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The World of Work, Part I

The relationship people have with work evolves throughout their lives, and our relationship with work as a society has also recently seen some changes.

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In English, words such as "career," "occupation," "position," and "profession" generally refer to more years of experience and a high level of dedication, whereas "job" and "work" are more general. 

 

Your work experience section is the most important section of your CV.

Caption 32, Business Life: Curriculum Vitae

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My job has largely focused on algorithmic products like Google-plus search.

Caption 28, Breaking News: Facebook Whistleblower Frances Haugen

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And as much as possible, and I don't care if you're applying for an administrative assistant position, a marketing position, it doesn't matter. What I need you to do is understand how this company makes money.

Captions 14-16, Job Hunting: How to Answer the "Why" Question

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So, Mister Moretti, what is your occupation?

Caption 60, Top Notch TV 1: Unit 1

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The most famous one, "Amadis," is one that people in my profession read.

Caption 52, Words of the World: California

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But the truth is, I can no longer balance a full-time career, a popular internet show, and a girlfriend.

Captions 9-10, Dr. Sheldon Cooper: Fun with Flags

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The adjective "full-time" in the last example contrasts with "part-time," which refers to working fewer than 40 hours a week. People may be "employed," "self-employed," or "freelance." The person or company that provides the job is the "employer," while the "employee" is the one who does the work.

 

You have to convince the employer to hire you and not someone else.

Caption 9, Business Life: Curriculum Vitae

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As a Youtuber, I'm basically self-employed.

Caption 27, The White House: President Obama meets YouTube Stars

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The vast majority of migrant workers come from the Indian subcontinent, Southeast Asia, and Africa, and are employed in the agriculture, cleaning, and domestic service industries.

Captions 64-66, The Daily Conversation: Top 10 Immigrant Countries

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These days, people may work on location or on site, in an office, or from home. 

 

We work in the same office, I noticed.

Caption 12, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: BBC TV Movie

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And fortunately, I can work from home.

Caption 15, Sigrid: Sisters

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Further Learning
There are many videos about different careers and workplace dynamics on Yabla English, all of which contain essential vocabulary.

Using tag questions in English

Tag questions are short phrases added to the end of sentences to check information, seek confirmation, or ask for agreement. Tag questions can make requests sound softer, encourage conversation, or show doubt, making them useful in everyday English.

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A good place to start is examples with the verb "to be." Note that a positive statement is followed by a negative tag and vice versa. Additionally, the verb in the tag must match the verb in the main statement in tense and form.

 

But no! You are so excited, aren't you?

Caption 19, BBC Comedy Greats: Michael McIntyre on Google Earth

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Hello. You were searching for a hidden microphone, weren't you?

Caption 21, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four: BBC TV Movie

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Just as we use "do" to create questions, this verb is used when adding a tag question for sentences with verbs other than "to be" or auxiliary verbs. 

 

The Ambulocetus does look like a link between a land animal and a whale, doesn't it?

Caption 11, Green TV: Evolution of the Whale

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But you don't care about those, do you?

Caption 4, The Big Bang Theory: Sheldon meets James Earl Jones

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You made us what we are, didn't you?

Caption 20, Movie Trailers: Interview with the Vampire

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A sentence in the present perfect requires "have" in the tag rather than "to be" or "do." Similarly, the future tense requires "will," or "won't" if the tag is negative. 

 

You have won a few races, haven't you?

Caption 15, James Dean: Interview & Famous Drive Safely Spot

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Remember me, boy, will you?

Caption 25, Spiller Feat. Sophie Ellis-Bextor: Groovejet (If This Ain't Love)

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Make yourself at home! Won't you? OK.

Captions 82-83, ALF: Some enchanted evening

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Modal verbs such as "would," "should," "can," and "could" are also used in tag questions in certain instances. 

 

Just come over here and sit down, would you? -OK.

Caption 7, Campus Movie Fest: Small Talk

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Further Learning
In addition to spotting more examples on Yabla English, try to make your own sentences with the following modal verbs and suitable tag questions with "can"/"can't," "could"/"couldn't," "should"/"shouldn't" and "would"/"wouldn't."

 

A few more examples:
We can wait a few more minutes, can't we?
He wouldn't forget about it, would he? 

Irregular Verbs - Part 3

Irregular Verbs - Part 1

Irregular Verbs - Part 2

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In the previous lessons, we saw how a regular verb conjugates into the past tense and past participle by simply adding -ed to the end of the infinitive: ask/asked, talk/talked, watch/watched, etc. Irregular verbs, on the other hand, each follow their own set of rules of conjugation. There are, however, some basic patterns that can help you remember how to conjugate some of these irregular verbs.

Some verbs with "ea" as the central vowels may (or may not) have an added -t at the end in past and past participle forms, but all of the past and past participle forms have in common that the "ea" is changes pronunciation. "I am reading a book" (pronounced "reeding"), but "I have read a book" (pronounced "red"). 
 

Many of the challenges that we are trying to tackle

can't be dealt with by individuals [sic] companies alone.

Captions 29-30, The British Monarchy - Global Sustainability

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You can finally live the life you always dreamt of.

Caption 10, Movie Trailers - Bruce Willis - Surrogates

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I meant what I wrote, shall we meet?

Caption 1, George Orwell's Nineteen Eighty-Four - BBC TV Movie

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The father of our nation ordered these words be read to the people.

Caption 84, Barack Obama's Inauguration Day - Obama's Speech

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In all of the cases above, the present tense verbs "deal," "dream," "mean," and "read" have the long "ee" sound like "reed", but change in the past and past participles to the short "e" sound like "red."

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Further Learning
Go back to the lessons for Irregular Verbs Part 1 and Part 2 and review some of the patterns that can help you learn English irregular verbs. Find examples of the verbs listed above in their past and past participle forms and learn them by searching for examples on Yabla English to see them used in a real-world context.