Business English - Talking about your Work

Hi, my name is Rebecca, and welcome to this series of videos on Business English.

We're going to start by talking about one of the main questions that you're asked in

a business context, and that is, "Where do you work?"

OK?

There are a number of different ways in which you can answer this question, and they all

involve the word "work," of course.

So for example, you would start by saying, "I work," but after that, you have a number

of different prepositions that you need to use depending on what you want to say.

So we're going to review some of these, and then I hope you'll have a better understanding

of what to use and how to answer this basic question.

OK?

So let's get started.

So the first one is, "I work in."

"I work in" can be used for a place.

For example, "I work in a school," "I work in an office," "I work in a factory," right?

There are many other examples like that.

You can also use "in" to describe the city.

"I work in Toronto," "I work in Paris," "I work in Montreal."

OK?

So you can use it for cities.

You can also use it for the country.

"I work in Australia," "I work in Japan," "I work in India," OK?

Another way you can use "I work in" is with the department.

"I work in the marketing department," "I work in the accounting department," OK?

You can also use it to describe the field that you're in.

For example, "I work in computers," "I work in education," right?

So you're using it to describe the field that you're in, the professional field.

Or "I work in accounting," for example.

Or you can use it similarly to describe the industry.

"I work in the hospitality industry," "I work in the tourism industry," OK?

So yes, the preposition "in" covers a lot of different possibilities, OK?

Let's move on from there to the next one, which is "on."

So let's look at how we can use that.

"I work on a farm," "I work on an oil rig," "I work on a construction site."

These are some specific examples.

You can see that they are a little more specific.

It's used not as often, OK, it's used more rarely, so "in" is more common.

You can also use it to talk about the area or field that you're working on.

So for example, "I work on software development," "I work on educational policy," OK?

That's another way you can use "on."

Now "at" describes a place, and you might be wondering because I mentioned "place"

so far in three different places, but here it's a little more specific.

For example, "I work at home," "I work at the downtown branch," right?

"I work at this location."

So you're usually talking about a more specific place or branch or location, alright?

Now we come to another one, "with."

So "with" is used to talk about who you work with, right?

"I work with John," "I work with the French clients," "I work with several wonderful

colleagues," right?

You're talking about the people that you're working with.

And last of all, but perhaps most important, because this is what people may ask you first,

right?

They might ask you, "Who do you work for?"

So in answer to that question, you could say, "I work for Diplomat Language School,"

"I work for Microsoft," "I work for IBM," and so on.

Or you could say, "I work for my uncle," alright?

It could be a person as well, but usually we're going to give the name of a company.

And in case you're a self-employee or you're an entrepreneur, you can also say, "I work

for myself," okay?

So I know there's a lot of different possibilities here.

I know that prepositions can be quite challenging to master, so the only way to really learn

them is to listen to a lot of examples, to write out a lot of examples of your own using

these prepositions, and through repetition, eventually you will get them, okay?

If you have any more questions or if you'd like to actually do a free quiz on this lesson,

you can do that at our website, www.engvid.com, okay?

Thanks very much, and we'll see you again.

Bye for now.