Shadowing Practice: 20 Office Expressions to Describe Your Workplace - Visual Vocabulary - Learn English Speaking with Video
בחר מצב תרגול
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88 משפטים
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Hi, I'm Katie.
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Welcome to Oxford Online English.
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In this visual vocabulary lesson, you can learn words and phrases to talk about offices and describe where you work.
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Before we begin, check out our website, Oxford Online English dot com.
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Do you want to see a range of video and listening lessons to improve your English?
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English, all 100% free.
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We have that.
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Do you want to take online classes with a professional teacher?
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We can do that too.
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Oxford Online English dot com.
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Let's start by looking at different types of offices.
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I work in an open plan office.
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It's light and modern, but it can be quite noisy sometimes and it can be hard to focus on my work.
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My office has cubicles.
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It's okay but sometimes I find it depressing that there are no windows and I can't see the sky.
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Is your office open plan?
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Many modern offices are.
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Open plan means that everything is in one large space and there aren't many separate rooms.
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Many open plan offices have cubicles.
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Large offices with many cubicles can be called cubicle farms.
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This has a negative meaning.
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If you describe your office as a cubicle farm, you're probably suggesting that it's a boring place to work.
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I work for a startup and our office is nice but too small.
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It's very cramped and there aren't enough desks so we have to hot desk.
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Cramped is a useful adjective.
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It means that you don't have enough space.
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You can use it for many things.
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For example, if your kitchen is very small and you can't move around without hitting things, then you could say it's cramped.
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What about hot desk?
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Do you know what it means or can you guess?
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desking is a way to share a workspace.
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If you hot desk you don't have your own desk, you share a desk with other workers and you just take any free desk when you get to work.
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Hot desking might be used in companies where people don't work at the same time.
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If employees work at different hours they can hot desk.
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As one person leaves another person can arrive and use the same workspace.
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After working here for a few years I got a promotion and was given my own personal office.
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In many buildings having a corner office of your own is considered the best location because you have views on two sides.
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On the other hand the words personal office just means that you don't share your office with anyone.
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A personal office could also be a tiny room with no windows.
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Our company is quite casual so people just wear what they want.
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My company has a strict dress code.
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You have to dress smartly at all times.
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Does your office have a dress code?
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Do people in your office dress more casually or more smartly?
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You can say dress smartly or dress formally.
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The meaning is similar.
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What else?
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Some workplaces might have a smart casual dress code.
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Smart casual is in the middle between formal and informal.
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For example, for men it might mean wearing a shirt and smart trousers, but not a tie or a full suit.
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We have a small meeting room in our office.
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Sometimes we have bigger meetings and we need to rent a larger space somewhere else.
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Many offices have a meeting room.
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What other rooms might you find in an office?
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Can you think of three?
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Bigger offices might have a conference room,
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room like a meeting room but larger you might have a copy room for making photocopies
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or printing documents you might have a staff room or a break room for employees to eat and relax
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an office could have an it room or a server room with computer equipment
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We have a copy room with a photocopier and a heavy duty printer.
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The copier tends to break a lot or the paper gets jammed.
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Heavy duty describes something that can do a large amount of work reliably.
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You can use it for other things too.
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For example, if you work in construction, you might need heavy duty boots, tough boots that can protect your feet.
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Do you often have problems with printers or photocopiers at work?
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These machines are notorious for being unreliable.
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A common problem is a paper jam.
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The paper gets stuck inside the machine and you have to open it up and try to get it out.
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Our office still relies on paper records for many things, so everyone has to know how our filing system works.
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If your office still keeps paper records, you might use filing cabinets to keep files and records organised.
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Our company decided to go 100% paperless recently so all our records are digital.
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On the other hand, many companies are trying to use less paper for environmental or budget reasons.
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If your company doesn't use paper for anything, you can say that you work in a paperless office.
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Our office has a lot of security.
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Most internal doors are kept locked and you need a swipe card to open them.
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Cameras monitor all areas of the office.
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Staff don't like it because they feel like they're being watched all the time.
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If your office has a lot of security measures like card locked doors, CCTV cameras or security guards,
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then you can say that your company has tight security.
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Another useful word is surveillance.
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Many security measures like cameras might be used to track employees and see where they go and what they do.
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This is an example of surveillance, devices or rules designed to monitor employees.
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What about your office?
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Can you describe your workplace?
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Put your description in the comments and try to use some of the language you've seen in this lesson.
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That's all.
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Thanks for watching.
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Thank you.
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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson
This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “20 Office Expressions to Describe Your Workplace - Visual Vocabulary”. The speaker keeps coming back to these words: desk, dress, paper, cubicle, hot. This video has 88 sentences and 976 words to shadow. The speech runs for 8:38. The speaker talks at a steady 113 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 84% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English; the rest is worth studying before you start.
Key vocabulary in this video
The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:
| Word | Pronunciation | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| cubicle noun | /ˈkjuːbɪkəl/ | A small separate part or one of the compartments of a room, especially in a work environment. |
| cramp noun | /kɹæmp/ | A painful contraction of a muscle which cannot be controlled; (sometimes) a similar pain even without noticeable contraction. |
| smartly adverb | /ˈsmɑː(ɹ)tli/ | With a fine or fashionable appearance. |
| paperless adjective | Without paper. | |
| photocopier noun | A machine which reproduces documents by photographing the original over a glass plate and printing duplicates. | |
| workspace noun | /ˈwɝkˌspeɪs/ | An area allocated for someone to work in, especially in an office. |
| printer noun | /ˈpɹɪntɚ/ | One who makes prints. |
| workplace noun | /ˈwɝkˌpleɪs/ | The place where someone works. |
| surveillance noun | /sɚˈveɪ.ləns/ | Close observation of an individual or group; person or persons under suspicion. |
| boot noun | /but/ | A heavy shoe that covers part of the leg. |
| adjective noun | /ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/ | A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent. |
| copier noun | /ˈkɑpiɚ/ | A machine that copies graphical material; a duplicator. |
| photocopy noun | /ˈfəʊtəˌkɒpi/ | A copy made using a photocopier. |
| reliably adverb | In a reliable manner. | |
| unreliable adjective | /ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/ | Not reliable. |
Phrasal verbs you will hear
| Word | Meaning |
|---|---|
| check out verb | To record the departure or withdrawal of someone or something (such as guests, employees, books, etc.). |
| move around verb | To relocate to new homes repeatedly; to not live in any one place for long. |
Sentences worth repeating
Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:
- Is your office open plan?
- Does your office have a dress code?
- What other rooms might you find in an office?
- Can you think of three?
- Can you describe your workplace?
Pronunciation to watch
The speaker uses 14 contractions and reduced forms, such as don't, aren't, can't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.
- Long words — get the stress right: photocopy /ˈfəʊtəˌkɒpi/, unreliable /ˌʌn.ɹəˈlaɪ.ə.bəl/, vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, notorious /nə(ʊ)ˈtɔː.ɹɪ.əs/
How to practise with this video
- Listen to the whole video once without speaking and note the words you do not know.
- Shadow it sentence by sentence at normal speed, repeating each one until your rhythm matches the speaker.
- Record yourself and compare with the original, paying attention to words like cubicle, cramp, smartly.
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