Small Talk Series 4 - Discussing Recent Workevents

Hello everyone and welcome to EnglishPod.

My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we have another episode in our series all about small talk.

That's right.

Today we're going to take a look at a work setting where two colleagues maybe run into

each other and they talk very briefly about something.

Alright so let's check out today's dialogue and we'll be back in a moment.

Hi Michelle, do you need to use the photocopier?

Oh hi Jeremy.

No please, go ahead.

So how are you Jeremy?

I was talking to Linda about you only last week.

Oh I'm fine, thanks.

I'm super busy with work actually.

Did you hear about the Lawson contract?

No tell me more.

Well I was discussing the contract with Bill and he said that they met the head of Lawson's

last week.

And?

And hopefully they're going to confirm the deal on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed.

That's great news Jeremy.

Congratulations.

Anyway, I must get back but give my regards to your wife Monica.

I will Michelle.

Speak to you soon.

Alright we're back so now let's take a look at some vocab on Language Takeaway.

Language Takeaway.

So the first word for you guys today is photocopier.

Now this is something that's very common in offices.

That's right, a photocopier, also known as a copy machine or just copier.

Yeah this is something that you use to print on paper or to copy paper.

So if I have a document but I want another copy of it, I put it on this machine and it

will copy it and print it out.

That's right.

So those are the ways that you know this machine by this name.

Either photocopier, copy machine or just copier.

Alright but after that we have a very interesting adjective.

This is something that we use very often in spoken English.

The phrase here Marco was I'm super busy but what does it mean to say you're super something?

That's right.

So when we add the word super to an adjective, we mean that we're very, very, very busy,

super busy.

Alright so I'm super hungry.

That means you're very, very, very hungry.

Alright or I'm super woman.

Also it means that you are very much a great woman.

Alright like superman is very good at going fast and doing things and so he's super means

great or exceptional.

So in this case I'm exceptionally busy.

That's right.

And moving on to the next line where Jeremy says that he was discussing the contract with

Bill.

So a contract, we know what this means.

Yeah what is this?

So a contract is a document and it's something that you have to have two or more groups for

or two or more parties.

So Marco between you and me, we could have a contract.

It says that when we come to record, you will be respectful of me.

That's right.

And then we will both sign.

So it's kind of an agreement between two as you said or more people and but you are promising

to respect the contract and to do what the contract says.

And if you don't do what the contract says, we have a special verb.

We say you broke the contract.

So to break, break a contract.

That's right.

So Jeremy was discussing the contract with Bill and they said they met the head of Lawsons.

Now Lawsons is a company that we're just using for the dialogue.

But what does it mean the head of this company?

Okay if you think about the company as a body, the head is the top.

And in this case that would be the president or the manager or the leader.

It's the most important person.

Okay so we can also use this in our offices for example the person in charge of marketing,

the director of marketing.

We also call him the head of marketing.

Or the head of the sales division would be the manager of the sales team or whoever is

most important in sales.

Another very common example I think is the president.

Many times they call him the head of state.

Yeah the head of state.

So you can have a dinner with many heads of state.

And those could be kings or queens or presidents.

Very good.

Alright so that's all the vocab for language.

Take away why don't we take a short break and listen to the dialogue again.

Hi Michelle do you need to use the photocopier?

Oh hi Jeremy.

No please go ahead.

So how are you Jeremy?

I was talking to Linda about you only last week.

Oh I'm fine thanks.

I'm super busy with work actually.

Did you hear about the Lawson contract?

No tell me more.

Well I was discussing the contract with Bill and he said that they met the head of Lawson's

last week.

And?

And hopefully they're going to confirm the deal on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed.

That's great news Jeremy.

Congratulations.

Anyway I must get back but give my regards to your wife Monica.

I will Michelle.

Speak to you soon.

Alright we're back so now let's take a look at Fluency Builder.

Fluency Builder.

So there's a great phrase here in Fluency Builder that we use when we're trying to be

polite in English.

Michelle says oh hi Jeremy please go ahead.

Okay so Jeremy asks if she needs to use the photocopier and he said no Jeremy it's okay

go ahead.

Please go ahead.

This literally means you go ahead of me but in reality she's basically saying I can wait

you go first.

So if you're going into a building and somebody opens the door before you and they say please

go ahead.

That means they'll hold the door and you can go inside first.

So please go ahead.

This is a very polite thing to do and if you're in line and you see someone is in a hurry

you can say this to them please go ahead.

Alright very good.

Please go ahead.

And we also going back to the contract discussed about confirming the deal.

Okay.

So you have a deal or an agreement or a contract but the thing you do to make sure that you

all agree is you confirm.

So this means you want to make sure it is actually going to happen.

And you can actually combine confirm with many different things like you can confirm

your tickets to go to Italy or can we confirm those holidays before I make my bookings because

I want to go to Italy.

Exactly.

So you confirm something and then Jeremy said a very strange phrase here fingers crossed

after talking about the deal.

Okay so fingers crossed is an interesting phrase.

It doesn't mean okay now go cross your fingers but it's something we say to be superstitious

because it means basically I hope so or hopefully because fingers crossed when you cross your

fingers in many Anglo-American cultures you are saying that you hope something will happen.

It's to bring good luck.

So oh gosh I really hope it doesn't rain today.

And then I say fingers crossed.

Yeah well fingers crossed it doesn't.

That means that we hope it doesn't but now that you said that maybe it will.

Right.

So I think it's kind of a superstitious belief that people have that if you cross your fingers

it will bring good luck or what you say will happen will happen or won't happen.

That's right fingers crossed.

All right.

So let's take a break now and listen to our dialogue one last time.

Hi Michelle.

Do you need to use the photocopier?

Oh hi Jeremy.

No please go ahead.

So how are you Jeremy?

I was talking to Linda about you only last week.

Oh I'm fine thanks.

I'm super busy with work actually.

Did you hear about the Lawson contract?

No tell me more.

Well I was discussing the contract with Bill and he said that they met the head of Lawson's

last week.

And?

And hopefully they're going to confirm the deal on Wednesday.

Fingers crossed.

That's great news Jeremy.

Congratulations.

Anyway I must get back but give my regards to your wife Monica.

I will Michelle.

Speak to you soon.

So this is a very common scenario in a very in an office in a normal office setting where

maybe you meet your friend at in the kitchen or the water cooler the photocopier and you

have very small brief conversations.

That's right and you're often going to hear this called water cooler talk because you

don't want to have a long conversation about something really deep at the water cooler

but you do want to talk about you know basic things things that you have in common or work

stuff you know how's that paper coming along or how's that.

I heard you had great sales last week and so these are great short things you can talk

about with your colleagues.

Right very good and as we say it's some of the phrases in the vocab are key things that

you can use to start up a small conversation very brief to talk about you know small things

with your colleagues.

That's right so we hope that you'll tune into our future lessons about small talk and if

you have any questions or comments you're welcome to find us on EnglishPod.com.

We'll see you guys there.

Bye for now bye.