BE 476: Mastering Business English? Way to Go!

This is the Business English Podcast, episode 476. Mastering Business English, way to go. Welcome to the Business English Podcast from all ears English. Get the English skills you need to achieve your dreams in global business. For a presentation, a meeting, or your office party, this is Real Business English. With your favorite American host, Lindsay and Aubrey coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. Picture this, you're part of the conversation. Someone jumps in with a fast comment. Everyone reacts, but you're left behind, still processing the words. It's not that you don't understand English. It's that real conversations don't slow down for you. Slang, speed, tone, it all stacks up fast. The good news, these are trainable skills if you know your English level and what to do to move up. Start by taking our free two-minute fluency quiz to find out exactly what your level is now. Go to allersenglish.com/fluencyscore. That's allersenglish.com/F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. Hey, Aubrey. How's it going? I'm great. How are you, Lindsay? Good. What are we getting into on the show today? Well, I have a question. What is the last goal you accomplished? Wow. So fourth of July weekend, I ran a 5K, but it wasn't just an ordinary 5K. My goal was to complete the 5K, but we were at 10,000 feet above sea level. So we're in Boinevista, Colorado, which is just a town in Southern Colorado, and it's not the same thing, Aubrey, as running at sea level. Oh, well, way to go. That's an amazing goal. I have tried to run at high altitudes, and it is no joke. You just can't catch your breath. I'm happy to walk way more often. It's difficult. But the good news is, if you live at altitude, then you go to a place like Boston to sea level. Running is so easy. It's like, this is so easy, you know, it's true. But if you go from sea level to high altitudes, you really struggle. It's so hard. It's so hard. So you said way to go. That's interesting. That's one way we could commend someone, right? This is such a great connection episode today, because when your colleagues, the people you work with, are successful at something. When they share a goal accomplished, you want to be able to say something that congratulates them, that recognizes that we're going to share a few really good ways to do that today. We got a great question about this, about how to use way to go. All right, let's do it. So here's the question from Julia. Hi, this is Julia. I just wanted to say thank you. I love your podcast so much. I came, okay, that's great. First of all, thank you, Julia. Yes, thank you. We love that you love the show. Excellent. Here's the question. I came across the phrase way to go recently, and I was wondering if you could teach us how to use it in a conversation. Thank you so much, warmly, Julia. And I like that way of ending a letter. By the way, warmly is really nice, I think. I do too. I agree. You maybe wouldn't use this for like clients who don't know, people you don't know. But if any co-workers, people you do know, this is a really, it is nice warmly. It's a good one. Yeah, maybe we'll cover that another day, how to end an email or a letter or something. Absolutely. Okay, let's dive first into way to go. We're sharing five, no, four total of great ways, really four, five, six, because three are really similar ways that you can congratulate a co-worker, and we're also going to share a couple of ways that are outdated, right, that you may have heard in older TV shows, but you wouldn't want to use that work now. Yeah, because we need to know what's modern, what's older, what is the connotation of what we're saying. That's the level that our listeners are at here, right? Exactly. Yeah, so it's first dive into way to go. This is similar to saying well done or good job. It's used to express approval, congratulations, or encouragement when someone has done something well, a little more emphatic, right? Yeah, way to go. It's usually about bigger things. Yes, here's a quick roleplay here for us. I'll start us. Hey, I just found out my proposal got approved by the board. That's amazing. Way to go. Thank you. I was nervous about it, but I'm really glad that all that time paid off. Yes, okay. Yeah, and I like that one. It's straightforward. It's not outdated. It works, right? Yeah, it really works. And it is interesting to think about the connection here. If you just responded, that's nice, or that's great. Not only would I maybe feel awkward, not congratulated, there could be an assumption that who knows your MVS, your jealous, you're not happy for me. The way we respond when someone shares that they've accomplished a goal, something exciting, they're sort of vulnerable to kind of brag on yourself a little bit, share something, an accomplishment, and the way someone responds is huge. Yeah, you want to show people that you are someone that they can come to when they've had a certain accomplishment and you're not going to be jealous or feel bad or something or make them feel bad. You're going to support them. That's connection. That's how you build these great relationships at work. Absolutely, because this is exciting, right? And if you have co-workers, you know well, you have connections, you trust, you want to be able to share it and know that they're going to be excited for you. Exactly. And that's why we recommend the next one is nice going. Also a good one. Yes. Also a good one. So for example, I finally fixed the bug that was crashing the app. Awesome. That thing's been driving me crazy. Nice going. Thanks. Let me know if you notice any other issues. Technology is always pushing our buttons and causing us to stretch here, but it's good if we have a little win, we can celebrate it together. Absolutely, right? If ever there's something that's been bugging everyone and one person fixes it, I think we would all be excited. Way to go. Nice going. Yes. Yes. And then the next one is probably ones that our listeners have heard. Good job. Great job. What else, Aubrey? Nice job. Awesome job. All of these very synonymous or great work. Good work. Nice work. So there are so many options. You wouldn't want to use the same one over and over and over. You want to switch these up. Yeah, but these are everywhere. These are very common place. Yeah, we'll do a little roleplay here too. My presentation went really well, I think. Great job. You spent a lot of time working on it. So I had a feeling you'd knock it out of the park. Yeah. And it's also interesting to think about looking at these roleplays. We're not just saying great job. Nice going. Way to go. We're adding something else because if you do just stop there and don't share something a little more like, you know, recognizing their hard work or whatever it else is that we're saying, it still might show a lack of care. Oh, totally. You need to supplement it. And we talk about this a lot in the show. What else can you say to add that you were paying attention that you were tracking their progress maybe and that you're proud of them. You're excited for them. Exactly, right? Share that you were listening when they first told you what the struggle was about it. If it was a lack of time, the stress, right? If you say, oh, I know you were stressed about blank and share. So they see you listen to cared. Yes, I love it. All right. And then there's another set of phrases that we've talked about. I think a few times on the show, Aubrey. But we like these ones. You killed it. You crushed it. You rocked it. Exactly, right? They're all kind of similar, but you can use any of these. So let's do a little role play here. I just finished the final round of interviews. I feel good about it. I bet you crushed it. I'm sure they'll offer you the job. Nice. Love that. And I like to say this is I'm sure you did well, right? I bet you killed it. It means I'm sure you did well. And you can also, you know, use this to refer to how things went on your end. Like if someone says, how the interview go, you could say, if you're feeling really confident yourself, you could say, crushed it, crushed it. I crushed it. As in, does that make sense? Yeah, absolutely. And I agree. I think you can drop the eye. It will be like, killed, nailed it, crushed it, crushed it, killed it. Yeah. We use all of those. I mean, like, I think I did well. Yeah. And there's nothing wrong with that. There's nothing wrong with feeling confident about the work you've done. Now, there are some outdated ones, though, right? That we want to probably stay away from. Yes. Exactly. You might hear these on older TV shows or maybe see these in like a textbook about business English, but we don't use them anymore. The first one is Kudos. Yeah. Back in the day, they would say this to mean like, congratulations. Oh, Kudos. Kudos to you. We don't hear this anymore. It would sound really outdated if someone said this. Isn't it also a candy bar? Or am I thinking of it? It was like a Grudolabar. But I feel like those have been discontinued as well. I think it's definitely off the market now. I haven't seen it in ages. So both the phrase and the candy bar are off the market. So exactly. And then props to you. This one I feel like was really hot when I was in high school or college or something in the 90s. Yeah. I would say props or props to you, but I don't hear this anymore at all to you. No. And I also don't even know what props was short. Was it supposed to mean? Yeah. Proposition. I don't know. I don't know. I don't know if it was short or anything props. So does that mean props? I don't know. No idea. So that one's dead too. So don't use those. Those are old. Go with the ones we talked about today. Awesome. Okay. Roll play time. Aubrey here. We are. I am so I'm a team lead and I'm sharing client feedback with the team. All right. So team meeting time. All right. All right. Team. We just got the clients feedback on the proposal. They loved it and want to move forward. That's amazing news. Way to go everyone. Shout out to Aubrey for pulling that data together so fast. Nice going. Thanks. Glad it helped. And Marie killed it with that presentation too. The visuals were spot on. Awesome job team. Let's keep this momentum going. Nice. Yes. We got a few of them here. But yeah, this is so important at work. If we don't acknowledge wins and congratulate people when it's due, they might feel like why am I trying so hard? Should I be bothering if no one really cares? Yes. 100%. So this is a real management skill. Also, it's just a skill for anyone in the workplace because we're also congratulating our peers. Absolutely. Next door, right? And the cubicle next to us, they also need our support. So it needs to come from all directions. Absolutely. Exactly. So if we go through this, you first said, way to go everyone. You're sharing this amazing news. We're celebrating a team win and you're acknowledging everyone played a part. And this is a great phrase for that way to go. Way to go, everyone. And then at the end, I also added on and you can never do too much of this. I don't think I added on nice going. I specifically called out you, Aubrey, for pulling data together. And then I said nice going. So that one was for you specifically. Yes. And this is if you think, you know, it's like way to go everyone. And then Aubrey, especially did this, you could just leave it at that. But we do stack them this way, right? Give someone a specific shout out. Nice going. Well done, specifically to one person that you're acknowledging. Absolutely. And then what else did you say, Aubrey? I said, and Marie killed it with that presentation. I could have said crushed it, rocked it, nailed it. All of these means she did a great job. Yes. And then I said, awesome job team. And I could have said, great job, amazing job, nice job. There's a lot we could have said that we went through earlier. Exactly. And we do want to switch it up, right? You don't want to be saying the same one over and over. It feels robotic, right? You want to switch it up. Don't be the awesome job person, right? Don't get a label. Always say it's awesome job. Just an episode of it's what she always says. It feels like it could be an episode of the office or something, right? Totally. Totally. All right, Aubrey, what's another episode we could go for? Yeah. Don't miss 471 soon versus quickly in English. What's the difference? This was a great episode. Scroll up if you missed it. Yeah. And just as a takeaway today, this is connection right here. I mean, you could spend hours memorizing the dictionary. It's not going to get you any closer to good relationships than doing this, right? Sitting and understanding what are the key words that I can deploy to build relationships and create team morale. Exactly, right? You want to congratulate coworkers for a job well done. And you also don't want to use outdated phrases. So if you are reading that dictionary or old textbooks, you might learn kudos and props and these words that we don't use anymore. Yes, stay relevant, right? Stay modern. That's what we can do for you over here on the podcast. So guys, hit follow right there on business English and come back for the next episode coming out very soon. All right. Awesome. I'll see you next time, Lindsay. All right, take care, Aubrey. Have a good day. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional. 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