Monday, October 24, 2011

Pearson Brown English Lesson -Vocab "Out" Part 1

If you ‘ask someone out’, you invite them out on a date (with the hope of romance between you.)

* I want to ask her out but I am too shy.
* He asked me out on Friday but I told him I had to wash my hair.

If you ‘cut something out’, you no longer do it/ eat it etc.

* My doctor told me to cut out dairy products.
* I cut out going to the gym because I did not have the time and now I am fat.

If you ‘eat out’, you go to a restaurant.

* He never cooks and always eats out or has a takeaway.
* For my birthday, I would like to eat out somewhere nice.

If you ‘jump out’, you come out quickly and suddenly.

* I was walking quietly down the street when this young man jumped out in front of me.
* Stop the car at the corner and I will jump out.

If you ‘keep someone out’, you prevent them from entering.

* There is extra security today to keep the protestors out.
* Please keep out of my office. I need some peace and quiet.

If you ‘leave something out’, you do not mention it.

* Did you leave anything out or is that the whole story?
* It is just a summary. I left out a lot of the details.

If something ‘slips out’, it escapes quickly and quietly.

* I have slipped out of the meeting for a few minutes but I must get back.
* I did not intend to tell him. It just slipped out.

If you ‘squeeze something out ‘ , you get it out using force or pressure.

* I can never squeeze out that last bit of toothpaste from the tube.
* I managed to squeeze out of her that the job was offered to Alain.

If you ‘stay out’, you do not come home.

* I stayed out all night and I feel terrible.
* We stayed out celebrating until the early hours.

If you ‘walk out’ , you leave as a sign of protest.

* When we heard their derisory offer, we walked out of the meeting.
* This presentation is dreadful. I have a good mind to walk out.

Exercises:


http://business-english.com/outphrasals1/exercise1.swf
http://business-english.com/outphrasals1/exercise2.swf
http://business-english.com/outphrasals1/exercise3.swf
http://business-english.com/outphrasals1/exercise4.swf

Pearson Brown English Lesson - Phrasal Verb "up" part 5

If you ‘do up’ your coat, you fasten it.

* Do up your jacket. It looks untidy.
* Can you do up my coat for me? My hands are frozen.

Do up’ can also mean to decorate or make repairs to something.

* Buy me the paint and I will do up my room.
* I’m going to do up my car so that I can sell it.

To ‘hold up’ can mean to delay.

* We were held up by a traffic accident.
* I don’t mean to hold you up but we must finish this discussion.

To ‘keep up with’ can mean to go at the same speed as.

* It is difficult to keep up with all the changes they are making.
* I don’t know how you keep up with all the news.

To ‘keep up’ can mean to maintain.

* It is difficult to keep up the payments on my new car.
* I can’t afford to keep up an apartment in town and a house in the country.

If you ‘kick up a fuss’, you complain loudly about something.

* He will kick up a fuss when he finds out that he is not invited to the meeting.
* The restaurant had given away our table so I kicked up a fuss and got another one.

If you ‘stir up’ trouble, you cause it by agitation.

* She is always stirring up trouble about some grievance or another.
* Some shareholders tried to stir up trouble about the sale of the factory.

If you ‘sum up’, you briefly restate the main points of a meeting or discussion.

* I’d like to sum up my presentation with this quote from Winston Churchill.
* Could somebody sum up what you talked about this morning?

If you ‘turn up’ a dial, you increase it.

* Could you turn up the volume? I cannot hear it.
* That’s the brightest I can make the picture. I’ve turned up the control to the maximum.

If you ‘turn up’ somewhere, you arrive, sometimes unexpectedly.

* John turned up at the party, even though he wasn’t invited.
* He’s always turning up for work an hour late.

Exercises:

http://business-english.com/upphrasals5/exercise1.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals5/exercise2.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals5/exercise3.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals5/exercise4.swf

Friday, October 7, 2011

Pearson Brown English Lesson - Phrasal Verb "up" part 4

If someone ‘beats you up’, they hit and kick you and hurt you a lot.

* The muggers beat him up badly.
* I was beaten up so badly that I was off work for a month.

If you ‘bottle up’ a feeling or emotion, you suppress them and don’t express them.

* If you bottle up your feelings, you will make yourself ill.
* I was angry but I bottled up my feelings during the meeting.

If you ‘call someone up’, you phone them.

* I tried to call you up earlier but there was no answer.
* Call me up when you get a chance.

If something ‘crops up’, it happens unexpectedly.

* Something has cropped up. I am going to have to work late.
* If a problem crops up when I am away, give me a call on my cell phone.

If you ‘freshen up’, you wash and make yourself more presentable.

* I need a minute to freshen up before we meet them.
* When they arrive, they will probably need a few moments to freshen up after the journey.

If your eyes ‘light up’, they become excited.

* Her eyes lit up when she saw the dress.
* His eyes lit up when he saw her wearing the dress.

If you ‘own up’, you confess to something.

* Nobody has owned up to starting the fire.
* He owned up to being a big fan of Britney.

If you ‘polish something up’, you improve it.

* The basic report is fine but you need to polish it up a bit.
* I must polish up my Japanese before we go to Tokyo.

If you ‘speed up’, you go faster.

* We need to speed up production. It is taking too long.
* Can you speed up a bit? I am going to miss my train.

If you ‘tighten up’ something, you make it more secure.

* We need to tighten up security in the light of these threats.
* We need to tighten up our quality control system. There have been too many mistakes.

Exercises:

http://business-english.com/upphrasals4/exercise1.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals4/exercise2.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals4/exercise3.swf
http://business-english.com/upphrasals4/exercise4.swf

Pearson Brown English Lesson -Vocab "Pay" Part 3

commission’ is paid to people in sales based on the amounts of goods sold.

* Working here I get paid a fixed salary and commission based on my sales.
* I get paid a commission on the deals I negotiate.

People who are ‘hourly paid’ are paid a fixed rate for each hour that they work and not a fixed salary for a year or task.

* He isn’t a salaried employee, he is hourly paid.
* For everyone who is hourly paid, wages are paid weekly.

benefits’ are the extras that you are given by your employer on top of your salary. These may include private health insurance, a private pension, company car.

* Although my gross salary is not high for the sector, I get a lot of extra benefits.
* He has a very good benefits package including a car and private health insurance.

A ’taxable benefit’ is a benefit which is considered as part of your income and therefore included in the income to be declared for tax.

* The value of the company car is included in my income. It is a taxable benefit.
* Meals in the canteen, drinks and parking are generally not taxable benefits.

expenses’ are the costs that you incur doing your job that are reimbursed by the company, notably for travel.

* When I travel, I pay for my tickets and hotels and then claim my expenses back.
* The company is very strict about expenses. We can’t spend more than a certain amount on hotels or meals.

In order to claim expenses, you must keep all ‘receipts’ for payments you have made.

* On the 30th of the month, we hand in all our receipts for our expenses.
* When I take someone to lunch I always have to get a receipt so that I’ll be reimbursed.

If you use your own car to travel to another location for your work, you may be able to claim ‘mileage’ands be reimbursed a fixed rate per mile travelled to cover the cost.

* It is better for the company to pay mileage than provide company cars.
* There is a fixed rate for mileage depending on the size of the car.

a ‘pay review’ is when salaries are considered for changes.

* The unions are preparing for the negotiations in the annual pay review.
* A lot of changes to pay grades are being considered during the pay review. When the company closed the branch, the redundancy pay was very generous.

redundancy pay’ is given if you lose your job and are made redundant. This is usually related to the time you have worked for the company.

* When I lost my job, I used my redundancy pay to set up my own company.
* When the company closed the branch, the redundancy pay was very generous.

notice’, specified in the terms of your contract, is the time worked between telling your employer that you are leaving your job and actually leaving.

* I have to work out two months notice before I can start my new job.
* When I left, I was paid my notice but I didn’t have to work it.

Exercises:


http://www.hrenglish.com/pay3/exercise1.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay3/exercise2.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay3/exercise3.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay3/exercise4.html

Wednesday, October 5, 2011

Pearson Brown English Lesson -Vocab "Pay" Part 2

gross salary’ is the salary before anything is deducted for contributions and tax.

* Her gross salary is £50 000 but obviously she takes home considerably less than that.
* He earns £40 000 a year gross.

net salary’ is the salary that you are paid after deductions have made

* My gross salary is around £60 000 but the net is around £48 000.
* The net salary is the gross salary minus the deductions the employer makes for contributions and tax.

deductions’ are payments made by the employer for an employee to health and pension schemes based on the gross salary.

* Although my gross salary seems good, after deductions, I haven’t very much left.
* The details of the deductions are on your pay statement. You can see what you are paying.

income tax’ is the tax which is paid on the money you earn.

* In the UK, income tax is deducted directly from your salary and paid to the state.
* In some countries, you have to complete an income tax return annually to calculate the tax to be paid.

rate’ is the amount you are paid per hour, week or month of work.

* I don’t know what the standard rate is for this type of work.
* Some people are paid on piece rate. They are paid by their output, not by the time it takes.

The ‘basic state pension’ is the money paid on retirement to everyone who has paid contributions for the required number of years.

* Although I contribute to the state pension fund, I also pay into a private one too.
* The basic state pension is very low, too low for a decent standard of living.

The ’national minimum wage’ is the minimum an employee can be paid per hour of work.

* Everyone here is paid a rate that is better than the minimum wage.
* The national minimum wage varies according to age. Young people are paid less than adults.

The ‘equal pay’ law states that employers must pay the same to men and women who are doing the same or similar jobs.

* Equal pay for women is the law but many are still paid less than their male colleagues.
* Each year, there are many cases where women take their employer to court to fight for equal pay.

overtime’ is a higher rate of pay for working more than the usual hours or unsocial hours.

* When I work on Sundays, I am paid overtime.
* I do a lot more hours than in my contract but I don’t get paid overtime.

A ‘bonus’ is an extra amount of money paid as a reward on top of your fixed salary.

* We usually get a bonus at Christmas depending on how well the company has done.
* Every year, usually in January, we receive a bonus. It is a discretionary bonus related to your performance.

Exercises:


http://www.hrenglish.com/pay2/exercise1.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay2/exercise2.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay2/exercise3.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay2/exercise4.html

Pearson Brown English Lesson -Vocab "Pay" Part 1

Pay’ is money that you get from your employer, either as a wage or as a salary.

* What are the pay and conditions for the job?
* Pay rates in the industry are very poor.

Back pay’ is money owed to you by your employer for work done in the past which has not yet been paid.

* I’m still owed 3 months back pay for the overtime I did before Christmas.
* The company cannot afford to give you the back pay it owes you.

A ‘pay cut’ is a reduction in the amount of pay you are given.

* We are asking you all to accept a pay cut of 10% to keep the company going.
* He has the stark choice of accepting a pay cut or losing his job.

A ‘pay rise’ is an increase in pay.

* We are looking for a pay rise in line with inflation.
* I’m going to ask my boss for a pay rise.

A ‘pay rate’ is the amount per hour (or some other period) that you pay.

* The pay rate is $12 an hour.
* The industry cannot attract good quality workers because of the low pay rates.

Net pay’ is the amount earned after deductions (usually for social security and pensions and perhaps for tax.)

* The gross pay is $12 an hour but net pay is only $9.50 an hour.
* He said he is only earning $5 an hour but that is his net pay, not his gross.

Equal pay’ means that men and women get the same pay for doing the same job.

* The women workers are asking for equal pay with the men.
* In this country, if you don’t give the women equal pay, you could go to jail.

An ‘itemized pay statement’ contains a detailed breakdown of the pay you have earned and the deductions taken from it.

* The bank want me to give them my itemized pay statements for the last six months.
* The law states that employees must receive itemized pay statements.

Performance-related pay’ is where the amount you are paid depends on the quality/quantity of your work.

* Since we introduced performance-related pay, production has doubled.
* They may need the incentive of performance-related pay.

A ‘pay scale’ is a range of different pay rates which people will receive depending on various factors (e.g. their grade in the company, their qualifications, their years in the company.)

* We have six grades on our pay scale. You will start on the bottom one.
* Perhaps we need to change our pay scale to take account of the loyalty people have shown us?

Exercises:


http://www.hrenglish.com/pay/exercise1.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay/exercise2.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay/exercise3.html
http://www.hrenglish.com/pay/exercise4.html