English can be a difficult language to learn. One reason, which you’ve likely discovered, is that there are so many different ways to say something. It’s not just a variety of individual words, but also the variety of idioms. Idioms can be tricky. You might hear someone say “it’s a dog eat dog world” and wonder: why are they talking about dogs?
In fact, a “dog eat dog world” is not about dogs at all. This is an idiom that describes a tough competitive environment. Just like the business world in which you’re trying to learn English so you can compete. English is full of expressions like this. And it turns out that we have dozens of idioms related to animals.
In this lesson, we’ll rejoin a conversation among three colleagues in a large corporation. Ruby, Dylan and Kyle have been discussing the Chief Investment Officer position in their company, as well as the world of investments. In their conversation they use many idioms related to animals. See if you can spot some of these as we go through the dialog, and we’ll explain them later in the debrief.
Listening Questions
1. How does Dylan describe his investment advisor’s work habits?
2. What does Ruby say to communicate to her colleagues that she doesn’t have special information to share?
3. What does Dylan believe the company needs to do to prove they’re serious about IT transformation?
