This is the Business English Podcast, Episode 86, Don't Let Your English Depreciate, How to Learn Financial English for Work.
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Hello, Lindsay. How are you? I'm doing well, Michelle.
What's going on in your world? Oh, I'm just excited to be chatting today on the Business English podcast.
Yes. Me too, as always. Yes. It's a dreary day here.
So this is really pepping me up. Very exciting.
Glad to be with you guys. Lindsay, do you, well, did you or do you feel confident with presentations or business emails, like a lot of writing?
Yeah. These days, I think I'm becoming more confident.
Yeah. With writing. It has been helpful using Grammarly.
I will say that. Yeah. I use Grammarly in my emails and it throws in some commas there sometimes.
Really? Which is useful. Yeah, for sure.
Oh, yeah. Well, that's good. That's good.
I mean, yeah. But yeah, go ahead. Go ahead, Michelle.
Well, I was gonna say guys, yeah, this can this is tough for native speakers, too.
And today we are going to be talking about a question on this topic that's going to help you guys in the business world.
Yeah. So yeah, this is really talking about writing today.
Okay. And I know that that's a very important topic for our listeners.
So we're going to get into it today. So you want to share the question, Lindsay?
Oh my gosh, I love this question. We got this question from a listener.
This is from Catherine Zhu. And she says, how can I improve my writing skills when it comes to business emails and presentations?
Sometimes I can't find accurate words for the monthly accounting report, which needs to interpret the change of month over month financial statements, right?
Could you please kindly give me some advice?
This is a great question because sometimes...
You know, it's easy to find material out in the English learning world on greetings, talking about food, but it's probably a little bit harder to find vocabulary on financials, like specific things in your departments, guys.
Right. Right. Right. Yes. Yeah. So this is this is really, really great.
And Lindsay, we want to let our listeners know about something if they don't know about it already.
We have an amazing course, right? Yeah, we have a course.
Oh my gosh, students love this course. It's our Business English for the Global Professional.
And it's fantastic. It features interviews of successful native speakers in different industries.
It features vocabulary that they really use in the business world.
So go to allersenglish.com slash business to check out that course.
And Michelle, we're going to be adding more and more amazing feedback for our listeners in these courses this year.
It's going to be fantastic. Fantastic. Yes.
Great. Love it, love it, love it. Okay, so guys, this is really, I mean, I think at its core about vocabulary, having the words to express yourself in writing and learning those words and getting comfortable using them.
And it kind of, I mean, this is totally different.
But I mean, but in some ways not like on All Ears English, guys, our other podcasts were there four days a week.
Make sure you hit subscribe on that podcast as well.
Episode 1477, which was how to learn English like a small child.
And, you know, so in some ways it has some like some overlap here, I think, of just, you know, so go ahead and listen to that one.
Yeah, I love it. It's a good point, Michelle.
I mean, vocabulary is huge. That's why we talk so much on All Ears English, all of our podcasts about vocabulary.
Using the right word at the right time can take you very, very far in connections, in relationships, in appearing and being competent and confident.
Right, Michelle? Right. Yeah, that's true.
That's true. It's huge. So, I mean, I want to start off with a what not to do.
Okay, what should we not do? Yeah. Don't use the thesaurus for everything.
Yes. Why, Michelle? Because it can sound phony.
And sometimes the thesaurus, like it's not the best resource.
It doesn't, you know, words aren't just necessarily like, oh, this word or that word, you know, that's so much about like, kind of like what we talk about a lot on All Ears English, just like what are like, what words are appropriate for what situation and the thesaurus is not a person like it can't, it can't explain like the real nuance between the like the differences.
Yeah, I agree with that. And bonus word that you use just now phony.
What does that mean? That's a good one for our listeners.
Another word for fake. Yes, I love that.
I don't think we've talked about that word on the podcast, any of the podcasts yet.
So that's a good one. It's really good. Yeah.
So like, I think, you know, sometimes if you if a word like people might be able to tell it, I mean, sometimes it might work out.
But I think in general, like somebody might be able to tell, hey, this person just looked up in the thesaurus.
It sounds too formal. It sounds not formal enough.
You know, it's tricky. So that the best thing is to, you know, learn as much as you can and then then make those decisions.
But don't just go to the thesaurus and say, oh, I don't know what this word is, but sure, I'll use it.
You know, actually, just the other day, I wish I remembered the story.
Dan my husband he was he was telling me about like a like when he was applying to school like and he had had an interview or something and he used the thesaurus for something oh man I'm gonna have to and it just and it just didn't work out and the person and he like he feels like a person oh my gosh yeah it was it was over an email like thanking someone for this interview and oh this is something like I think he said something like with haste Like, I don't know, something that just didn't make sense.
And then like it was too direct and didn't work out.
And, you know, so this happens. This happens to native speakers as well.
Like just so. Right. Yeah. I mean, the whole point is the reason why we're kind of moving past the textbook on All Ears English is that we don't want to sound irrelevant.
Right. Dan probably sounded quite irrelevant, out of touch, tone deaf or something, whatever it was, it just didn't fit.
Right. Right. Because what are we going to do?
Grab the word. Yeah. Luckily, everything worked out right.
But yeah. So, Michelle, OK, we know what not to do, not to do.
But then what should we do? What should we do?
Well, guys, we have a few tips for you today.
So, I mean, the first thing. thing is to dive in deep as to you know like well we're going to dive into deep as to why you know these topics are helpful right so and we're going to talk about how to use uh these tips right so let's do that so the first one is to listen to podcasts in your field right so lindsey we're going to talk about this a little bit you have some good recommendations Yeah.
So I think it is, as you said, Michelle, dive in deep, immerse yourself.
And it's not just an academic exercise. Don't treat it like, OK, now I have to open my textbook or open my podcast and study.
No, just listen to it when you're taking a road trip for the weekend with your partner.
Put it on. Put a podcast on in the car. Actually talk with your friends about these topics.
That's what we do. We engage in a 360 degree way.
So I have some great recommendations. Well, the first one is Planet Money, which I don't personally listen to, but I've heard that's a good one.
I think it's from NPR. NPR puts out some great shows.
The next one I would recommend to our listener, Catherine, or anyone really working in finance. kind of financial services accounting actuary um insurance maybe or if you're like a cfo right you're gonna need these words and economics um that kind of thing risk management uh scott galloway has a podcast he's a marketing professor from the nyu school stern school of business um it's called prof g podcast i'm totally nerding out on this podcast these days Um, he, let's see, he had someone on recently, a guest talking about, um, the controversy around the birth rate going down, um, around the world in different countries and in the U S and, um, people not having kids as much as this good for the economy.
Is this bad for the economy? He just makes economics interesting.
So I think what we have to do is look at the world, like the raw material of what's going on in the world and look at it from an economic lens.
Yeah. Right. Right. Right. Exactly. So I think that that's that.
Wow. I couldn't have said it better myself.
Yeah. I mean, I think, you know, just like building your vocabulary list that you could listen, you could take notes or, you know, if you're casually listening, you know, you don't have to take notes on everything.
Just like you said, like consume the information.
But if you want to use it as more of a study way, you can take some notes or try and get a couple words, maybe three new words from a podcast every day or once a week.
Whatever works for your schedule and then make them a goal to use them in the next week in an email.
Yeah. For example, like, you know, what is the goal of these podcasts?
Right. It's not just listening. It's also having a topic that you could strike a conversation with a native speaker or non-native speaker to get more vocabulary.
Right. So, for example, do you know the podcast, Michelle Wallstra, The Journal?
We've talked about it a few times on this show, I think.
Yeah. Yes, I know it. So I was listening to it this morning, and there's an episode on there about the drug Humira.
Have you seen commercials for Humira? I know the name.
I don't know about it, though. It's a drug for, I think, psoriasis.
And it costs like four grand a month. It hasn't until now.
But they've got so many patents. They're just dominating the market.
No competition. And now there's going to be like eight competitors entering the market.
Wow. And so this is a really interesting topic.
Are these competitors going to try to get tons of patents and keep the price high?
Or are they going to bring the price down to kind of solve that problem of essentially the monopoly that Humira has?
So this is a fantastic topic. There's going to be lots of economic terms in here.
And you're going to start a conversation about, you know, monopolies.
So really good stuff. Yeah. yeah yeah and good to know you're good to keep up on to date good to know what's going on and just a good way to learn so yeah yeah i love it i love it abercrombie's viral denim sale is back and spotify listeners get an extra 15 off with code spotify af abercrombie is known for their denim with 30 to 50 off all jeans find out how denim should feel shop the viral denim sale in the abercrombie app online or in stores valid in stores and online through august 11th 2025 in us and canada Excludes clearance.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. OK, Michelle, let's get into some other ideas.
What else can we do? All right. Well, read business sites.
Right. So like Harvard, Harvard Business Review is a good one.
There's Forbes, Wall Street Journal. I mean, the business section really of any paper.
I mean, well, this will also this will improve your vocabulary, but also give you those writing examples.
So if you're really focused on writing like what we're talking about.
I mean, one thing you could do is you could even underline structures that are useful for you and try and use them.
So your vocabulary and a little bit of grammar for the writing part.
What do you think, Lindsay? Totally. I love that.
So you're going to underline structures and try to go ahead and use them.
And again, another conversation starter is fantastic.
This is the way. So what we're doing here, Michelle, is we're going a little out of our comfort zone of what is easy to consume.
Aubrey and I were talking about reality TV is easy to consume, but it's not going to push us.
It's not going to make us any smarter. Right.
Right. Right. Yeah, that's true. That's true.
So push yourself a little bit and read those sites.
And then the last tip, Lindsay, is you want to talk to us about the last one is about templates.
Templates are great because it kind of does the work for you and then you just fill in the blank.
We do have some of these templates in our business English course and we had a blast making them.
Right? So we have daily study plans for them.
We have templates of things that you can deploy for any different kind of email or kind of business writing.
So we do have that in our course, or you can build your own template as well.
That's also an option. Right. Right. I love that idea.
And then you can also write practice emails to a friend or a teacher just like practice.
Right. So that's just another tip is to write more emails.
I mean, just say to a friend, do you mind if I send you an email once a week about, you know, or pretend, you know, just, you know, a fake email about a pretend work issue or.
Yeah, I mean. Um, or even if you are working on that email for work, send it to a friend first and say, Hey, do you mind?
You know, what do you think? Um, just to get that, get that practice and then also read emails.
Read emails. Okay. Yeah. Like, so whose emails, for example, do we mean here?
Mm hmm. Well, I mean, you can even, you know, I mean, work emails.
I mean, it could be from your other colleagues.
Read them. Right. Like take hints from how they write.
And also, you know, I'm sure that if you Googled some emails, I'm sure, you know, if you Google like example work email, you know, you could take a look at some some templates, some emails.
So read them and write them. Yeah. Exactly.
Oh, my gosh, that is so crazy. I would just look at my phone and a podcast just popped up called everything you need to know about finance.
Oh, scary. Scary, Michelle. I mean, I think, you know, this this could actually serve as our takeaway for today or just a final tip, Michelle, that I would say is make sure you're surrounding yourself that are with people who are curious about these things.
For example, the CEO of Disney just changed.
What does that mean for the finances in Disney, right?
I mean, if you just look at the Wall Street Journal, really interesting episodes, price of dating apps, right?
All sorts of things about espionage. These things tie into the economy and finance.
So be around people that want to talk about these topics, and you're going to naturally learn them, guys, right?
Mm-hmm. Very good. I think that's definitely a good takeaway.
And, you know, guys, remember, you know, avoid the thesaurus, look for real English.
And, you know, guys, these tips can be for any field.
And, you know, make sure that you are listening to the podcast in your field, things that interest you.
And we know you can do it. I know it can be a little intimidating, this writing, but these tips are really going to help you.
Yeah. And the final thing that I would say to our listeners, if you're interested in having a course, if we want to zone in very, very specifically in, so Catherine said that her field is specifically finance, right, Michelle?
So if, you know, spreadsheets and finance and understanding trends, if you want a course on that very specific accounting skill in English, that is something we can build.
We can bring in a member of our team who knows accounting and we can build that for you guys if you're interested.
So if you're interested in that, send an email to lindsay at allearsenglish.com and let me know because we'll look into that for you guys.
Love it. Oh, that's awesome. That's awesome.
Yes. All right. Well, this was fun. I'm really thankful to our listener for that question.
And guys, good luck with your writing. You can do this.
Feel confident about it. You can do it. Great stuff, Michelle.
All right. I'll talk to you very soon. Thanks for hanging out on Business English.
All right. Bye, Lindsay. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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