This is the Business English Podcast, episode 539.
Finally, the episode you've been waiting for.
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.
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Hello, Lindsay.
How are you today?
I'm doing great today, Aubrey.
Sun is shining here in Denver, so nothing to complain about.
How about you?
How's it going?
Excellent.
I'm having a great day.
I have a question for you to start out here.
Yeah.
Is there something you had to practice for a while before you could eventually do it well?
Everything I've ever done.
I'm not a natural at anything, to be honest.
I don't feel like I am.
So every sport, every presentation, every skill at work, I've had to practice.
Same.
I feel that.
They're amazing.
But no, no, no, no.
That's not me.
No, it takes a lot of practice for everything.
Well, I'm asking.
I asked that because I wanted to use the word eventually.
We got a great question about some phrases like finally, eventually in the end.
Let's share that question.
This is so good.
I'm excited.
We're going to dive into this today.
Great.
So this question is for Lindsay, Michelle and Aubrey, all three of us here.
And this is from Yuri from Japan.
So Yuri says, I listened to your podcast for almost 6,900 minutes last year.
Wow.
That's so great.
And it has really helped me improve my listening skills and expand my vocabulary.
I was wondering if you could explain the differences between the following words finally eventually, in the end and after all.
Hmm, you might have touched on some of these before, but it would be great if you could compare them all together.
Thank you so much for your helpful episodes, Yuri.
Best regards, Yuri.
Wow, what a good question.
I like the idea.
Let's bring them all together into one episode.
I do too, right?
Especially here on the Business English Podcast, because we do use these a lot at work in our everyday conversations, but also in business English.
So this is going to be really great.
Yep.
Guys, don't miss your opportunity to listen to this show three days a week.
If we're not in your listening queue, you might forget about us and you don't want to do that.
Right.
So hit the follow button now on your podcast player.
Okay, good.
All right.
Let's dive in first with finally, we're going to cover each of these separately.
So this is something that happens after a long wait or delay or maybe a series of difficulties.
And the focus here is on either relief or completion.
Okay.
Yeah.
Finally.
Okay.
So for example, after hours in traffic, he finally got to work.
There is a feeling of relief.
I agree with that.
Right?
Exactly.
Exactly.
Or I finally finished preparing for my presentation.
And then we'll often just say it after someone says like, you know, that something finally happened.
You're like, Finally.
Yeah.
I felt this way on Saturday because I went to a.
We went to a cooking class where you learn to cook with Bordeaux wine.
And I we did like an appetizer in the beginning.
So we had a little snack.
But I get really hungry these days.
And It was like three hours.
I was like, oh my gosh, this risotto.
I didn't know how long it took to cook risotto.
I was shocked.
And I was like, by the time we ate at like nine, I was like, finally.
Oh my gosh.
How did this take so long?
That is so funny.
That happened to me recently also with a wine sauce.
I made a white wine butter sauce for pasta and it was the same kind of thing.
It took so long to reduce, like cook down.
I'm like, finally, I am so ready to eat this pasta.
That's it.
So if you want to avoid cooking for a long time, don't cook with wine.
That's the first takeaway.
And it's not quick.
And the term finally really has, it's loaded in a sense.
It's loaded.
Because something has happened.
At last, right?
At long last.
Yeah.
There's been, there's like a backstory kind of, right?
When we hear the word finally.
Okay.
So good.
All right.
Let's move to eventually.
Eventually.
And this is more something happens at an unspecified time after some kind of process or change.
So the focus here is more on time passing, not emotion, right?
Or that relief or completion isn't as present here.
Yeah, exactly.
So, for example, if you keep up the hard work, you'll eventually reach your sales goals at some point.
And it kind of indicates, yeah, we don't exactly the unspecified time.
We don't know when, but you'll at some point you'll hit it.
Right.
Yes.
Or the meeting went much longer than expected, but ended eventually.
So there's no emotion here.
It's just matter of fact.
It means sort of sooner or later.
And what's really interesting, if you took both of these sentences and added finally instead, there's such a different tone, right?
If you say, if you keep up the hard work, you'll finally reach your sales goal.
You're very much implying that like, it's been a long time coming.
You probably should have reached it by now.
Right.
Like some kind of deficiency in skills, right?
Yeah.
Exactly.
Very different message if we interchange them.
So we cannot interchange these.
It's very different.
The tone is so different.
The meaning and the meeting.
If the meeting went much longer than expected but ended finally.
It's like there's so much emotion there.
You're relieved it finally ended.
Yeah.
And be careful who you're saying that to, right?
Is it the person that presented during that meeting?
Such a different tone, such a different message.
There's so much more implied when you say finally.
Totally.
And then there's another phrase, in the end, that our listener Yuri asked about.
So this describes the final outcome after considering alternatives, complications, or events.
So let's see what that means, Aubrey, with some examples.
For example, we debated for hours, but in the end, nothing was resolved.
Yeah.
So you're sort of saying, after all this event, after discussing all of these alternatives, after all of that, I would say in the end,
This is what we decided or nothing was resolved.
And intonation does matter here, because you really are.
You're punching that in a different way, right?
We debated for hours, but in the end, nothing was resolved.
Maybe it's because there's a comma there.
Right.
Yes.
And it is interesting because it is sort of emphasizing that there was some time involved.
Right.
In the end is implying that there was kind of a long process.
There was some time before whatever happened after.
Exactly.
Or in the end, the client didn't end up purchasing our product.
Ooh, tricky.
In the end and end up in one sentence.
Ooh, interesting.
Well, and this is interesting.
It definitely implies that there was a long process here.
Maybe you took them to lunch.
Maybe there were several presentations where you wouldn't use in the end.
You could just say the client didn't end up purchasing our product if it was like one pitch and over.
Yeah, you would never just start.
There's a lot more that would have come before what you've just said, right?
Exactly.
There was a long process there.
Yeah, exactly.
And again, similar to after everything that happened.
So this is again, just like finally, it's a bit loaded because we assume there's a lot more to it than just what you're saying.
It's not as straightforward.
It implies that a lot happened to say in the end.
Exactly.
Exactly.
Okay.
After all, after all, I like this one.
I do too, right?
This introduces either a reason, an explanation or maybe a correction that changes how we understand something.
So it'll often add either a justification or maybe a contrast.
And we use this in a lot of different ways.
I decided to call her.
After all, we're still friends, right?
Or I didn't apologize.
I wasn't wrong after all.
Yeah.
So in the first case, I decided to call her.
It means that what you were thinking before is that you thought you maybe wouldn't call her, right?
Then you kind of changed your mind.
After considering a reason for calling her.
Reason.
That is the reason.
It's the fact that we're still friends, right?
Exactly.
Both of these.
It's similar to saying like, When you think about it, like when you consider everything and you consider all the possible reasons, then we just say, after all,
Yeah.
I feel like we could do potentially a separate episode on each of these, honestly.
Yeah, probably.
We could break it down into a lot of different ways.
Yeah, for sure.
So we'll take a quick break and we'll do a role play.
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All right, Aubrey, we are back.
We're two friends talking about our weekend plans.
Okay.
Yeah, I'll start us out.
Did you ever hear back from Sam about the trip?
Oh yeah, he finally replied last night.
He said he can't make it, but eventually he'll be more available once his work schedule calms down.
Oh, good to know.
Do you still want to go this weekend or not?
I talked to Jan about it and in the end we decided to go without him.
Sounds good.
After all, it'll be tough to come up with another weekend that works for everyone.
Yeah, okay.
This is interesting because I had a very similar conversation at work once we were planning.
We were co workers, but we were planning a work trip that was sort of going to be like a team building event.
And then also, just like friends, sort of a mix of both.
Right yeah, and then someone canceled last minute and we had basically this exact conversation like, do we still go?
It's going to be difficult to come up with a different weekend that would work for everybody.
Yeah, so did you end up going?
Still, we did, we did end up going.
We kind of felt bad leaving him out.
But sorry, life's busy.
You know, when someone bails at the last minute, then you know, sometimes you just gotta go anyway.
Yeah, sometimes you never end up happening.
Right, love it.
So here we really.
Uh, emphasize this finally, because i was kind of showing a little annoyance, i think right yes, you said, did you hear back from sam?
And i said yeah, he finally replied last night.
Maybe he had been ignoring my text messages or something.
There's definitely an implication of a lot of time you had been trying to.
We had been wanting to hear back from him for a while weeks, maybe months right,
And then he finally replied.
Because you could have just said, yeah, he got back to me last night.
And without that finally, there wouldn't be an implication of so much time or emotion, like you said, relief that he finally got back to you.
And I feel like just life skills.
Usually if someone doesn't like, I don't mean when you make the invitation, they have to respond right away.
But within a timely manner.
A couple days saying yeah, I want to go, I'm in.
Then I get very skeptical of whether they're going to be flaky.
I know, it's so true, especially where a lot of plans have to be made once you know who's coming.
We need to know, let us know.
Yeah, you need to go and book the Airbnb and make some payments.
Yeah.
So what we do is it makes sense to kind of try to collect payment before people, like when people say they want to go have them pay you right.
Yeah.
That's smart.
Then they're flaky.
Like no, no refunds after a certain date.
I think so.
I think it's smart, but it's hard.
It's hard to ask your friends for money, right?
Yeah.
But then you said, so he finally replied.
You said.
He said he can't make it, but eventually he'll be more available once his work schedule calms down.
So there's no emotion here.
This is just matter of fact, right?
One day eventually in the future, then he could come when his work schedule is.
Yeah, it's really not very committal.
Right.
Yeah.
Eventually I could make it.
OK, we're going without you.
Yeah.
Eventually we won't wait around for you then.
So you're now you're saying, do you still want to go?
And this is the question you had with your with your coworker.
Right.
And you said I said I talked to Jan about it.
And in the end, we decided to go without him.
Right.
Yeah.
So this was clearly like a pretty involved discussion.
We didn't just say, what do you think?
I think we should go.
Or you wouldn't say in the end.
It's like, but we went back and forth.
We talked about it a bit.
Yeah.
Maybe I talked to Sam about it, right?
It's Sam.
Is there a Jan too?
Is there another?
Jan's another friend.
Another friend.
Okay.
Another friend who's coming.
Do you think we should still go?
Got it.
Got it.
I wasn't sure if there's a Jan and there's a Sam and there's you and me.
Okay.
Got it.
All right.
All right.
What else?
So then finally, and you said sounds good.
After all, it'll be tough to come up with another weekend.
This is kind of, as we said, justification, reason, explanation.
Yes, exactly.
Right.
We're sort of justifying going without him because, after all, it would be difficult to find another weekend when we're all free.
Yep.
Yep.
And it's like you don't have to say that, but it just gives it another reason, kind of makes you feel better about it, right?
That you're going to go and leave someone out, but I'm on board.
It's okay.
If you're flaky, then you miss out on life.
Sorry, go without them.
You don't want to all miss it.
Yeah, for sure.
What's another great episode to go to right away, Aubrey?
Yes.
If you guys missed it, episode 537 was perfect.
This word stress for perfect English pronunciation.
We talked about these words that are spelled the same, but pronounced differently.
They have different word stress if they're a noun or an adjective or noun or a verb.
So you don't want to miss that episode.
Yeah.
And even just reading that title, native speakers have to slow down and think about what they're saying.
Because if I just read that without thinking about what I'm saying, I would have said perfect this word stress right.
Yeah.
And they'd be like, wait, no, perfect.
Start over.
Perfect this word stress.
Exactly.
So if you're struggling with the same thing, you need that episode, guys.
Go to Business English 537.
And for a takeaway today, I mean, connection, right?
I love that this listener, Yuri, has been listening for so long.
That's amazing.
Congratulations.
6,900 minutes.
And we've set these up against each other, these four words.
But again, we could do separate episodes on all of these.
So there's a lot to learn here, right?
Absolutely.
Right.
And when it comes to when you're at work, you do want to be more clear about what's being implied, right?
About how much emotion is involved, and You know, so you do want to use the right word to make sure you're conveying the correct message.
Yes, I love it.
So good.
Great episode today, Aubrey.
And guys, we'll see you back here on the next episode of Business English.
All right.
Awesome.
See you next time.
All right.
Bye.
Bye.
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