IELTS Preparation Series 1, Episode 3: Company Growth
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Hello. I'm Margot Politis. Welcome to Study English, IELTS preparation.
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Today we're going to talk about businesses, and different ways to discuss economic information.
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We're going to listen to an interview with the head of a large clothing company.
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Then we're going to look at how he describes the success of his company.
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Here's Derek O'Neill.
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Well, we've said before that we've had consistent growth over the last four to five years. We've
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delivered EPS growth in excess of 20% over the last three years. You know, growing earnings
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at 25, 30, 35% forever becomes impossible. I think we end up owning US GDP in about 2023
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with 25% growth.
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We've registered that 15 per cent is our plan and we think that's a good target.
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We're very happy with our level of sales. We grew sales in the US in girls' wear at
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50 per cent and we think that's a fantastic performance, so we'll stand by those numbers.
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We've had solid momentum in that market for four or five years and we expect that momentum's
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going to continue.
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OK. So today we're going look at the language of description, particularly describing economic
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information.
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In formal academic writing, it's important to use impersonal, objective language when
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describing things.
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Notice that in the interview, Derek O'Neill often begins his sentences with We've, short
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for we have.
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Using phrases like I've or we've is very common in spoken English.
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Well, we've said before that we've had consistent growth over the last four to five years. We've
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delivered EPS growth in excess of 20% over the last three years.
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He says: We've had consistent growth.
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We've delivered growth in excess of 20 per cent.
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We've had solid momentum in that market.
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How would you turn these sentences into more formal descriptions?
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Take the first sentence: we've had consistent growth.
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Generally the first person forms of I and we are not used in more formal writing, or
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when describing economic data.
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We'd use an objective form: there is, there are,
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there has been, or there will be.
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So, "We've had consistent growth," becomes, "There has been consistent growth."
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Look at this one: We've delivered growth of 20%.
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That becomes: There has been growth of 20%.
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Now listen to him again.
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We've had solid momentum in that market for four or five years and we expect that momentum's
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going to continue.
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He said: We've had solid momentum.
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We expect that momentum is going to continue.
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We've had, we expect.
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How could you write that information in a formal way?
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We've had solid momentum. There has been solid momentum.
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We expect that momentum is going to continue. It is expected that momentum is going to continue.
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So looking for the use of the first person is a good way to tell whether someone is discussing
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information in a formal or informal way.
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