Update: 2015-10-24: Removed dead Answers.com link.
My student Yeping in China asks about a few terms used in marketing & advertising.
1. What is competitive parity?
My answer:
Competitive parity is one way of deciding your budget for marketing and advertising. Basically you spend a similar amount of money as your competitors do.
2. What is the difference between USP and value proposition?
The USP (unique selling proposition or unique selling point) of your product is one single aspect that makes your product special & different from all competing products; what makes it unique.
The value proposition of your product is all (not just one of) the benefits that your product can bring to the customer.
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Update 2016-08-16: Updated & changed a few of the vocabulary links.
Update 2015-12-02: Updated & changed a few of the vocabulary links.
Here are some podcasts from Business English Pod on learning, training and development for employees.
They discuss some of the different types / approaches / models of training.
Discussing Training Plans
Here's some vocabulary from those podcasts.
Australia Network is the free overseas satellite TV channel operated by the Australian Broadcasting Corporation. They also have many videos for ESL students online (and not on Youtube, so they can be watched in China). Here are a couple of videos from them for students of English, especially those preparing for the IELTS exam. Australia Network >Study English > IELTS Preparation > Series 1 These videos are great for helping students learn and practise a few issues in English:
The videos are accompanied by transcripts, study notes and further activities (extra exercises to practise these topics), all in PDF format. I've finished and published an article about a famous business case study: BMW's acquisition of Rover (which is now part SAIC Motor 上汽 under the name Roewe 荣威). I've explained the background (the economic and political situation in Britain), the basic facts of the case, and the consequences. I've also given links to:
I hope you find it interesting / useful. If you have any comments, please write below. Update 2013-12-10: Added link to Quizlet and Listen and Write exercises for Podcast 750. In our classes on Sales, we cover topics like sales vocabulary, retail, wholesale, modes of payment, discounts, e-commerce, trends etc. So here are some useful intermediate podcasts related to these topics. ESL Pod ESL Pod has lots of useful podcasts for intermediate & upper-intermediate learners. You can listen to the audio online or download it to play on your phone or MP3 player. Usually the format is:
Update 2015-12-11: Added BEP 102c
In a presentation, signposting is giving the audience information about where they are in the presentation and where they'll be going.
In presentations, a transition is the action / process of finishing one topic and moving to another.
(See this post of mine for a video on signposting and transitions: Presentations: Video with Signposting and Transitions )
Here are some links with useful vocabulary, articles, audio and exercises for signposting and transitioning in presentations.
Update 2016-4-14: Fixed British Council link.
Different kinds of adjectives in English
Adjectives in English are not all the same, and what we can do with them is not always the same.
Some are gradable (or "graded"). You can have degrees of them ("a little", "rather", "very" etc.)
Some are non-gradable (or "ungradable" or "non-graded").
Some non-gradable adjectives have a very strong meaning. Some non-gradable adjectives are absolute (e.g. either you're dead or you're not dead. There's no middle ground). You can't have degrees of non-gradable adjectives You can't be "a little" or "very" of a non-gradable adjectives.
Some adjectives can be either gradable or non-gradable, depending on the exact meaning in the context.
Knowing whether an adjective is gradable or non-gradable can be important for intensifying it (e.g. should you say "very" or "absolutely" to intensify "exhausted"?).
To make things even more complicated, some linguists refer to classifying & non-classifying adjectives. (E.g. either you're dead or you're not dead.) Linguists love to disagree about everything to do with language.
Introduction to Gradable & Non-Gradable Adjectives
English Club has a good introduction to this issue, with some examples.
The excellent Random Idea English blog has an article on why you should know about the difference between gradable & non-gradable adjectives, a quick introduction to them, and many useful exercises to learn and practise.
Warning for students in China: Random Idea English is hosted on Blogspot, and there might be a few problems due to the Great Firewall. The page might look a little strange, or sometimes be blocked completely.
How can you know if an adjective is gradable or not?
Unfortunately most English dictionaries do not yet have this info about adjectives. And there is no list with every single gradable and every single non-gradable adjective.
Random Idea English has an article with advice on how you can work out for yourself if an adjective is gradable or not.
One dictionary that does give info on whether an adjective is gradable or not is the Baidu online English-English & English-Chinese dictionary.
If an adjectives is gradable, it says:
If an adjective is not gradable, it just says:
Sometimes it doesn't say which type an adjective is, because the adjective doesn't have its own page; instead it is just treated as related to another part of speech (verb, noun etc), in which case the ADJ-GRADED or ADJ is not next to the adjective.
Here are some examples from the Baidu dictionary.
Intensifiers with gradable & non-gradable adjectives
The main difference with these adjectives is which intensifiers we use with them.
Random Idea English has a post dedicated to exercises on which intensifiers to use (although many of them are also part of the article on gradable and ungradable adjectives).
The British Council's Learn English site also has an article with an explanation of gradable and non-gradable adjectives and an exercise on intensifiers for them.
In my online classes
In my online English classes, I give info about words in the chat window, from notes that I prepare in advance. Slowly I am adding to my notes info on whether an adjective is gradable or not. It is a long, imperfect process, so please forgive me if I don't always says if an adjective is gradable or not, or if sometimes I make a mistake.
If you have anything to say on gradable / non-gradable adjectives or the links I've provided, please feel free to write a comment below.
I've added the audio series "English at Work" (from BBC Learning English) to the Business English > "Business Audio" section of ESL Links. It's a story of people working in an SME (small or medium-sized enterprise) and they talk about a lot of typical business problems and use typical business English vocabulary. It deals with topics like getting customers, disagreements between coworkers, pleasing the boss, business ethics, competing for promotion, holding meetings, making phone calls, and idioms often used in business. Each episode is quite short (usually just a couple of minutes). And you can download the MP3 files (so that you can listen to them on your phone or media player) and PDF files with the script of the episode, so that you can also read what they say. I've also linked to the version for China, which gives extra commentary, vocabulary & explanation in Chinese. I feel it's a great way to get some practice listening to business English in a way that's interesting and funny (because it's series of stories with actors, not just someone reading business news). It also provides some insight into British business culture.
Updates: 2017-04-12: Added input methods for MacOS. 2017-01-08: Fixed a few links. 2015-09-25: Fixed a few links, other small changes. 2015-04-10: Checked, updated and fixed all links in article.
Summary:
Contents:
Click on "Read More" for the rest of the article.
Update 2017-01-08: Fixed a few links.
Update: 2015-09-25: Fixed a few links. The UK & Europe
In the UK, Europe and other parts of the world, you send a CV (or curriculum vitae) when you apply for a job.
The US
In the US and some other places, you send a resume (or résumé or resumé) when you apply for most jobs.
In the US and some other places, you send a CV (or curriculum vitae or sometimes vita) when you apply for a job in fields like science and education.
Difference between CV & resume
So what's the difference between a CV and a resume?
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