BE 341: Do Phrasal Verbs Jump Out At You?
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This is the Business English Podcast, episode 341. Do phrasal verbs jump out at you?

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 hosts, Lindsay and Aubrey, coming to you from Arizona and Colorado, USA. Welcome to the Business English podcast from All Ears English.

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when you visit buyatoyota.com. That's B-U-Y-A-T-O-Y-O-T-A.com. Toyota, let's go places. Aubrey, I have a question for you today. Okay, let's hear it. All right. So what is something that if you were able to do it, you'd jump at the chance? Oh, good question. I think go on a cruise. I've been wanting to do a cruise with my family. And if I found like a cheap one, a

fun one, I would jump at the chance to go on a cruise. That's cool. Good family time, right? Yes. Right. I kind of love it. We've only done a cruise one time. Have you ever been on a cruise, Lindsay? I've never been on a cruise. Yeah. It was so relaxing. Like I never had to cook, right? Food's taken care of. There were activities for everyone. It's kind of the ideal mom vacation.

Yeah, I bet. Everyone's entertained. Sure. Sure. You don't have to be planning everything, the whole itinerary. It's all done for you. Right? Exactly. Right. And they just drop us really interesting places where we can go see something cool. Yeah, it's ideal. That's awesome. That's awesome. I think I'd probably jump at the chance to go

like hiking in Tibet or Nepal or something, you know, India do that. That would be, I would love to do that as well, but I would not bring my children with me. Yeah, no, leave them behind. That's not the family adventure, but that does sound amazing. Well, we are using this interesting phrasal verb,

with these questions to jump at something. We recently recorded an episode on All Ears English 2309, jump from B2 to C1 with these phrasal verbs. And we promised a follow-up here on Business English with phrasal verbs with jump that we use at work a lot.

Mm-hmm. Totally. I am excited. Guys, hit the follow button because we do sometimes do these little series, right? And you don't want to miss out on episodes that are dropping five days a week, well, three days a week on the Business English Podcast. And five days a week over on All Ears English. So hit follow on both because often it makes sense for us to do a series with related vocab more for daily conversations over on All Ears English and then how we use it in Business English at Work here on the Business English Podcast.

Yeah, you got it. So we are going to get into this today, Aubrey. What are the three expressions that we're going to teach on the podcast today and how they relate to business? Yeah, we're talking about jump at, jump out at, and jump on. So we use these all the time in Business English. I'm excited for you guys to be able to add them to your conversations. All right. So let's start with number one, which is jump at.

which this means to accept an opportunity with eagerness, right? An opportunity or an offer. You would take it if someone offers it to you, right? Exactly, right? This is one we're using at the top. I would jump at the chance to go on a cruise. You might say, I jumped at the offer to work for this company. So that's like if you're given an offer, if you are eager to accept it, it's not like, oh,

okay, maybe, and you're on the fence, this means you're eager to do it. Yes, 100%. Or if I were invited to attend the upcoming conference, I'd jump at the chance.

This does add a lot more color than just saying, I take it. Right? Very different. Yeah, this is important. If your supervisor were to ask you, would you like to go to that conference? Would you like this opportunity? The language you use can really convey a lot about how excited you are, how eager you are. This is a great phrase to show that you are ready and willing.

100%. All right. So then jump out at is a little bit different, though. We can't interchange these. No, exactly, which is kind of tricky because they both have jump at there. But if you add out, jump out at means to be really noticeable or striking. Yeah.

Yes. So a lot of times companies will think about this when they build their logos, their colors. I'm pretty sure that our yellow, our bright yellow jumps out at people when they type in learn English, right? For example, that logo really jumped out at me. Okay. That just meant it was really striking. Something about it was really eye-catching. It jumped out at you, which I kind of love this. It's personification to give it the ability to jump out at

like an animal jumping off the page out at you. That's really fun. Right, jumping off the screen. Yeah, yeah, I love that. What jumps out at you? So you might say this, if you're, I don't know, you're looking at a design and you're asking someone else for their opinion.

Yeah, this is an interesting way to ask that, right? If you give something and say, you know, what are your initial thoughts? What jumps out at you? It's like, what do you notice first? Yeah, exactly. And that's important. What do you notice first? What is the most obvious thing? What's your first thought?

First impression. Yes, exactly. And this is such a native natural way to use this phrasal verb instead of saying what is noticeable, what is striking, right? To say what jumps out at you. And our third one for today, we're just rolling through these today, Aubrey, for our listeners.

Jump on or get a jump on, right? So what does this mean? Does this mean to kind of get ahead? Yeah, it means like to start a project or a process early in order to have some kind of advantage or maybe get it done earlier, right? So we might say jump on, like we heard this client is looking for new representation. So we need to jump on this right away. It means we need to take action.

Yes. Yeah. A good example of this is this week we had a big project where we had to organize our courses into an outline. And I saw this coming and I thought, oh my gosh, this is going to be intense. We have a very aggressive timeline.

Four courses in one week. And I got a jump on it last Friday by getting things organized. Nice. And getting, you know, getting started on things. Yeah, and we probably all used this phrasal verb when I got the email from Jessica. I was like, hey, I got to jump on this right away if I'm going to get done by five or whatever, right? It's like, I got to get started right away. Mm-hmm.

Exactly, exactly. So our listeners are going to find this a lot of times in their daily lives when they're when they have a lot of work to do. But we have to prioritize and that that one most important thing we have to jump on it. Right? Exactly. And we say this two different ways. We'll also use a little bit longer chunk to say get a jump on something has the same meaning you might say, let's get a jump on this month's designs so we can submit them early. It means the same thing. We just need to get started early.

Exactly. All right. Any other examples there? Do we want to go through or no? We're good to go. Yeah. Well, the one other thing I want to share is we also use jump on a lot talking about starting a call. Let's jump on a call. We'll also say let's hop on a call. So this is that same phrasal verb in a different way. That means like let's join a call together.

Yes. So not getting confused there, right? The meaning is a bit different. It's quite different. It's very different. It's crazy because it's the same words, same phrasal verb with a very different meaning. So we use it to mean to get something started early. And then we also use it just to mean like, let's get on a call. Let's start a call because it's really weird. How else would you even say that? Let's jump on a call. Yeah.

Yeah, I don't know how you would start a call. That's how we all say it. We always say, let's hop on a call or let's jump on a call. It's bringing casual language to try to be connected with your colleagues, right? Bringing casual language to the workplace. I love it. So good.

The national sales event is on at your Toyota dealer, making now the perfect time to get a great deal on a dependable new car, like a legendary Camry built for performance and available with all wheel drive. You can count on your new Camry to get anywhere you need to go.

And with available features like heated seats and a multimedia touchscreen, you can stay connected in comfort and style. Or check out an affordable and reliable Corolla with a trim for every lifestyle. From the hip and agile sedan to the sporty hatchback, there's a dependable Corolla built just for you.

Plus, both Camrys and Corollas are available in hybrid models. So no matter your style, you can drive efficiently and affordably. So visit your local Toyota dealer and check out amazing national sales event deals on Camrys, Corollas, and more when you visit buyatoyota.com. Toyota, let's go places.

All right, Aubrey, let's give our listeners a role play. So here you work for a marketing agency and I'm your client. Okay, let's do it.

We're so excited to work with you. We've heard great things, so we jumped at the chance. Thank you. I wanted to get a jump on this, so I took the liberty of mocking up some designs. Take a look at these and see if anything jumps out at you. Ooh, I love this one. That's the one for sure. Great. I'll get a jump on this and send you a design for approval by the end of the week. Oh, but we're always so easy to work with designers. In an ideal world, that's how every conversation would go. Yeah.

Not that easy. This one's perfect. Let's do it. Yes. Amazing. Okay. Project done. Boom. Yep. All right. So here I started by saying, we're excited to work with you. We've heard great things. So we jumped at the chance. And that was the question at the top of the show, right? We took advantage. We took the opportunity as soon as we had it.

Exactly, right? This is such a positive, encouraging thing to say to someone. I love this. To be like, we're excited to work with you. We jumped at the chance. Exactly. And then what did you say, Aubrey? And then I was like, thanks. I wanted to get a jump on this, which means like I wanted to get started early. I wanted to get ahead.

So I took the liberty. This is an interesting phrase. So I went ahead and mocked up. I knew you wouldn't have a problem with it, but we still use this phrase. I took the liberty of doing this, meaning I did something without asking, but usually it means something that you knew would be approved if you did ask.

That's a good one. A good little bonus for today. I took the liberty to do something or of doing something. Mostly, usually you say of, right? I took the liberty of I-N-G. Of doing this. Yeah. Interesting. Yeah. Okay. And then I said, great, I'll get a jump on this and send you a design for approval by the end of the week. And it means I'll get a head start.

Right. I'm going to start right away. And that's in the category of the anecdote I shared about our project this week. Right. I'll get ahead of things. Yes. Yeah. And then I last said, you know, see if anything jumps out at you. That would be meaning I'm going to show you some things and see what you like the most, what jumps out at you.

Excellent. All right. Anything else we need to know here, Aubrey? Okay. There's the last one bumped to the next page here. I said, I'll get a jump on this. Yeah. Just like you said. Oh, you had moved to that one. Oh, yeah. Yeah. I jumped ahead, Aubrey. Gotcha. I jumped ahead and skipped one accidentally. So much jumping.

Phrasal verbs are jumping and we're jumping ahead in our notes. We're a Friday afternoon. What else do we want? Well, we do have a part three coming up right here on Business English. So be sure to hit follow with some fun idioms with jump, like jump the gun, jump through hoops, jump to conclusions. We use a lot of these at work as well. There are a lot of idiomatic phrases with jump. So hit follow and we'll have an episode about that soon. Yeah, I'm excited for that one to close the loop on this because you're right. It does show up a lot.

a lot, a lot, a lot when it comes to business English. So, Amri, what's the takeaway for our listeners today? Yeah, well, it's also interesting to think about it's a really good connection skill to talk about opportunities or offers that you've jumped at or ask them, you know, what opportunities or offers you've jumped at or like the question Lindsay asked me, right? What is something if it were to happen, you would jump at the chance? What a fun way to start a conversation.

Yes, absolutely. And anytime you get a good opportunity, guys, just jump on it, you know, go for it, reply to that email, you know, just capture it if you can, because opportunities don't come around every day. Right, Aubrey? Absolutely. And right, use these phrasal verbs at work. You're going to start hearing them all the time if you haven't. Use them to sound more natural in business English. Sounds good. Aubrey, you have a good day. I'll talk to you soon. You too. See you next time. Bye. Bye.

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