Business Writing – Mind Learning Association

How to Make Complex Sentences (1)

George — Sat, 02 Mar 2019 14:08:00 +0000

If you want to speak and write good English, there is one thing you must know how to make. What is it? How to make complex sentences.
There are lots of ways to make complex sentences. One of them is to start with simple sentences. Yes, from SIMPLE to COMPLEX. You don’t believe it. Read the following simple sentence.

Situation	At a presentation
	This will make money (for our company).

The sentence is like a piece of cake, right? Simple and easy. Yet, you can make it complex by changing the first word of the sentence, the word ‘this’. In other words, you can change it to, for example:

What I have just said

Yes, it is so easy that you just change ‘this’ into something like a sentence:

What I have just said will make money (for our company).

So it’s like magic, right? You think the magic was too fast. Don’t worry. Read the following table:

Simple	This	will make money (for our company).
Complex	What I have just said	will make money (for our company).

So the Feel Good tip is: Starting a sentence with ‘Wh’ words.

The tip applies to other ‘Wh’ words too, for example:

When you say something	is important.
How you present your ideas	is the key (to success).

Baby Verbs (3)

George — Thu, 17 Jan 2013 03:11:00 +0000

You want to improve your English, or Business English, right? But, do the following happen to you? You have learned a lot of vocab, but somehow you can’t use them at your presentations or talk to friends who are westerners. Or, You have tried very hard remembering sentences in English, but when you talk, you still can’t get it right.

Why? There is, I would say, something missing. What is that ‘something’? Believe it or not, It has something to do with babies, and to be exact, Baby Verbs (e.g. is / am / are).

Do you still remember this? What does a baby do all the time? (Hey! What are you looking at? Never seen a baby taking a NAP! Just get back to your English.) Yes, babies take a nap (a small rest) all the time.

What do I mean? I mean you can take a nap to learn English. Take a NAP to learn English? Yes, take a NAP to learn English. And the NAP is something that is missing in your brain. You can use the NAP to speed up your process of learning English.

When you use a Baby Verb (e.g. is / am /are / was / were), just remember that they are followed by NAP. What is NAP? N stands for nouns; A stands for adjectives; and P stands for prepositions. A piece of cake?

Not really! Do you know that you can use ‘A’ at negotiation? How? The word ‘firm‘ is an example. Firm is an ‘N’ (noun), right? But you can use it as an ‘A’. Upon negotiating with another company, you may make an offer by saying:

The offer is firm (for 7 working days).

The steps for making such a sentence are:

Step 1	Take the Baby Verb ‘is’
Step 2	Choose ‘A’ from NAP

The ‘P’ Way. ‘P’ stands for prepositions (e.g. at, on), so you may make sentences like:

The CEO

at the desk
(In other grammar books, ‘at the desk’ is called adverbials, a horrible term, right?)

‘At’ is the P in the sentence. Easy, right?

Yet, if you think teamwork is better than working alone, if you want to make your English more ‘powerful’, you have to focus on teamwork of prepositions. That is, prepositions come in different forms: one-word prepositions or more-than-one-word prepositions. The more-than-one-word prepositions are members of a team: a teamwork of prepositions.

Now, meet a team of ‘P’: Between … And. With this team, you can get a lower price at negotiation. How, read the following case.

Situation	Negotiating prices with another company
	Aim: To get a lower price

Does this happen to you or your company? You get a quotation of prices from another company but find the prices too high. What would you say in response to such a quotation?Your prices are too high. This may be one way of doing it. But it sounds too direct, and not tactful enough, right?

What about employing the team of ‘between … and’? How? You may say to the company: There is a big difference between (your prices) and (those of other competitors). By using the team of ‘P’ (between … and), you are polite but tactful.

NAP is more powerful than you think. In the above you used it at negotiation. But you can also make questions with ‘A’ to challenge others at a meeting. Why do you want to challenge others? To make you stand tall at your office. (Stand tall is American slang: to be proud of yourself). How? Take ‘A’ and a question word (as you are asking a question), ‘why’.

Situation	At a meeting
Aim	To challenge others

Why is this important (to our proposal)?

Can I sum up the steps? Sure.

Step 1	Take a question word ‘Why’
Step 2	Take a Baby Verb ‘is’
Step 3	Take an ‘A’ ‘important’

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This post is adapted from the book:

FeelGoodGrammar: How to Make Sentences in Business English

Buy the book:

Kindle (ebook) Amazon (paperback) Kobo (ebook)

Picture source:

Pic 1: http://www.flickr.com/photos/skycaptaintwo/101798277/in/photostream/
Pic 2: http://www.flickr.com/photos/gavinjllewellyn/6052852063/sizes/q/in/photostream/
Pic 3: http://www.flickr.com/photos/belakangtabir/5990355480/in/photostream/
Pic 4: http://www.flickr.com/photos/clarkstonscamp/4855087885/

Baby Verbs (2)

George — Sat, 12 Jan 2013 16:00:00 +0000

Only Two Ways to Agree (with someone)?

Do you know how many? How many what? How many ways are there for you to agree with your coworkers?

Well, there can be lots of ways, right? But to make English easier, you may group them into 2 ways only. Which two?

To agree with Baby Verbs
To agree with Non-Baby Verbs

Well, what are Baby and Non-Baby Verbs?

A. What are Baby and Non Baby Verbs?

Read the following two sentences. Which one is a sentence
with a Baby Verb and which one a Non-Baby Verb?

1. The starting point for any good discussion is a shared understanding of the aim of a company.

2. In 2001 Apple launched its iPod brand of portable media players.

In sentence 1, the verb is ‘is’, a Baby Verb linking the left and the right as shown below:

1. The starting point for any good discussion

(Baby)

a shared understanding of the aim of a company

Common examples of Baby Verbs include: be, is, am, are, was, were, being, and been.

In the second sentence, the verb is ‘launched’, a Non-Baby Verb showing that a company (Apple) does something to its products (iPod).

2. (In 2001) Apple

launched

(Non-Baby)

its iPod brand of portable media players

Common examples of Baby Verbs include: work, discuss, suggest, think, decide, guess, & develop.

B. Agreeing with Baby or Non-Baby Verbs

So, now you are back to the question mentioned at the beginning of this post. What are the two ways to agree with your coworkers? Before you get to them, there is a question for you. Is the sentence correct? I am fully agree with you.   The sentence is absolutely, definitely, totally WRONG.

Why? ‘Am’ is a Baby Verb while ‘agree’ is a Non-Baby. The two (Baby and Non-Baby Verbs) usually do not come together hand in hand. So, the two ways of saying it are:

a. with a Baby Verb (am),  I am totally with you; and

b. with a Non-Baby Verb (agree), I fully agree with you.

So next time, when you agree with Mr Right, either be a Baby or a Non-Baby.

Further examples (for agreeing) are:

Baby Verbs	Non-Baby Verbs
That is (That’s) not a bad idea.	I can’t agree with you more. (Yes, it means you agree with Mr Right.)
I am (I’m) fond of the idea of building a new team.	You can say that again.

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Baby Verbs (1)

George — Thu, 10 Jan 2013 01:50:00 +0000

A. When you do a presentation in English, are you afraid that you may do it with wrong grammar? When you chat with a new co-worker, will you say something like: ‘Where are you come from?‘, which is wrong, absolutely wrong.

There is an easy way to make you speak English with confidence. How? You have to focus on one thing, one big thing. What is it? VERBS. Why verbs? Read the following dialogue, which may happen in your office, and you’ll know why.

You: What is your boss like?

Coworker: She likes hot dogs.

B. For non-native speakers (English not your first language), you may think the ‘like’ in the first sentence is a verb, but actually it is ABSOLUTELY not.

When you use ‘like‘ not as a verb, you may have a small talk with your coworkers:

1. What is the weather like? (It’s hot.)

2. What is your boyfriend / girlfriend like? (He / She is wonderful.)

In fact, the ‘like’ in the second sentence is a verb, in the sentence ‘She likes hot dogs’. So what is my point? My point is, if you pay closer attention to verbs, you can speak English with confidence, and feel good about yourself. Am I right?

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C.Well, something more. You can divide English sentences into two groups. Which two? How to do it? Well, according to the types of verbs. What are types of verbs?

They are sentences with Baby Verbs, or sentences with Non-Baby Verbs.

What are Baby Verbs and Non-Baby Verbs?

Read the next post and you’ll know what we are talking about.