Bespoke English Madrid

The roots of a tree are usually under the ground. One case for which this is not true are the roots of the mangrove tree. A single tree has many roots. The roots carry food and water from the ground through the trunk and branches to the leaves of the tree. They can also breathe in air. Sometimes, roots are specialized into aerial roots, which can also provide support, as is the case with the Banyan tree.

The trunk is the main body of the tree. The trunk is covered with bark which protects it from damage. Branches grow from the trunk. They spread out so that the leaves can get more sunlight.

The leaves of a tree are green most of the time, but they can come in many colours, shapes and sizes. The leaves take in sunlight and use water and food from the roots to make the tree grow, and to reproduce.

ESSENTIAL JOB VOCABULARY

In conversational English, the question “Where do you work?” is commonly phrased as “What do you do?” or “What do you do for a living?”

How do you answer this question if you don’t have a job?

You can say “I’m unemployed” - or, more indirectly, “I’m between jobs at the moment.”

If you work for yourself, you can say “I’m self-employed.” If you have your own company, you can say, “I own a small business,” or more specifically, “I own a restaurant” or “I own a graphic design company.”

When you are officially accepted into a new job at a company, you are hired by the company. For example, “I was hired by an insurance company just two weeks after graduating from college.” When you’re hired, you become an employee of the company. The company becomes your employer. The other employees in the company are your colleagues or coworkers. The person above you who is responsible for your work is your boss or supervisor.

As an employee of the company, you earn a salary - money you receive regularly for your work. Don’t make the mistake of saying “win a salary” or “get a salary”  – the correct verb is “earn.” If you’re good at your job, you might get a pay raise (or a raise) – an increase in your salary. You could also get a promotion - an increase in importance and authority. At the end of the year, some companies give their employees a bonus - extra money for work well done.

The opposite of “hire” is fire - when your company forces you to leave your job. For example, “Peter was fired because he never came to work on time.” Usually if someone is fired, it’s because they did something bad. If an employee loses his or her job because of a neutral reason, like the company reducing its size, then we say the employee was laid off. For example, “Donna was laid off when her company started having financial problems.”

If you decide to leave your job, there are three verbs you can use:

“Quit” is informal, “resign” is formal, and “leave” can be formal or informal.

When an old person decides to stop working, the verb for this is retire. In most countries, people retire around age 65.