And our final key vocabulary to listen out for today is compensation, compensation.
And compensation is something typically money that is awarded to someone in recognition of loss, suffering or injury.
Really professionally, we say that it's another word for pay or salary.
So your compensation is what you're paid, what you get paid by your work.
It doesn't have to be only money, it can be other benefits that you have too.
Your compensation package can be your salary, maybe healthcare childcare holidays, other benefits that you have.
So to start with, let's look at some of the cultural context around talking about our jobs.
So around answering these questions and how often we might be asked these questions.
So the question, what do you do? what do you do is one that you might hear quite frequently.
And it means, what is your job?
Like, what is your career?
What do you do?
People might often say as well, what do you do for work?
And this really has.
It can be different from country to country, both in the words and also the cultural reasons, and the meaning of this question can change from place to place.
So let's look at two examples, and these are going to be two english-speaking countries that I know a little bit about, and that is the UK and the United States.
But let's start with the United States.
In the United States, what do you do?
So the question what do you do is one of the first questions that people often ask you when you meet someone new.
And the reason why is that for many Americans, and particularly in American culture, A person's occupation, so their job, is very closely linked to their identity and social standing.
So what they do is very closely linked to who they are.
The question is a lot less about daily tasks and routines and more about placing you within a social structure.
So understanding...
You know where you're from, what you do?
How much do you earn essentially by working it out around these questions?
And it serves as a quick conversation starter for opening up a topic about work and helping people find common ground.
One thing I noticed in America as well is people have a lot less holiday time.
So they spend much more of their life working.
So a lot more of their lives working.
Work is definitely a bigger part of their lives than in Europe.
So how do they usually respond to this question?
Well, in the United States, the response is usually quite clear, quite direct and often enthusiastic.
So very positive about their work and what they do.
They tend to focus on the positive aspects of their job, their duties, and their career in general.
But now let's have a look at the British approach.
The UK and probably a similar approach for many European countries.
So in the United Kingdom, and probably many other European countries as well, asking about someone's occupation, about their job, is often reserved for a later point in the conversation.
And usually we have to have more small talk or getting to know someone before we start asking them a lot of questions about their work.
It can be seen as quite forward, quite direct and a little bit rude to start asking about what someone does for work as soon as you meet them.
It's almost in the UK, like you don't care about that person, but you just want to know what they do.
And that is, and there's a couple of reasons for this in the UK.
So UK culture is very heavily based on privacy.
There's a big emphasis on privacy.
So it can take time to open up to someone about certain details and aspects of our lives.
And not only is privacy important, but we do not associate our identity, often very strongly tied, to our job or our profession in the UK.
Of course your job can be a big part of your life, but socially and in public it is not really seen as a big part of our identities.
And the reason for this is very cultural and it comes from that place of not wanting to seem proud, to trying to be modest or, let's say, humble about what you do, especially if you earn a lot of money or you're in a very well-respected job like a doctor or a pilot or something like that.
You don't want to be in the UK seen as showing off, you know, being too proud of what you do.
And this again is a very cultural thing.
Now, if you find this interesting so these cultural differences and how people use language because of the culture you would love my Patreon bonus episodes.
So this week I am going to release an episode on Patreon which is going to be more about some of these cultural reasons behind the language.
Last week, I released a new News in Easy English episode.
And now there are over, I believe, 60 bonus episodes between all of the series on the Easy English Patreon.
So if you want to get access to this so an extra episode every single week on Thursdays sign up for the Easy English Patreon and support the show while taking your learning to the next level.
You also get transcripts and PDFs for every episode.
So it will help you to read, to learn and to take notes.
OK.
So now that we've looked at the cultural context of essentially how we talk about our jobs and our careers, let's learn a few phrases, some useful English words and phrases.
Regardless of the culture.
You need a clear structure to start talking about and describing your job.
To start with, you always want to start clearly with what you are, so what your occupation is and where you work.
So make it as easy as possible.
And usually when we talk about the role, we say I am, and then the role or I work as, and then the role as well.
So let's use an example.
So my job, right?
So outside of teaching English and making the podcast, I am a customer success manager.
So I would say I am a customer success manager.
Then you want to talk about maybe the industry.
So if it's not clear, you would say the industry that you're in.
So for me, I am a customer success manager, or I work as a customer success manager in the software industry or in the technology industry.
You could also say that you work for and then the type of company.
Of course, if you work in something very obvious, you don't really need to say that.
If you're a doctor, of course you work in healthcare in most cases.
If you're a pilot, of course you work in aviation, but you might say then which company you work for, which hospital you work in or which airline you fly for.
So really, the key is be clear and direct about your title and your industry.
That just takes a lot of the confusion and questions out of the equation.
Then we usually talk about our responsibilities.
So the person might then ask you like, oh, what do you do?
So what do you do day to day?
What what does that role mean?
What does that job mean?
So, for example, for me, I'm going to be talking about my responsibilities as a customer success manager.
So my day-to-day involves managing client accounts, let's say.
My main responsibility is onboarding new customers.
It's meeting new customers and making them happy and comfortable with the product.
So you're talking about your responsibilities.
And to do so, you can use phrases such as, I am responsible for, or my main responsibility is.
So you're using that word, but in different forms.
It's a great way to remember it.
So if you learn responsibility or responsibilities, you can then change that word to I am responsible for.
My responsibility is.
So now that we've talked about what exactly we do, what industry we're in and what our main responsibilities or duties are,
Then the third aspect that we usually talk about in this conversation is our ambitions.
So discussing our career ambitions.
And this language is more about the future and our future goals, planning, that type of thing.
And you can use this word and say my long-term ambition or my career ambition is to and then what you want?
So my long-term career ambition is actually to run my own business.
So it's to.
For me, let's say, my long-term ambition is to do easy English for full-time, so this to be my job, to make courses, to run classes and digital products as my job so i can teach more people english.
You might also talk about promotion.
So you know, i would like to get a promotion or to be promoted to a certain role.
You might also say i am focused on so i am focused on developing into management, really anything just talking about that future, about those goals and where you want to push yourself.
Okay, So those are the three sort of main categories of talking about your job, about career.
So to split it up again, so you're talking about your main role, like your title and the industry.
Then the second point, you're talking about your duties and responsibilities.
And the third point, or third section, I guess we're talking about our ambitions and our future goals with our careers.
Okay.
So what I'm doing now is I'm opening up some of your wonderful comments from last week's episode.
Because now is the time for one of my favorite parts of the show.
And that is our listener spotlight.
So every week I ask a question that I get you guys to answer in the comments below.
And then I pick a few comments and I read them out on each show.
So, in last week's episode, it was about daylight and habits slash routines.
And I had a few great comments about this.
And the first came from Niti from Albania.
And they said, I listen to your podcast almost every week.
And they have been useful and entertaining at the same time.
And rather, I should say first that the question was about your routines.
So how your routines change with the change of the season.
Aniti said, I live in a small city, so that means it's a bit cut off from the wider world.
That's a great verb, so a bit cut off.
It's isolated or further away from.
So since the time has changed and days get shorter, I don't have too many activities to do after work.
So I decided to join a gym.
That activity has helped me to be healthier, sleep well, and manage my time.
That's a wonderful way to manage your time in winter and to feel better, particularly coming into the darker season at the end of autumn and winter.
Now to feel more energy and to be healthier.
So wonderful, wonderful comment Neeti, and You're very welcome always to the podcast and I love to read your comments.
The next comment answering this was from Brenda.
And Brenda said, Hi Oliver, very important topic in today's episode.
My routine has definitely changed this season.
In the summer I usually go swimming after work.
But since the sun sets earlier now, I don't enjoy swimming in the dark.
So I haven't been swimming these days.
Instead, I try to work out at home.
I definitely miss the sunlight, but I try to enjoy the season by doing cozier things like watching movies at home and, of course, preparing the house for the coming holiday season.
And I can see a Christmas tree emoji.
That's a wonderful way to spend evenings.
I love as well that cozy atmosphere from autumn and winter.
So there definitely are some positives.
I think that Brenda has highlighted these very well in her comment.
So excellent comment.
This week's listener spotlight question is, of course, about jobs or professions.
So I would like you to practice doing what I just taught you.
So talking about your job.
Tell me you know what your job is, what industry do you work in and what your plans are for the future.
If you're retired and you don't work, you can tell me about what your career was.
And if you don't work, that's fine too.
You can tell me about what your main ambitions are for the future.
So I'd love to read your comments and I will read out and I'll choose and read some of them in next episode's listener spotlight.
I look forward to seeing them.
So this brings us to our final cultural section or section.
And that is about the salary taboo.
So we're going to talk a little bit about salary.
But only briefly.
We're going to look at just two of the differences between the UK and the US.
But this is going to be continued on the Patreon on Thursday.
So on the bonus episode on the Patreon.
So if you want to hear a little bit more about how to talk about salary in the UK, about money, then go and check out that episode about taboos in the UK.
So about things that we don't really talk about and why.
So in America, in the US, generally, they talk about salaries and compensation more openly.
And I've noticed this in countries that I've traveled to around the world as well, where people are more direct about this.
And they ask, how much do you earn?
And it does surprise me because in the UK and many other countries asking about income or salary is considered a very strong taboo.
It is something that you can't cannot do or you should not do if you do not want to offend someone.
It is simply just something that we do not talk about to others, even often family.
We don't discuss how much we earn, particularly if we earn a lot of money.
We don't talk about it, and that's really a key difference between the us and the uk.
But i'm going to talk about that in the patreon bonus episode.
So a little bit more about why.
Why don't we talk about money in the uk?
What is the reason for that?
So do check out that episode on the bonus podcast if you want to learn more.
So, in conclusion, try and practice talking about your job in the comments.
Leave an answer and i hope that you learned some new words and phrases today, or some cool little cultural tips remember, if you want to pick up an easy english mug, so a a cuppa cheers with easy english and our lovely brand colors.
You can check out the link in the description below.
Thank you so much for listening, and as always, I hope to see you in the next Easy English episode.
Good luck with your English studies this week, and I will chat to you very, very soon.
Goodbye.
