10 Business English words you (probably) mispronounce

- Today I'll help you correctly pronounce

10 very common business English words,

that are often difficult for students.

Hi, I'm your English coach Christina,

and welcome to Speak English with Christina,

the best place to become confident speaking business English

step by step.

If you use English in meetings, conf calls

or just conversations,

I'm sure that you've probably already been

in this frustrating situation.

You say a word that you are sure is the correct word,

but the other person doesn't understand the word

you're saying, and you repeat it once or twice.

And then they say, oh, a quote, yeah, sure.

I can send you a quote.

And you're like, that's what I said, a quote.

This happens even to the best advanced speakers,

but not to worry because we're going to fix

these pronunciation problems right here,

so that you can feel confident doing your work in English.

So, that's our first word today there, quote.

The correct pronunciation is quote.

Now the mistake that students often make is saying quote,

pronouncing the Q U as a K sound,

but to correctly pronounce it, it's a quo sound,

quote, try that with me.

Quote and an example, can you send me a quote for that?

Try that.

Can you send me a quote for that?

Word number two, figure.

Figure.

Often students make the mistake and say figure,

but the correction is putting a Y sound in there,

in the middle of that word, like figure.

Figure.

Try to pronounce that with me.

Figure.

Figure.

And here's an example,

did you figure out why there was a mistake in the schedule?

Try that with me.

Did you figure out why there was a mistake in the schedule?

Word number three, determine.

Listen to the syllable stress.

Determine.

The mistake that students often make

is saying something like determine, determine.

No, but to correct your pronunciation,

you wanna put the schwa, that weak little a sound,

on the first and the third syllables.

And the stress is on the second syllable.

Determine, determine

Practice that with me, determine, determine,

for example we couldn't determine

the reason for the problem.

Number four, careful of this one,

focus

focus and not focus.

No, what students I often do when they mispronounce

this word, is to make the first vowel a a sound,

but you really need to round your lips fo, focus,

to pronounce it correctly.

Try it with me.

Focus.

Focus, like it's fun to focus on your pronunciation.

Don't you agree?

Number five, this word.

The correct pronunciation is cooperate, cooperate.

And often students make the mistake

of pronouncing those two Os the same,

like cooperate or cooperate or coop.

They don't make the w sound that is in the middle.

So if you listen to it,

on the second syllable coo, cooperate,

there is a w sound there.

Practice that with me.

Cooperate.

Cooperate.

For example, if we cooperate, we'll do more, faster.

Word number six, identify.

Identify.

Students often make the mistake

of putting the syllable stress in the wrong place.

They might say something like identify or identify,

but in fact the syllable stress is on the second syllable,

identify.

And sometimes the T is silent.

You can say, identify or identify, both are correct.

For example, did you identify

any good candidates for the job.

Number seven, it's this word,

develop,

develop.

Often students make the mistake of putting

the syllable stress on the final syllable.

Something like develop, develop.

No, it's not that, it's developed.

The syllable stress is on the second syllable.

Practice that with me, develop.

Develop.

For example, I'm excited about all the new products

that will develop next year.

Number eight, there we go.

Eight is, aw, that one's hard.

Analysis.

Analysis.

And very often students make the mistake

of saying something like analysis, analysis,

or analysis.

No, you wanna put the stress on the second syllable,

analysis, and all of the other syllables

are short schwa sounds.

Analysis, it's the same sound.

Practice that one with me, analysis.

Analysis.

For example, this analysis is 200 pages.

Can you just give me a summary?

Number nine, this word,

negotiate.

Negotiate.

Students often make the mistake of saying negotiate,

and they put, again, the syllable stress

in the incorrect place.

So, in the word negotiate, the second syllable is stressed.

Like go, like and then she ate actually, negotiate.

Practice that one with me, negotiate.

And an example, "Never Split the Difference"

is a great book about how to negotiate.

And finally word number 10, it's that one.

Now, you see this written a lot

and you may hear it or use it in conversation,

but you're not sure how to pronounce it.

The correct pronunciation of this little word is et cetera,

or et cetera.

Et cetera or et cetera.

And most of the times students just don't know

how to pronounce this thing.

So they just abbreviate or they don't abbreviate,

they just don't say it.

They write it and abbreviate,

but they don't use it in conversations.

But often native speakers also make a mistake

and pronouncing it like ex cetera.

That is not correct.

Don't do that.

So the correct pronunciation is et cetera,

syllable stress is on the second syllable

et cetera or et cetera.

Practice both of those with me,

et cetera

or et cetera.

And you might hear this at the end of a conversation

like, yeah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah,

and et cetera, et cetera.

Now, if you wanna take the next steps

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to become more confident in English step-by-step.

And right now our next lesson is this one right here.

It's got some interactive exercises for you

to practice your pronunciation with me.

Click on that screen and I'll see you there.