To practise the language of comparison The Global Debt clock

Thanks James for the great link from the Economist.
Lots of fantastic data for Business English students to compare and to practise saying extremely large numbers and to use as a basis for a discussion in class.
http://www.economist.com/content/global_debt_clock

Business English Metaphors from Macmillan

Please follow the link to the Macmillan blog and then check their Business English links.
The bottom line on trickle-down Macmillan

Currency exchange

Business English students: Check the vocabulary used to talk about trends and currency in Costa Rica.
Colón stronger as dollar nears all-time low / Business & Real Estate / Costa Rica Newspaper, The Tico Times

Money Quiz

Next week we will be looking at how money is compared to a fluid in  business idioms and this quiz has some money phrases  for you to try.
Here is a link to the BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/apps/ifl/worldservice/quiznet/quizengine?ContentType=text/html;quiz=1751_money

Try and personalise the phrases in the quiz.

Business Metaphors

Business English uses different vocabulary and metaphors from everyday speech. Metaphors are word pictures that help explain a situation by comparing it to something else. In business, metaphors are borrowed from other disciplines.

Why are metaphors so challenging for ESL learners to understand? It is because they are not literal and you can't find out what they mean by looking up individual words in a dictionary.

"The company is sinking," is an example of a metaphor used in business. It uses an expression that makes it clear that the company is in trouble financially. If you had never heard this expression before, it could be quite confusing because it cannot be taken literally. It compares the company to a ship that is floundering.

A good way to learn about Business English is to read the business section of a newspaper. Read through articles and have a pencil handy to identify metaphors and non-literal language. 

Why not test yourself to see how many business words, phrases or metaphors you can find in one article? Then try to use some of these expressions in your own writing and speaking.

Here are some metaphors that are used in business. Can you tell where they come from?

1. "We are living in turbulent times." 

2. "We're having a bumper crop of sales." 

3. "There is a surge in interest in our products."

4. "We need to float a loan." 

5. "The recent market crisis will cure some people's addiction to debt." 

Answers

1. Aviation  

2. Farming 

3. Electrical engineering 

4. Shipping 

5. Psychology/Medicine.

Read more: http://www.articlesbase.com/languages-articles/business-english-metaphors-and-meanings-2715671.html#ixzz11sH50Smp
Under Creative Commons License: Attribution

Accounting and Audit definitions

Here is a link to -

http://www.businessdictionary.com/terms-by-subject.php?subject=1

Alejandro thank you for the brilliant word formation exercise

ICFE

Verb – Noun/person – Adjective – Adverb Matrix

Verb	Noun/person	Adjective	Adverb
Economize	Economics/Economist	Economical (save money) Economic (policy government)	Economically
Analyze	Analysis/Analyst	Analytic, Analytical	Analytically
Capitalize	Capitalization/capitalist	Capitalistic	-
Advise	Advice/advisor	Advisable (negative = inadvisable)	Advisably, advisedly
Manage (negative= mismanage)	Management/manager	Managerial (unmanageable)	Manageably (unmanageably)
·         We need to analyze the data before advising our Finance Manager. ·         The economist has strong managerial skills analyzing economic trends in order to capitalize on profitability. ·         I would like to give some advice, capitalize your interest gain on the capital. The capitalization of money and management resources is a key factor to obtaining a profit.