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Hello English Learners, welcome back to English Pod. My name is Marco.
And I'm Erica, and we're bringing you another great Elementary lesson today, one that takes place at the office.
Yes, today we're going to teach you some great phrases so that you can ask people to help you.
Right, and I think this dialogue is with a new person at the office. So when you're new, you always need to ask people for favors.
Exactly, okay, so we're going to be asking for a favor. So Marco, what exactly is a favor?
Something that a person does for you, like a small helpful thing.
Yeah, a small helpful thing. So you know, like "can you pass me that pencil?" Maybe that's even a favor.
Yeah, or maybe "can you pick me up on your way to work?" Yeah, that's a favor. Or even lending money to your friend, that's a favor.
Yeah, so that's what we're going to be talking about: favors and how to ask for one, because you always have to do this at work, with your friends, with your family. So let's listen to the dialogue and then we'll come back and explain all the vocabulary.


Dialogue: Asking for a Favor
Rachel: Um, sorry to bother you. Um, my name is Rachel. I'm new here. Can I ask you for a favor?
Colleague 1: Hi Rachel, welcome on board. I'm afraid I can't help you right now. I'm getting ready for a very important meeting.
Rachel: Excuse me, but can I bother you for a second?
Colleague 2: You know what, I'd love to help you, but I'm about to meet an important client. Do you want to ask Sean instead? He sits right over there.
Rachel: Sorry to interrupt you, Sean. Could you do me a quick favor?
Sean: Actually, I'm working on a document that's due in a couple of minutes. I really can't talk right now, sorry about that.
Rachel: Jeez, I just want to know where the bathroom is! What's wrong with you people?


Language Takeaway
So a pretty busy office, pretty unhelpful colleagues.
I know, everyone's so busy they didn't help this poor girl.
Yeah, I hope she found the bathroom. Now let's take a look at the language from the dialogue. So let's start with Language Takeaway. There's some great language in this dialogue, wasn't there?
Yeah, a lot of interesting phrases and words. The first one that I saw that was really interesting is on board. Welcome on board. Well, we've got some examples of how this phrase is used, so let's listen to them to help us understand the meaning.


Example one: Welcome on board, Sarah. If you have any questions, please feel free to ask me.


Example two: We need to get our new office assistant on board as soon as possible.


Example three: We decided to bring Melissa on board to join the marketing team.


So basically it means "welcome to the company" or the team. Yeah, welcome on board. So on board is the same as to the company. I guess also when you get on a ship they'll tell you "welcome on board."
Yes, that's where it comes from, or an airplane.
Yeah, welcome on board. Okay, let's take a look at our next word: about to. I'm about to.
So this is a great phrase to explain that you're about to do something. I'm going to do this thing really soon.
So for example, you can say, "I'm about to go out for lunch."
Or I could say, "Hey Marco, let's go record a show," and you say, "I'm about to go into a meeting."
Exactly. Yeah, about to—going to do something really soon. Okay, the next word we have is instead.
Instead. It means "in the place of." So for example, if we're at dinner I could say, "I'll have the chicken instead of the fish." Right? Or I can say, "I wanted to buy a red sweater, but they didn't have one, so I bought a blue one instead."
Okay, so in the place of. And our last word for language takeaway: interrupt.
Interrupt. So when somebody interrupts you, they come in and they talk to you while you're doing something or maybe while you're speaking. Or maybe you're busy and people come and bother you.
Okay, some great words here in our dialogue, and now we can listen to it again. This time it's going to be a little bit slower and you'll be able to understand the language a little bit better.