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So I’ve heard a lot of you out there are just listening to the podcasts, but not doing any other work on the site. I realized we haven’t fully explained how to use all of the wonderful tools we have on the website (except in the New User Guide).

First, slow down and just listen to one or two podcasts a day. You can’t learn everything in one day or one week. If you study 3 or 4 podcasts each week, you will be doing great 6 months from now. Set a date and start learning (New Years is coming, and it’s a tradition in many countries to make promises to yourself on that day, usually for self improvement - we call these “New Years Resolutions.”)

Which podcasts do you study? Well, find a level that suits you first. Listen to one or two podcasts from each level and decide which level you are. For example, if you find Upper Intermediate is good for you, stick with it - study other podcasts at that level. You need to understand the basics of the conversation between the hosts to learn much from the podcast. Of course it should be a little bit difficult; it has to be a challenge. Once in a while, listen to a lower level in order to review or if the topic is one you have trouble with. Also once in a while try a lesson from a more difficult topic to see if you’re ready to ‘graduate’ to a new level. If you listen to every podcast that’s fine, lots of students do that, but concentrate on the level you think is appropriate for you.

I would also encourage everyone to find topics they’re interested or need (now) for work. You’ll be much more likely to really learn and remember the target language and actually get chances to use it. Find the lessons you want using the Podcast Archive, which I’ve blogged about here (it also has its own tag here).

Now, how do you use our system to learn better and faster?
Put the lessons on your MP3 player. Download the lessons by right-clicking on the link, or using podcast software (podcatchers) like iTunes. See our RSS explanation here, to find out more.

Listen to the lessons on your way to work, then spend a few minutes before you start work or at lunch, reviewing the lesson online - this is where you can really learn the new words and phrases. Follow these steps:

1. Click on the “Review Materials” to study the lessons in more detail.
2. Go over the dialogue transcript (html page) and listen sentence by sentence. Use the rollover for any words you’re unsure of - add interesting ones you want to review later to your WordBank with just one click.
3. Check the Expansions section to see new language used in sample sentences. Listen and read the sentences, and make sure you know a) the meaning, and b) how to use the new language.
4. Do the exercises to make sure you’re really learning everything.
5. Then listen one last time (at work, on the bus/subway, at home, shopping, wherever).
6. 3 days later, review the same lesson to see if you remember and retain the target language.
7. Make a schedule to periodically review lessons you’ve already studied. If you can’t remember what you have and haven’t learned, use My Course to track your studies.
8. Post comments on the website to ask questions, and tell us what you want. If there’s a lesson you need, we’ll make it. If you notice mistakes or have problems, tell us about it - we’ll find solutions as quickly as possible.

Remember, studying our podcasts by themselves won’t make you fluent. You need to use the online resources to really learn new words and phrases and how to use them. Naturally you must find chances to speak English as well. Work is an obvious choice for some people, but for those not working with English speakers, see this blog and this other one to find out how to improve your English Environment to find opportunities to speak English and become fluent.

Ok, what are you waiting for? - try it out!

Kris

If you’d like a test to see how your business English vocabulary is, read the article at this link.

Some of the language is quite difficult. The main point of the story is that a very rich man (Kerkorian) is going to sell a large amount of the shares he owns in General Motors. The reason why this is newsworthy is because Kerkorian is a billionaire (has more than 1,000 million dollars) and owns a fairly large amount of GM’s shares (currently 9.9%). This article uses language that is typical of news stories about shareholdings in major American companies. Let’s go over some of the key vocabulary.

stake (n.) - this has the same meaning as share; a percentage of the company. (Remember, stocks and shares are essentially the same, but a share of a company refers to the percentage owned, not the piece of paper we also refer to as a stock.)
His stake in the company rose to 15%.
500 shares were added to her stake in the company.

Solely owned (adjective) - when a person (or company) owns 100% of a company; they own all of the shares.

GM shares closed down.
GM shares closed up.
- these two sentences refer to the price of GM’s shares when the stock market closed. It compares the opening price, the price when the markets open, and the closing price.

speculate - to guess
We can only speculate why he’s selling his shares.

walk away from - to abandon (a plan), to cancel, to forget about
He walked away from a really good job offer because he decided to do volunteer work instead.
They walked away from the new product idea because of technical difficulties.

Great language in this article. There may be other words you don’t quite understand, but the ones I’ve highlighted should clear up the basic meaning of the story. Reading newspapers is extremely difficult, but for those of you who are advanced or upper intermediate learners, it can really add to your vocabulary.

Kris

Hey everyone,

Just wanted to share what lessons are coming up over the next couple of weeks. We’ve been doing a lot of office English over the past few weeks, but of course business English goes beyond the office.

Over the next 4 weeks or so we’ll have lessons on airlines, hotels, insurance and banks. They’ll be lots of great language, both for people who work in these fields and the rest of us, who are customers of these industries.

Enjoy, and as always, feel free to comment on our lessons or suggest some for us to produce.

Kris

Well, Vietnam is set to become the 150th member of the WTO and Russia will be joining soon as well. Time I guess to blog a little on the Business English surrounding this important topic.

WTO stands for World Trade Organization. The aim of the WTO is to reduce tariffs and other trade barriers in order to promote trade. It replaced the GATT, the General Agreement on Tariffs and Trade, which had roughly the same function. The WTO is located in Geneva, Switzerland.

The world trading system has been slowly developed in trade negotiations between countries that are called ’rounds’. You’ll see a lot in the news about the Doha Round, launched in November 2001, under which international markets are supposed to be opened up to trade even more. Past rounds have focused on industrial goods, but the Doha round has opening up the markets for agricultural products as one of its main issues. As you may have heard, the negotiations have stalled and as of yet, the Doha round has produced more controversy than results. Developed and developing countries are at odds over many issues, but agricultural subsidies are the main issue.

Subsidies are extra payments or lower costs given by governments to producers to assist them. Many countries have subsidies for agricultural goods in order to encourage farmers to grow more. A country has to make enough food to feed its people - and most countries don’t feel as secure about importing food from other countries as they do about importing electrical goods or cars. I know that my country, Canada, gives large subsidies to farmers, and the result is that the farmers produce more and the price of wheat goes down. It’s great for consumers (buyers) like me, but bad for farmers from poor countries whose governments can’t afford to pay them the same subsidies. The issue is obviously more complicated than I’m making out here. I’m only introducing the topic to demonstrate some of the language and invite comments.

There was an interesting article on America’s trade deficit in the news today - here. Apparently, in 2006 the U.S. trade deficit will be 790 billion dollars.

What is a deficit? It means you are short of something or don’t have enough of something. A ‘trade deficit’ simply means a country imports more goods than it exports. The opposite, when a country exports more than it imports, is a ‘trade surplus’. So Americans import a LOT more than they export to other countries.

American news often has stories about the U.S. trade deficit, especially during the periods before elections (as we had recently). These news articles usually focus on why there is a deficit, not necessarily on what the results might be because of a deficit.

Let’s look at some examples of how to use this word:

a huge deficit
a massive deficit
a small deficit

run up a deficit (allow it to grow larger)
cut a deficit
reduce a deficit
tackle a deficit (deal with it, make it smaller and more manageable)
overcome a deficit

the deficit grew
the deficit rose
the deficit widened last month (got larger)
the deficit decreased
the deficit fell
the deficit narrowed
the deficit shrank

As you can see, a lot of times we speak about past or future deficits, so make sure you have the correct verb form.

Dear all,

Ever wonder which level to study at ODE? Here are some descriptions of student abilities at each level. Do they describe you? Try the different levels and see which one fits you.

These descriptions are also available in the Podcast Archive (where all our lessons are located) - just roll your mouse/cursor over the level titles. They’ll also soon be on the Home Page as well.

Elementary (E)
An Elementary student can understand slow, simple questions about daily topics. They usually speak in short sentences, and make many errors. They still think in their first language when speaking English, and this affects both grammar and communication ability.

Lower Intermediate (LI)
A Lower Intermediate student can perform daily tasks in English. They can communicate with one native speaker at a time, but can’t understand groups of people. A Lower Intermediate student is willing to speak, but feels their vocabulary is limited. They can only communicate about simple ideas. Grammar mistakes are still frequent. They use email at work without many problems.

Upper Intermediate (UI)
Upper Intermediate students feel much more comfortable using English at work. Their listening skills are good, but different accents can give them trouble. These students can communicate in professional and social environments, in person or on the telephone. They can understand many idioms, but can’t use them accurately. Complex vocabulary is understood but still misused from time to time.

Advanced (A)
These students are very good speakers, but still lack many idiomatic expressions and have difficulty with slang. They feel comfortable communicating in groups. They can communicate in professional environments, but lack knowledge in specific areas (medical or engineering terms, for example). Misunderstandings are more the result of cultural differences than English ability.

Try the different levels out, and see for yourself.

Good news,

We’re now able to provide the rollover for collocations and phrases. Go to the Review Materials for each new lesson and find the rollover works not only for individual words, but also commonly used collocations or phrases whose meanings are not obvious from the words that make them up.

This new feature is part of our overall philosophy - that language learning is not about learning words, but useable “chunks” or blocks of English. These chunks are more than one word, but they’re not whole sentences. They are natural combinations of different words that form ideas. Learning collocations and phrases helps us discover that we “take a seat” or “have a seat.” If you learn the word ‘take’ by itself, it has too many possible meanings and uses - we need to learn it in context and as part of natural combinations with other words (in this case, take is a verb, and it is used naturally with many nouns and some adverbs). Otherwise, you will end up speaking Chinese-English or Italian-English, etc., mixing up parts of your native language (and it’s grammar - particularly word order and collocations) with English.

We hope you enjoy this new feature. I’m confident it makes Englishpod a better product. Step by step we’re getting better. Any thoughts on how we can improve more?