Talking about your profession in English: 3 easy ways & 3 advanced ways

Hi. I'm Rebecca from engVid. If you work internationally or want to work internationally, you need

to be able to answer many basic business English questions. Now, of course, there are hundreds

of basic business English questions, but in this lesson, we're going to start with one

which is very important, and that's the question: "What do you do?" So I'm going to show you

how to answer that question simply, correctly, and confidently. And later, I'll tell you

about a resource I've written with over a hundred other business English questions and

answers, which you can access and download for free. But for now, let's start with the

first important question: "What do you do?"

Okay, so at the top here, I've shown you three easy, simple ways to answer the question.

All right? Let's look at what they are. And down here, there are some other options. But

first, we'll focus on these. So, the first one is you could simply say when someone asks

you: "What you do?" you could simply say: "I'm" plus your profession. For example:

"I'm a doctor.", "I'm a lawyer.", "I'm an accountant." Okay? That kind of thing. So, that's one way

to answer.

A second way to answer is to talk about the field that you work in. For example, I could

say: "I'm in education." Somebody could say: "I'm in finance." Okay? So that's the field

or the area of work. All right? The professional field. So right now, for yourself, think:

How would you answer this? What would you say? "I'm a teacher.", "I'm an engineer."

Okay? Or: "I'm in engineering.", "I'm in finance." That kind of thing.

Okay, the third way that you can answer is by talking about your employer, talking about

the company that you work for. So then you would say: "I work for" plus the name of the

company. "I work for Microsoft.", "I work for Sony." Or if you don't want to give the

name of the company or if the name of the company is not necessarily known, or it's

not important, or you don't feel like disclosing that information, you can simply say something

in general, for example: "I work for an airline.", "I work for a law firm." Okay? So, these ways,

these three ways are completely correct and you can be sure that if you say one of these,

you will be answering the question: "What do you do?" correctly. Okay?

So, that's enough, but now I'm going to show you a little bit more that you could say,

if it's relevant to you. But if this is enough, then just choose one of these, and use and

learn one of those. Okay? But let's look at some other possibilities. For example, you

could say: "I'm the CEO of Microsoft." Okay, that would be a very big position. "CEO" is

"Chief Executive Officer", the top person, the senior most executive. All right? Or:

"I'm the Director of Sales at Sony." All right? So, here, you're giving your position. Okay?

So you notice that because it's a particular position, we don't say "a", we say "the".

So if you're giving your title, your position, then you'd remember to say "the".

Next: If you want to express a little bit more about your field, but in a different

way with a little bit more vocabulary, slightly more advanced vocabulary, then you could say:

"I'm in the publishing industry." Now, you could also just say: "I'm in publishing."

That's fine, too. But if you want to say a little bit more, give a little bit more advanced

answer, you can say: "I'm in the publishing industry.", or "I'm in the advertising business.",

or "I'm in the energy sector." Okay? "Sector" means a part of the economy. Or:

"I'm in the public sector." which means you work for the government, or "I'm in the private sector."

Okay? That kind of thing. So you could also say these. Okay? All the answers down here

are a little bit more advanced.

Now, suppose you work somewhere, but your position is not very high. You've young, or

you've just begun, or whatever the reason, it doesn't matter, then you might want to

just say where you work in terms of the location, but it's not important of the name of the

employer or anything like that. You just want to keep it very general, so then you could

say: "I work in a hospital." You don't give the name of the hospital, you don't say: "I'm

a doctor", because maybe you just have a job in the hospital, so you can say that, too.

You can say that: "I work in a hospital.", or "I work in a store.", or "I work on a farm."

There are a few outside jobs where we use the word "on", like "on a farm", "on an oil

rig", "on a construction site". Okay? So, again, all of those will be mentioned on the

resource that I'm going to tell you how you can access in a little while. But now, let's

do a little review to see how well you've learned this.

So, let's do the first one. So, here, we're going to use "I'm" and in this column, we'll

say "I work". All right?

So: "I'm _______ real estate."

What do we need to say for "real estate"? So, "real estate" is the field,

so what would you say? "I'm

in real estate." Very good.

"I'm _______ social worker." So that's a profession,

so what do we need to say? "I'm

a social worker." or "I'm a social worker." Good.

"I'm _______ V.P. of Finance." "V.P.", which means Vice President of Finance.

Now, that's a specific position, so what do we need to say? "I'm

the": "I'm the V.P. of Finance." Good.

Next: "I'm _______ pharmaceutical industry."

So now we're saying "industry", it's a little more detail, a little more specific, so we

need to say: "I'm

in the pharmaceutical industry." Good.

And last: "I'm _______ architect."

That's a profession, so we say: "I'm

an architect." In this case... Here, it was "a social worker",

but here we needed to say "an architect" because "architect" starts with an "a", which is a

vowel. It's also a vowel sound. Okay? So then we have to say "an".

Let's go on this side: "I work _______ farm."

Remember? Farm is outdoors, so we needed to say:

"on a farm". Very good.

"I work _______ Intel." So, Intel is the name of a particular company,

so what do we need to say? "I work

for Intel."

"I work _______ private sector." Okay? Again, a little bit more specific, like

this, pharmaceutical industry, so:

"I work in the private sector."

"I work _______ fashion business." So, what can we say? "I work", same way

"in the fashion business".

And: "I work _______ library."

Okay? We haven't got the name of the library or anything; we're just saying "library",

so we have to say: "I work in a library." Okay? If you had the name of the library,

then it would be different. Okay?

Now, one point I want to just make: Even though, here, I said... "Intel", I said "For Intel"

and earlier "for Microsoft", right? "For Sony", but nevertheless, sometimes we also say "at"

when we give the name of the company. All right? So we say: "I work at Intel." But,

I think it's better for you if you learn one way to say things, and the simpler the better.

Don't confuse by... Yourself by learning three ways to say something, and then get confused.

Instead of that, learn one way and use that confidently. Okay?

Now, I told you that I would tell you where you can get this other resource of over a

hundred business questions and answers, so for that, please go to our website: www.engvid.com.

There, you can record... Sorry, you can download a resource, a free resource of these hundred

questions and answers. Okay? Also, you can do a quiz on this subject and see how well

you've understood it. Okay? So, bye for now, and good luck with your English.