节目资讯
刊物:空中英语教室
日期:2013-04-29
难易度:High
关键字:surge, make or break, accessibility, relocate
Hi, and welcome to Studio Classroom.
My name is Gabe.
And I'm Carolyn.
And thank you for joining us for our BUSINESS lesson this month.
It's called Location, Location, Location.
Yes, three times "location." That means it must be pretty important where your
business is, what the location is.
Well, what does make a business good or bad, or what... what location is good or
bad for a business?
Carolyn, what do you think?
Well, I think it's very important that people can find your business easily.
If it's around the corner behind another building, it could be very difficult to
find.
So you want to have a place of business that is easy for people to get to.
All right. You want it to be easy for people to get to your business.
What else could be good about a good location?
Well, maybe a bad location is somewhere that is around other stores that you
don't really want to go.
Or maybe it's in a dangerous neighborhood.
You don't want to go to a business in a dangerous neighborhood.
So if you have a business, think about these things.
And of course, we have to learn a lot more in today's lesson.
Let's get started.
(Music).
Location, Location, Location.
Choosing the right location can be the most important decision a business makes.
Business is great!
Ben and Sandy Johnson's new company is doing well, and they are thinking about
moving the business to a new location.
Hi, Ben.
How's Sandy?
She's great, Uncle Bob.
And the business?
It's actually going very well.
We've had a surge of new customers, and we're thinking about moving to a new
office.
That's great news, Ben!
Where?
We're looking at a bunch of locations, but we haven't decided on one yet.
Choosing a location is the most important decision many businesses ever make.
I know the right location can make or break a business, but it can't be that
hard to find a good spot.
(Music).
All right.
We're enjoying this conversation between Uncle Bob and Ben.
At the very beginning of our lesson, we see a sentence:
Choosing the right location can be the most important decision a business makes.
So it seems like it's a pretty important decision.
But there are many important decisions that businesses have to make.
And that is what we are talking about in this series about Ben and his Uncle
Bob.
That's right.
Well, we see another thing.
Business is great!
We found out about Ben and Sandy.
Ben and Sandy Johnson's new company is doing well, and they're thinking about
moving the business to a new location.
All right.
That's what today's lesson is all about - moving their business.
So let's get started with this conversation.
Um, would you rather be Uncle Bob or Ben, Carolyn?
I would like to be Ben today. Thank you.
All right. Good.
Uncle Bob.
Hi, Ben. How's Sandy?
She's great.
And the business?
It's actually going very well.
We've had a surge of new customers, and we're thinking about moving to a new
office.
Well, this is a very nice conversation so far.
And we've got a great key word right there in Ben's line.
He said "surge" - a surge of new customers.
A surge of something is when something comes in greater power or more numbers, a
surge.
Right.
So here he has had an increase in customers.
And usually I think of a surge as something that happens very quickly.
So you might have a surge in production.
You get things done very quickly, and you're able to do lots of things in that
time.
That's right.
And then you go back to your normal pace sometimes.
Or maybe there's a surge in electricity.
Maybe there's such a great surge that the power goes out.
It was too much to handle.
There are different ways to use this word.
And Ben is talking about a surge of new customers.
That is great for business.
It is great for business.
And we see that he's thinking about moving to a new office.
If you have a lot of customers, you should think about your location, you might
need to change.
And so Uncle Bob continues by asking:
That's great news, Ben! Where?
We're looking at a bunch of locations, but we haven't decided on one yet.
Yes. Of course it can be difficult to decide.
Well, there's a word in that sentence, "bunch." A bunch means several or maybe
even handful.
You saw that word "handful" earlier this month.
And a bunch could also be described as many, several, some or a handful.
That's right.
Well, they are looking at a bunch of different locations, many locations, and
they haven't made a decision where they want to go yet.
All right.
Well, Uncle Bob says:
Choosing a location is the most important decision many businesses ever make.
Uh, well, this is quite interesting, Carolyn.
It is quite interesting.
This is one of the most important decisions that a business can make is its
location.
Exactly.
Well, Uncle Bob says it is the most important decision.
If you go back to the top of our lesson, it says the right location can be the
most important decision.
It's a little bit different.
It seems like Uncle Bob has an opinion here.
Maybe it's not exactly correct.
Maybe there are other important decisions.
But it can be the most important decision.
That's true.
We've talked about financing your business and the importance of timing when you
decide to have a loan, take out a business loan.
That is also a very important decision that a business can make.
OK. So choosing a location is important.
And oh... how does Ben continue this conversation?
Oh. Well, he says:
I know the right location can make or break a business, but it can't be that
hard to find a good spot.
All right, a great sentence, a great line.
Let's take a look at some of those words there: make or break.
This is great or bad.
If something makes your business, that means it... it makes it really good for
your business.
If something breaks your business, that means it's not good for business at all.
That's right.
So it can make or break your business.
You might also say it makes or breaks the deal.
If you want to make an agreement with something, there might be one certain
condition, one thing that has to be done that makes or breaks it.
All right.
What else can be made or broken?
Well, maybe you have a show coming up, and you need to do really well.
You might say this performance will either make or break my acting career.
I hope it makes my acting career.
Well, we see another phrase in this sentence.
It can't be that hard to find a good spot.
What does he mean by that?
Well, it means that he doesn't think it will be too difficult to find a good
location.
It should be pretty easy to find a place that is convenient for him and the
other people that want to come to his office.
That's right.
Well, you could use that phrase in some other ways, too: it can't be that hard
to do something.
You think math is difficult?
It can't be that hard to solve your math problem.
That means I don't think it's... it's that hard.
There are other ways to use that phrase.
That's right.
And he says "a good spot." And here we're just talking about the location.
"Spot" here means where he is going to locate his business.
Well, now it's time for us to learn something else with Michelle in the Language
Lab.
Hi, everyone.
I'm Michelle.