Office English / Negotiating

Sometimes at work, we need to be able to negotiate.

Voicenote clipsI guess the important thing is to be sure of what you actually want. So you don't wanna come away feeling that you've negotiated badly.

I find negotiating very awkward because my main instinct is to be polite and kind. So I find it quite difficult to be direct in what I want.

Today on Office English, we're talking about the language of negotiating.

Hello and welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English. I'm Phil.

And I'm Pippa. And in this podcast we discuss the business English that you can use to do well at work.

Today, we're talking about negotiations. This means discussions which we use to get what we want. So, for example, if we wanted to buy a car, we might negotiate with the sales person to get the best price.

OK, so do you ever negotiate at work, Phil.

Sometimes, yes, particularly when there's someone who we might need to do some work for us and we have to make sure that we get a good price for the department.

Yeah, so we tend to negotiate at work even if it's not a big part of our job. So, if you're a salesperson or you're dealing with customers a lot, you might have to negotiate all the time at work. But even if you don't, you might need to negotiate now and then when you're asking for a price for something.