Business English Vocabulary: An Introduction
Business English comes with its own set of words. They can be subdivided into smaller, manageable lists of words related to areas relevant to businesses. They are also known as the terminology of a certain topic. When it comes to more technical texts, it becomes necessary to expand a relevant knowledge of vocabulary. The link below can help you check your range of vocabulary against the vocabulary requirement for a Business English course.
https://www.cambridgeenglish.org/Images/22099-vocabulary-list.pdf
If you feel that understanding these texts are challenging, or if you know someone who is a beginner English learner striving to become a business English speaker, refer to the link below and follow instructions to check your vocabulary range and expand it while you work on your business English vocabulary.
https://www.rubeana.com/before-you-begin
Chunking Business English Words
To make vocabulary learning easier, I divide them based on business areas and activities. Since the words are from a common area, it becomes easier for the brain to store and remember them. Some of these areas are listed below. They can be further divided based on related activities or subtopics as well.
- Business
- Finance and accounting
- Marketing
- HR
- IT
- HSE
- International business
- social responsibility
- etc
Business areas may involve completely different activities and their own set of technical jargon, but they create the body of the business and therefore cannot be learned in isolation. When performing the activities mentioned below, you need to be able to understand and use words related to all the above-mentioned areas to talk about your business:
- making phone calls
- preparing and delivering presentations
- negotiating business deals
- drafting a contract
- business meetings
- board meetings
- etc
I prefer exposing learners to vocabulary in a body of information related to the topics and activities relevant to business settings. Therefore, vocabulary learning will include introduction to a particular topic or area related to business and business activities, followed by authentic resources such as business websites, videos, audios, or texts, and finally, drills and assignments. You will find a list of words in the posts where vocabulary is the main focus. Either find your topic of interest or focus mainly on vocabulary by referring to posts tagged or categorized as vocabulary.
