Shadowing Practice: Talking about jobs and work in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

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talking about jobs and work in english Hi, in this lesson you will learn to talk firstly about your job and work in English and in the second half of the video we'll look at specific work-related vocabulary starting with verbs and adjectives and nouns and finally idioms and expressions that take your English to the next level!

This section is very good training for those of you taking exams such as Cambridge First Certificate or CAE or IELTS.

I will put the times down below so you can go to that part that interests you most first.

Right, so first up, which questions might people ask you about your work?

Firstly, the most basic question is something along these lines, they all mean kind of the same thing and this question is to find out more about your profession.

So, they could be: Where do you work?

What do you do?

What do you do for a living?

What sort of work do you do?

What line of work are you in?

What kind of company do you work for?

Who do you work for?

So, how can you reply to these questions?

You can use the expression, "I'm a..." when you say the name of your profession.

So, for instance: "I'm a doctor, a teacher or an engineer." or maybe you're student and you're doing an internship or a work placement to gain experience in a certain field of work that you're interested in going into.

Or, maybe you're in training.

you could say, "I'm training to be a doctor or an engineer." Maybe you do voluntary work, that is some kind of work where you don't get paid you, simply want to help and are doing something for experience or an impact it'll have.

You might be a freelancer, that is someone who works on different projects with different companies instead of being employed by just one company.

or maybe you can say, "I'm self-employed." that is you are not working for any particular company but you're finding work for yourself or you're having your own business If you have got your own business you could say, "I've got my own business." or "I run my own business." another useful expression is, "I work in..." here without the article the/a, we refer to this when we're talking to an area of work.

Maybe you don't have a specific job title and you just want to say what your field of work is.

So, for instance, "I work in education" or the health service or finance.

You can also say, "I work in..." with an article to say where.

So, "I work in the accounting department of X Y Z company." or I work in the marketing department of a company.

So, if you use "the" or "a" you're talking about the actual physical place.

So, for me I would say, "I work in a school teaching English." Or, if you want to say who you work for you'd say, "I work for..." and then the company so it could be Google or Barclays Bank or the Ministry of Education.

So, for instance you could say: I work for a software development company.

I work for an English language school I work for a law firm or I work for myself.

So, putting that all together you could say something like this: "I'm a software engineer. I work in telecommunications actually I work for British Telecom." or I would say, "I work for an international company which teaches languages to children from 5 to18 years old." Think about what you could say, about your job.

Practice saying the sentences out loud using the expressions "work in" and "work for." When you introduce yourself it's good to vary how you talk about your job and use different expressions as this makes you sound more interesting and natural.

So, now let's look at how to talk about your job in more detail.

Here we're talking about the hours you work.

So friends might might ask you, "When do you start or finish work?" another way of saying this would be, "When are you off?" or even "When do you get off work?" How would you answer this?

Maybe you work shifts, this is when you work for a period of time and so you do say, the night shift, you work a set number of hours during the night and these periods of time can change.

So you might then do a night shift and then follow that a day shift.

And companies often employs shift workers so that they can keep their business working 24 hours a day.

So maybe you do shift work, or maybe you might do extra hours this is called overtime.

So, maybe you normally finish work at say five but due to a big project you're going to do overtime so you could say, "I'm doing overtime tonight, I won't be home till late." Or maybe your boss might ask you, "Can you come in early?" Again it's to do extra hours either at the beginning or the end of the day.

From time to time it's normal that you might need "to call in sick." for example, "John called in sick today." What about other times when you don't work.

Maybe you've been doing lots of overtime and you need a break.

You could say, "I need a vacation." I need a break, I need a holiday.

Someone might ask you if you've had a break recently and ask if you've had any time off lately.

maybe you work three days a week so you could say I work part time, rather than those than those who work full-time Or maybe you work fifty percent of the time so you job share you share one job between two people.

So what about if you don't have a job?

If you're out of work.

You could say "I'm unemployed" or "on the dole." But it's often better to say something like, "I'm between jobs at the moment." which implies that it's a short-term situation.

Whereas unemployed is more something that maybe it's more long-term, so maybe more negative.

Or I am on a break or maybe you're taking a year off and then returning to the same company This we call taking a sabbatical year.

"I'm taking a sabbatical." or maybe you're taking some time out to travel, spend time with the family.

This means that you're not working at the moment because you want to focus on something else Or maybe you've finished your career and then you would say, "I'm retired." What about you?

What's your situation? What hours do you work?

Do you often work overtime? Does your boss ask you to come in early?

Are you between jobs at the moment?

OK, so now we've talked about your company where you work, what you do.

Let's now look at how we can describe your job in more detail.

What do you actually do all day?

So for me I would say, I have to teach children English, I'm responsible for four classes and most of my time is spent inspiring young people and helping them to enjoy learning English.

Think about your job. What can you say using these expressions?

Think about all that we've seen so far.

Practice talking about your job and work.

It's a great way to get to know people and engage in really meaningful conversations.

OK, so moving on to part two.

In this section we will look at words and phrases that often appear in exams and vocabulary that would be very useful for you to know if you're going to talk about work or you're taking the FCE or IELTS.

They're also very useful for you to talk about your work.

So, now let's look at the verbs used when take talking about work.

So I'm gonna tell you a story about Bob and his work situation.

All the verbs I will use will appear on the screen to help you understand.

So, let's get started.

Bob left University and decided to apply for a job which he saw advertised in the newspaper.

He filled in the application form and a few weeks later was asked to attend an interview.

He was offered the job that same day.

As he lived in a small town outside the city he had to commute every day.

He was good at his job and very soon he was promoted.

However the company he worked for was having problems.

Two people were dismissed for stealing, and two of their friends resigned in sympathy.

The directors decided to lay off five more workers because the company couldn't afford to keep them and the managing director decided to retire early.

The atmosphere was so bad that Bob eventually decided to hand in his notice.

OK, so now let's look at some adjectives you can use to describe your job or work.

How do you feel about your work ?

Do you like your job?

Maybe you find the work interesting stimulating maybe it's satisfying or creative I hope it's rewarding or challenging.

What about if you don't like your job?

It may be boring or difficult or exhausting, thankless, mind-numbing, dead-end, soul-destroying.

OK, so that's adjectives.

Now let's look at nouns associated with work.

So again I'm going to tell you a story and the words will come on the screen.

A computer company had a vacancy for the position of salesperson and decided to advertise for a new employee. A lot of candidates with good qualifications and references applied for the job and after all the interviews had finished the directors made a shortlist of the best candidates and then invited them to come back for another interview. The person who eventually got the job was very happy after all she would receive an annual salary of 25,000 pounds with a 5% increment twice a year, a 15% commission for each computer she managed to sell, excellent perks such as private health insurance and a company car as well as a company pension to make sure she'd be well off when she retired and also the chance of a promotion from salesperson to Sales Manager if she was successful.

All in all, her future prospects looked very good.

So finally, let's look at some idioms and expressions that can be used when talking about work.

What about if you do manual work in a factory?

You're called a blue-collar worker, the collar is here.

Whereas a secretary who works in an office would be described as a white-collar worker.

Sometimes workers are not happy with the conditions at work so they refuse to work, they go on strike.

Or if you work for a very small amount of money you might say that you are working for peanuts so you might put in for a rise this means that you ask for more money.

Maybe your boss makes you work very hard for your money you could say that he's a slave driver but be careful because if you continue to work very long hours you might burn yourself out.

If this happens you won't be able to continue working such long hours.

Sometimes some lucky people get given a golden handshake when they leave a job maybe it's because they are retiring or leaving early and helping the company by leaving the job. This means that you get given a large sum of money when you leave.

I hope you can be described as a high flyer as this means that you have great potential and ambition and will probably do very well at work.

Maybe your boss might ask you "to carry the can" for a mistake he made.

this means that he's asking you to take the blame for a mistake he made.

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When a company continues to work as usual even despite difficulties you can say that it is "business as usual." A headhunter is someone who looks at top managers and tries to find them jobs in a new company.

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And finally if you don't do your job right you might get fired this means that you lose your job.

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I hope this doesn't happen to you!

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Now it's your turn...

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Speak out loud using some of the new vocabulary you've learned today.

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What do you do for a living?

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Write it down in the comment section below and I promise I'll give you some feedback.

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So, that's it for today. I hope you feel more confident with any conversations or topics to do with work and jobs.

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Remember to subscribe to my channel so you don't miss out on any new videos that come out and there's some more videos here I think you might like.

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So I hope to see you very soon and thanks for watching.

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Talking about jobs and work in English

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

This B2 speaking lesson is built on the video “Talking about jobs and work in English”. This video has 110 sentences and 2168 words to shadow. The speech runs for 15:01. The speaker talks at a steady 144 words per minute, a comfortable pace for shadowing. 88% of the words are among the 3,000 most common in English, so the vocabulary is easy to follow. 24 of its 110 sentences are questions, so it is good practice for question intonation and short answers.

Key vocabulary in this video

The 15 most advanced words in the video, with pronunciation and meaning:

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
overtime noun	/ˈoʊ.vɚˌtaɪm/	Working time outside of one's regular hours.
retire verb	/ɹəˈtaɪɹ/	To stop working on a permanent basis, usually because of old age or illness.
adjective noun	/ˈæd͡ʒ.ɪk.tɪv/	A word that modifies a noun or noun phrase or describes a noun’s referent.
verb noun	/vɝb/	A word that indicates an action, event, or state of being.
vocabulary noun	/vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/	A usually alphabetized and explained collection of words e.g. of a particular field, or prepared for a specific purpose, often for learning.
employ verb	/ɪmˈplɔɪ/	To retain (someone) as an employee.
collar noun	/ˈkɑlɚ/	The part of an upper garment (shirt, jacket, etc.) that fits around the neck and throat, especially if sewn from a separate piece of fabric.
idiom noun	/ˈɪdiəm/	A manner of speaking, a mode of expression peculiar to a language, language family, or group of people.
sabbatical noun	/səˈbætɪkəl/	An extended period of leave from a person's usual pursuits.
salesperson noun		A person whose job is to sell things, often in a shop or store.
noun noun	/naʊn/	A word that functions as the name of a specific object or set of objects, such as person, animal, place, word, thing, phenomenon, substance, quality, or idea…
advertise verb	/ˈædvɚˌtaɪ̯z/	To give (especially public) notice of (something); to announce publicly.
firstly adverb	/ˈfɜɹstli/	In the first place; before anything else; first.
unemployed adjective	/ˌʌnɪmˈplɔɪd/	Having no job despite being able and willing to work.
profession noun	/pɹəˈfɛʃ.ən/	A promise or vow made on entering a religious order.

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Word	Pronunciation	Meaning
come out verb	/ˌkʌm ˈaʊt/	To be discovered; to be revealed.
find out verb		To discover, as by asking or investigating.
get off verb		To move from being on top of (something) to not being on top of it.
lay off verb		(of an employer) To dismiss (workers) from employment, e.g. at a time of low business volume or through no fault of the worker, often with a severance package.
speak out verb		To assert or promote one's opinion; to make one's thoughts known.

Sentences worth repeating

Short, complete lines from the video that you can reuse in everyday conversation:

What do you do for a living?
What sort of work do you do?
What line of work are you in?
What kind of company do you work for?
What about if you don't like your job?

Grammar in this video

The structures the speaker uses most, with the exact words from the video:

Structure	In the video
Conditional sentences if + clause, will/would + verb — a condition and its result	If this happens you won't be
Passive voice be + past participle — the focus is on what happens, not who does it	being employed · is called · is spent
Present perfect have/has + past participle — a past action that still matters now	you've had · you've finished · we've talked
Relative clauses who / which + clause — extra information about a person or thing	someone who works · those who work · person who eventually

Pronunciation to watch

The speaker uses 56 contractions and reduced forms, such as you're, I'm, don't. Say them the short way, as you hear them.

The “sh” and “zh” sounds: profession /pɹəˈfɛʃ.ən/, handshake /ˈhæn(d)ˌʃeɪk/, telecommunication /ˌtɛləkəˌmjunɪˈkeɪʃən/, internship /ˈɪntɜːnʃɪp/, qualification /ˌkwɑlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/
Long words — get the stress right: vocabulary /vəˈkæb.jə.lə.ɹi/, sabbatical /səˈbætɪkəl/, telecommunication /ˌtɛləkəˌmjunɪˈkeɪʃən/, qualification /ˌkwɑlɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, voluntary /ˈvɑ.lənˌt(ɛ)ɹi/

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 overtime, retire, adjective.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

Shadowing technique: read the full step-by-step guide →

Shadowing Practice: Talking about jobs and work in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

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Vocabulary and speaking notes for this lesson

Key vocabulary in this video

Phrasal verbs you will hear

Sentences worth repeating

Grammar in this video

Pronunciation to watch

How to practise with this video

What is the Shadowing Technique?