Business 2aul Emmerson Grammar Builder 2nd edition Intermediate to upper-intermediate Clear explanations for real situations eA MACMILLANTrends, graphs and figures A Verbs describing trends ‘The box below shows verbs that describe different business trends (= tendencies). Upward movernent {0 up, increase, ris, climb Rapid upward movement take off, jump, rocket, double Downward movement go down, decrease, fall, drop, decline Rapid downward movement collapse, eras, sump, plummet, halve Highs and lows peak, reach a peak, fallback, bottom out, hit alow, pick up Change in size grow, expand, shrink, contract Stability and volatility slay the same, be lat, be unchanged, be (relatively) stable, ‘fluctuate, vary, mave within a range, lve off Good and bad improve, get belter, strengthen, recover, deteriorate, get worse, weaken Individual points stand af, be at, be above, be below States be up/down, stay high/low, remain high/low [Note these irregular verb forms: go-went—gone grow grew ~ grown rise — rose risen fall—fell— fallen Note these nouns: «rise, growth, an improvement, afl, a drop, a peak, a recovery, @ halving, a doubling ‘Note the following prepositions: Sales increased from $5.4m to $5.8m. There was an increase im sales of $0.4m. Sales increased (by) $04. (Gy is usually missed out in AmE) B Trend verbs with objects Verbs are used indifferent ways. Some verbs are always followed by an object. Well raise lower /cxt the budget (NOT The budget-will raise/lower/eut) Other verbs are never followed by an object. Inflation wil rise /fall/go up. (NOT These measures will-rico/fall/go-up inflation) ‘Some verbs can be used with or without an object. Well increase /improve our marketshare AND Our marketshare will increase /improve. © Speed and amount of change ‘We can use adverbs to talk about the speed and amount of change. Speed Sales grew .. quickly, rapidly, gradually, stendily, slowly ‘Amount to some extent, slightly, marginally Note the relationship between ‘verb + adverb’ and ‘adjective + noun’ Sales grew steadily. There was steady growth in sales. D Graphs and charts ‘The language in section Ais often shown visually in a [presentation or report by means of (ine) graphs, (bar) charts, (pie) charts and tables. A graph/chart may have: a horizontal and a vertical axis; a solid /dotted /dashed line; a segment; a shaded area; bars. A table has rows and columns with headings. E Figures (decimal point, comma, etc.) ‘A decimal point is written as 2 ‘dot, not as a comma like in some languages. It is spoken as point. 65 six point five 0.25. zero pont tw foe (NOT point twenty-five) ‘Acoma can be used to separate thousands from hundreds. 6200 six thousand fo hundred (AmB and BrE) 6.280 six thousand tao hundred eighty (AmE) 6.280 six thousand to hundred and eighty (BrE) Note also: 2m too million (NOT reilions) 2.5m two point five two and a half ition F Linking words and phrases Linking words are used for analyzing trends. They can join parts ofa sentence or link across sentences. See units 41-44 Hire are just a few examples: although, and, basically, beacuse, clearly, firstly, however, in addition, in fact, in general, in my opinion, in particular, in relation to, in spite of, 50, therefore, whereasSections A, B, C Section & Section F 50 Trends, graphs and figures Exercises 50.1 Underline the correct words. ‘There was a slightly/slight rise in profits last month. We rosefncreased our profits slightly last month. ‘There was a sharp fall infof our sales last quarter. ur sales fell byfof 6% last quarter. (or no preposition) We fellimproved our market share last year. ‘Their share price hitibeat a fow/dovmn last month, but it has recuperatedirecovered since then and now stands atfn €3.78. ‘Their share price met @ top/peaked in May, but it's fallen back since then. Inflation is increasing slow/slowly at the moment, infby about 1% a year. There is a slowisiowiy increase in the rate of inflation offby about 1% a year. Operating profits went from $2.5mn to/until $3. 1m, ‘This year, dividends paid to shareholders raised/rose by 6% year-on-year. Last year they felfcut slighty. 12 This year we raledirose dividends to shareholders by 6% yearon-year. Last year, in comparison, we felfcut them. aunune BSean ‘comparison, 50.2 Write in words how you would say the numbers in brackets, using British English. Look at section C and the additional example below to help you. (1,230) ‘one thousand two hundred and thirty (12,300) (12,030) (120,300) (123,000) (123,330) (1,230,000) 50.3 Complete the sentences with the words or phrases in the box. Look carefully at the Punctuation to see if the words join parts of sentences or link across sentences. because because of so although inspite of _ir-addition however therefore 1 Sales are up 5%. /n addition , market share is up 2%, 2 Sales are up 5%. —____, marketshare is down 2%. 3 Sales are up 5%, market share is down 2%. 4 Sales are up 5%, a drop in market share of 296. 5 Soles are up 5%. we should get a bonus at the end ofthe year. 6 Sales are up 5%, —___ we'll all get a bonus at the end of the year. 7 Sales are up 5% —_. the new advertising campaign. 8 Sales are up 5% ——_____ the new advertising campaign has started. “Would you please elaborate on ‘then something bad happened”?”” ‘TRENDS, GRAPHS AND FIGURES 207Exercises Section © 50.4 Match the rules for numbers in formal writing 1-6 with the examples a-f. 1 Use figures for large ariounts =] a) Welllneed twenty four-person teams. 2 Use words for numbers below ten b) Twelve people took part in the meeting, 3 Use words for two numbers together [5] We employ 24,000 people worldwide. 4 Use words at the beginning of a sentence ) This is our thitd annual report. 5 Use words for estimates ||) We have about two hundred employees. 6 Use words for ordinals (frst, second) [7] 9) Thete ae three main recommendations. Section E 50.5 Im many situations we do not give an exact figure, just an approximate one, Write the phrases in the box on the appropriate lines below. considerably more than around alittle over exactly almost allitie under much-lessthan about precisely _ slightly more than 40% 48% 50% / _ 48-52% - 50% / - 50% — 50% / 52% 50% / - - 60% 50% Sections 50.6 Complete the conversation between a bank manager, Andrew Cutting (AC), and a A.B, C.0,E,F business owner, Chris Wood (CW), by underlining the correct words. AC) Before we decide on the conditions for the loan, we need to have a careful look at your business. I've got the sales ‘'graph/graphic for last year right here Can you yust go through the *values/figures for me? CW, Of course. As you can see, sales at the start of the year were quite 'fat/level, ‘so/although that’s not surprising "because/due to we always have a quiet period after Christmas , AC. OK, but there wasn't much of a Srecouer/recovery over the spring period, From your graph I see that in June you were only "increased/up *by/with two *million/millions "“euros/of euros compared to January What happened? (CW: Well it was a difficult trading period for us ~ our main competitor "cut/fell their prices aggressively '"However/In spite of, in the second “half/halve of the year things started to improve We launched a series of new products onto the market, and you'll se that sales “rised/rose 'significant/stgnificantly over the autumn period In fact the figure went “to/until alittle “under/over fifteen million by the end of the year. We were very happy with those results. And we expect the inerease Wof/in sales to continue this year Our sales forecasts are Looking very good. AC) Yes, that looks very promising, I think we canpersonalized 50 Trends, graphs and figures Tasks Speaking: listen 1 (@ 50 You are going to hear eight phrases. Listen and repeat. and repeat Translate 2 ‘Translate these short texts taken from the Internet into your own language. Remember not to ‘translate word for word, but rather to make it sound natural. According to a Business Roundtable survey, US Productivity in Singapore fell sharply last chief executive officers now expect that GDP year. The National Wages Council cautioned will decline 2.1% this year, worse than the the public not to get carried away by the 1.9% projection made three months ago. But recent stockmarket rebound, as corporate sentiment in other areas is slowly improving: performance has yet to recover. The NWC 34% of CEOs expect their sales to increase in chairman contradicted suggestions that the ‘the next six months (compared with 24% in Singapore economy had bottomed out, telling the first quarter), 20% see no change, while a news conference yesterday that the country 46% still expect a drop in sales. ‘was ‘nowhere near an upturn’. Wall Street Journal website The Business Times website Writing: 3 Complete the sentences with your own ideas. holesterol-lowering foods. rose steadily. practice fell significantly. 1 2 - 3 Last month, - _———- went up marginally. 4 Inrecent years, — __________ reached a peak and then fell back. 5 Inrecent years, hit a low but then picked up a little 6 Inmy country, — isfare growing rapidly. 7 is/are slowly contracting. & In my country, has/have leveled off and is/are now relatively stable, 9 Inmy lite _- i¥are getting worse - dramatically. 10 in my life, . is/are improving ~ gradually 111. Since | was a child I've noticed a halving in the numbers of and a doubling in the numbers of — 12. It's really important that we raise Rehearsal for 4 Choose two related trends from your area of work or from your personal life where you ‘the veal world can draw graphs covering several months/quarters/years on the horizontal axis. Write a short presentation describing the trends (this unit) and analyzing them (language from units 41-44), See the example topics below. total sales and sales of your mast popular product over two years production volumes for two different products over six months seasonal pattems of spending for two different budget areas time spent doing gardening and time spent doing sports over the last year your motivation during @ language course and your motivation while on a diet If you are working in class, choose some presentations to read aloud. Draw the graphs on the board before you start. Ask and answer questions. ‘TRENDS, GRAPHS AND FIGURES 209