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Have you ever been speaking English in a real conversation and somebody asked you, what do you do?
Maybe you've heard this question before.
You know the vocabulary that you need to respond, but you still feel like you sound so awkward.
In today's lesson, we're going to help you by teaching you the natural vocabulary that you need to speak about your job and other situations.
And I'm going to give you real speaking practice in this lesson.
So speak along with me. And if you want to learn more about these phrases and practice more English with me, make sure to visit English with Kayla.com. or check out the link below in the description.
All right, let's level up your English. Let's get started.
Let's get started with some common expressions that have to do with your general work life.
So the first expression we're going to use is I work in blank industry.
I work in blank industry. So for me, I say, I work in the education industry.
I work in corporate finance. Sometimes you don't need to say the you can say I work in tech or I work in marketing.
You don't actually need to add the full phrase here industry, you can just say like the category of work that you do or I work in sales.
So this This phrase would really be used if you're just kind of giving a general idea to someone about what you do.
Maybe you have a complicated job with a lot of different duties.
And this just makes it so you give them an overview or a summary about what you do without having to get into small details or explain everything to the person.
One awkward situation that you might run into is if you don't have a job, maybe you got fired.
Maybe you got, you know, released from your job in a layoff when lots of people get fired from a company at one time, or maybe you just graduated school. there's tons of circumstances why you don't have a job currently.
So you could say just to kind of soften the situation here to make it less awkward to say is I'm in between jobs right now.
Or if you're talking about someone else, this is way more polite than saying, oh, they're unemployed or they don't have a job.
They're in between jobs right now. This means they're looking for work or maybe they're going to start work.
They already have a job ready or lined up. as we say, and that just hasn't started yet, so they're taking some time off.
So this is the most polite way to say that you're unemployed.
I'm in between jobs right now. So some people, they have a hobby or what we call a side hustle that they make a small amount of money on the side with and they are really passionate about that thing.
Usually, it takes a while to turn that thing into your full-time work.
Some people are very lucky in what they do every day for work is their passion.
If we have a job that is not our passion, but it does provide us a lot of money, we say it's just our nine to five.
Like, this is my nine to five, but my true passion is arts and crafts that I sell or whatever it could be.
Monday to Friday, 9 to 5. Some people, they're nine to five.
It's just a normal job. And then at night, they have a side hustle.
They stream video games to try to make money. anything that they're passionate about or that's not a traditional career is what they do on the side.
But your nine to five is your main job that you work. during the regular daytime hours.
And of course, even if you work the night shift, but it's a traditional job, we would still kind of call that a nine to five.
Maybe you are a very loyal employee and you have been working at a company for many, many years and you want to present this to someone when you're talking about your job.
You can say, I've been with this company for this many years.
So for instance, I've been with Amazon for 10 years.
I have not worked for Amazon, obviously just an example or I've worked for Google for 10 years, whatever it might be.
So this sentence structure will help you say how long you've worked for a company.
And you can even when someone says, you know, what do you do?
You could say, oh, I've been with Amazon for 10 years.
So this, again, it doesn't give a specific job or it doesn't talk about.
Specifically what you do, maybe you'll get into those details later in the conversation, but it just lets the person know who you work for.
I've been with this company for two and a half years.
A really good idiom that means you do a lot of different things in your job is to wear a lot of hats.
So if you want to say that, You do a lot of things at a different company or in your job position.
You could say, I wear a lot of hats. Maybe if you work for yourself or you've started your own company, maybe you do the accounting, you do the marketing, you do the sales, you can say, I wear a lot of hats in my own company.
This just means you have a lot of different responsibilities that are very different from each other.
And then I started wearing a lot of hats.
This is a section of the lesson where we're going to start our speaking practice.
I will say a phrase and I want you to repeat after me.
I want you to listen to the syllables that I'm stressing. in the way that I say the sentence.
Maybe if you like to, if you feel like you're advanced enough, you can change the sentence so that it applies to you and your job.
And of course, you're always welcome to pause the lesson while you speak or while you practice.
Okay, let's get started. Repeat after me.
I work in marketing. Nice job. I've been with the company for five years.
Good, and notice how I stressed five years, like it's a long time.
I'm in between jobs right now. Very good, very good.
I wear a lot of hats at work. Nice. Okay, now that you've repeated after me, it's your turn to use these expressions naturally again.
Feel free to pause the video because this will be really helpful if you need to think for a moment or just practice saying your phrase a few different times.
I'm going to ask you some questions and I want you to respond about your job.
Let's go. What do you do for a living? Nice.
How long have you been at that job? Okay, okay.
Do you like your work? Why or why not? Okay.
If you could have any job in the world, what would it be?
That sounds like a really good job. All right, nice job, guys.
Now you guys should be sounding supernatural when you speak about your work, especially in an introductory common conversation like this one.
If you want to practice more English with me and you want a lesson each week with no advertisements, you'll get a PDF and you'll get a quiz and a chance to ask me questions about the phrases.
Make sure to visit English with Kayla.com.
You can check out the English vocabulary help vault.
It's a membership and it will give you access to all my resources and to me to ask questions in my community.
I'll see you guys in the next lesson. Goodbye.
