Summary

Sales strategies are the set of actions carried out by companies to close a sale. They form the sales process, which is very important for a company because these strategies are the key to their success. The actions destined to introduce a product or service into the markets are called ‘marketing’. On the other hand, when a company has to buy a product or service, they place an order, which is a process with different steps whose objective is to select and buy the most appropriate product or service for the company’s needs. All companies must pay taxes on their commercial transactions. These taxes are called VAT and can be divided into ‘input taxes’, that is, the taxes paid on their purchases, and ‘output taxes’, the taxes they pay on their sales.

A company gives a lot of importance to finding the most appropriate employees, so the process of choosing the right candidates for a post within the company is very important. There are different methods to find employees, like internal recruitment, which in fact is an internal promotion, Internet recruiting or employee referral. Similarly, the process of finding a job is also very important for all those who want to work. This process includes the presentation of a curriculum vitae, a cover letter and an interview with the employer.

Companies do not only carry out their commercial transactions within their own countries. They very often invest in other countries, which means that they set up factories, hire workers and make business in other countries. Among these, the most attractive ones from the point of view of business are the emerging countries, where the salaries are lower and where there are large numbers of potential consumers. As a consequence, the benefits for the companies that invest in emerging countries are much bigger. Foreign investment also contributes to the economic development of emerging countries because it creates jobs and brings money in the form of taxes. Investment in emerging countries might also have some disadvantages, as in those countries the political situation tends to be quite unstable and sometimes it does not favour foreign investment.

Future tenses are obviously used to talk about the future. But we can conceive the future in different ways. For example, we can make a prediction or we can express a plan or an arrangement. The most general way of expressing the future is with the modal verb ‘will’, which is used to make predictions, among other things. To express plans or arrangements, we must use the expression ‘be going to’, where the auxiliary verb ‘be’ is conjugated in the present simple. Apart from these two forms, which are the most commonly used, we can also use the future continuous and the future perfect. On the other hand, the imperative form is used to give orders or commands, as, for example, when we say: ‘Stop!’.

Modals are a special type of verbs. From a syntactical point of view, they are very similar to auxiliary verbs because they also form the negative by adding ‘not’ to the verb and the interrogative by the inversion of subject and verb. Modal verbs always go together with another verb, which is expressed in the infinitive form (without ‘to’) ‘I must’ has no sense, but we can say ‘I must go’. Modal verbs do not express actions, but certain ideas like possibility, obligation, ability, advice, permission, etc. and are used to add these ideas to the meaning of the verbs that go with them. ‘Must’, ‘can’, ‘could’, ‘should’, ‘ought to’, ‘may’, ‘might’, ‘will’ and ‘should’ are modal verbs.

Conditional sentences are a type of complex sentences in which the subordinate clause expresses a condition. On the other hand, the main clause expresses the result in the case that condition becomes true. There are several types of conditional sentences depending on the type of condition expressed by the conditional clause. The types of conditional sentences are called: ‘zero conditional’, ‘first conditional’, ‘second conditional’ and ‘third conditional’. Syntactically, the four types are distinguished by the use of different verb tenses, but in all of them, the conditional clause is generally introduced by the conjunction ‘if’.

The prepositional system of English is sometimes difficult to understand because it does not follow fixed rules that can be applied to the use of the prepositions. This is especially evident in the case of the prepositions of time. We must learn which preposition goes with each expression of time. For example, we must know that we must use ‘at’ with clock times, ‘in’ with parts of the day and ‘on’ with days of the week. In the case of the prepositions of place, however, we can apply some logic to their use, although there are examples in which it might be difficult to choose the right prepositions. As usual, the best way of learning the correct use of prepositions is by frequent practice. In the expression of time, clock times and dates are very common expressions. Their structure is quite different from the structures of the Spanish language.

Pronouns are small words that are used to substitute or refer to nouns. Depending on their function, we can distinguish between personal pronouns (like ‘I’, ‘you’ or ‘he’), object pronouns (‘me’, ‘you’ or ‘him’) or possessive pronouns (‘mine’, ‘yours’ or ‘his’). A certain type of possessives are determiners, that is, they always go before a noun. Examples of this type of possessives are ‘my’, ‘your’ or ‘his’.

Telephone conversations are very common in our daily lives, and speaking on the phone is often our main task at work. The special characteristics of telephone conversations have given rise to the use of certain expressions and conventions which must be applied in that situation. For example, it is very common to answer the phone with ‘Hello’ if we are in an informal situation (for example, at home or on the mobile) and with the name of the company, or your own name, if you are at work. Obviously, telephone conversations follow the rules applied to spoken language.

In English there is a clear distinction between formal and informal language. This happens in many languages, but in English the separation between both styles of language is very clear and it is important to use the appropriate style in each situation. The differences between both styles are mostly lexical (for example, ‘Bye’ is informal and ‘Goodbye’ is more formal), but they also affect the spelling (in informal language, contractions are frequent, but in formal language, they are avoided). As a general rule, informal language is used with family and friends and formal language is used with unknown people. At work, informal language is used with colleagues and formal language with the managers. Both styles are used in spoken and the written language, but it is in written language where it is most evident. Formal language is widely used in business letters, whereas e-mails admit a greater liberty as far as language style is concerned.

Spoken language tends to be more informal, except in formal speeches. There are some rules that apply exclusively to spoken language, as the use of certain tags like ‘well’, ‘OK’, etc. In spoken language, some words tend to be merged into one and this is reflected in the written language whenever we reproduce an oral speech: ‘gimme’ (give me), ‘gonna’ (going to’), etc. Another characteristic of spoken language is that grammar rules are not as strict as in written language.

Listening is one of the four skills. It is usually described as an oral, passive skill. Passive because it only implies the understanding of a speech (the other passive skill is reading), oral because it is involved in spoken language (the other oral skill is speaking). The acquisition of listening skills implies training your ear to the sounds of the English language, and training requires practice rather than formal study. This means that the best way of learning listening skills is by listening to English as much as possible, if possible to native speakers.

A function refers to the practical use of the language. In our daily life we speak to fulfil different functions, like giving instructions, making a request or expressing an opinion.

Instructions are used to explain how something must be done, so we use instructions to explain how a device works, how to cook a dish or how to find a certain place, for example. To give instructions we normally use the imperative form of the verb. Therefore, this form is usually found in manuals, recipes and, in spoken language, in directions.

We make a request whenever we ask someone to do something for us. A request is, for example: ‘Could you come here, please?’ When making requests we can use different degrees of politeness depending on the situation. The most polite way is with the use of the expression ‘Would you mind …?’ (‘Would you mind coming here, please’); the most impolite, direct way of making a request is by using the imperative, which turns the request into a command (Come here!)

Expressing opinions is very common in our daily lives. The most common ways of expressing an opinion is by using the verb ‘I think that…’, but there are many other ways. Responding to an opinion implies agreeing or disagreeing with the other’s opinion. We can agree or disagree in different ways, but the most obvious form is using the verbs ‘agree’ or ‘disagree’.