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Business EnglishIntermediate

Financial English

Eleven lessons on the English of money: saying figures out loud, reading statements, and talking about results without promising too much

Financial English

About this course

A language course for people who already work with money and now have to do it in English: an accountant on an international team, a financial analyst, a founder talking to investors, a manager who signs off a budget. It does not teach finance and it gives no financial advice. It teaches how finance is spoken and written in English, and that is a separate skill, because a figure that is read wrong or a verb that promises too much costs more than a wrong tense ever will.

The course starts where mistakes are most expensive: the separators. In English 1,500 is a thousand five hundred and 1.5 is one and a half, and that single habit breaks quotations, invoices and emails every week. From there it moves to the statements and what their lines are called, to the false friends that look like one word in Russian and are four in English — profit, revenue, income, earnings; cost, expense, charge, fee — to the British and American pairs for one and the same thing, and to the language of change, where increased by 20% and increased to 20% are two different facts. The last module is the money you ask for and the money you chase: budgets, business cases, funding rounds, invoices and overdue payment. Eight lessons contain a full dialogue you can listen to and read. After each module there is a test, and a final test at the end. Level B1-B2.

Course curriculum

  1. Numbers and money out loud

    Separators, decimals, k, M and bn, fractions, percentages, ranges, and how figures are dictated on the phone.

    • 1.Commas, points and the amounts you say out loud14 min
    • 2.Thousands, millions, billions: k, M and bn13 min
    • 3.Fractions, percentages, ranges and figures over the phone15 min

  2. The statements and what their lines are called

    The three statements, where each figure sits, the four words for profit, the four words for cost, and the British and American names for one and the same thing.

    • 1.The three statements and where the numbers sit16 min
    • 2.Profit, revenue, income, earnings — and cost, expense, charge, fee16 min
    • 3.Two Englishes: British and American financial terms14 min

  3. Talking about results

    Growth and decline, comparison with plan and with last year, variances, forecasts, hedging, and bad news that does not start a panic.

    • 1.Up, down and flat: the language of change15 min
    • 2.Against plan and against last year: variances15 min
    • 3.Careful wording: forecasts, hedging and bad news16 min

  4. Budgets, investment and deals

    The budget cycle, asking for money and justifying it, funding rounds and deal terms, invoices, overdue payment, and the vocabulary of taxes and fees.

    • 1.The budget cycle and asking for money17 min
    • 2.Deals, invoices and getting paid18 min