Comparing and contrasting

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From the course by The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Business English: Basics

278 ratings

The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Business English: Basics

278 ratings

Course 1 of 5 in the Specialization Business English for Non-Native Speakers

This course aims to improve your Business English language skills by developing your vocabulary and reading skills and your understanding of tone, style and knowledge of communication methods. We'll also cover how these language skills can enhance audience analysis, business case analysis and basic business communication strategies. Skills learned in this course will often be referred to and needed to complete the speaking, writing and cross-cultural communications courses of this Specialization. After completing this course, you will be able to: - describe things and events in the context of Business English - make requests in the context of Business English - support arguments in the context of Business English - use appropriate tone and style according to the context of Business English - conduct an audience analysis - match audience with the purpose and medium of communication - analyse and summarise business data

From the lesson

Genres and styles

Welcome to Week 3! This week we will cover Module 3 where we will introduce you to common styles of English you will use for different spoken and written situations in general business situations. You will also be introduced to vocabulary and language skills common to business communications.

Comparing and contrasting8:11

Role play: comparing and contrasting2:23

Challenging grammar: concern3:46

Meet the Instructors

Kin Tang
Instructor
Center for Language Education
Delian Gaskell
Instructor
Center for Language Education
Sean McMinn
Senior Instructor
Center for Language Education

And welcome to this video about comparing and contrasting.

Now let's assume that you've been given the task of marketing this product.

It's a soda soft drink.

And you'll need to compare it and contrast it to that of your competitor's.

Just how might you do that?

What kind of language would you use that will best show the similarities,

but also promote the differences and make your product seem a lot better?

Well, by the end of this video you'll be able to compare and

contrast ideas within a business context.

And you'll also be able to be precise when comparing and contrasting ideas.

Before we get into some specific examples,

let's begin with very basic rules for comparing and contrasting.

We'll go through these quickly, but let's look at rule number one.

Adjectives with just one syllable form the comparative by adding er.

So, if you have a word like bright, it becomes brighter.

Clear becomes clearer.

Rule number two.

All adjectives of three or more syllables form the comparative with more.

So if it's comfortable, it's more comfortable.

Typical becomes more typical.

And then let's go on to rule number three.

Most adjectives of two syllables form the comparative with more.

Thankful becomes more thankful.

Famous.

More famous.

For rule number four, some adjectives of

the two syllable form the comparative with er.

So happy becomes happier.

Easy becomes easier.

Simple becomes simpler.

Rule number five.

Some comparative adjectives are irregular.

Good becomes better.

Little becomes less, then becomes least.

Now one of the things that a lot of people struggle with,

is completing their comparisons or their contrasts.

Quite often, I'll see phrases like, this company has a better marketing strategy.

Then I think better than what?

It's not a complete thought.

You need to be precise.

You need to be accurate with what you're comparing.

So a better version of this would be,

this company has a better marketing strategy than that of its competitors.

Well, what's the difference between comparing and contrasting?

Well, if you're comparing, you're usually talking about something that's similar.

You detect or comment on the likeness of two or more things.

So, let's go back to our soft drink analogy.

We have a soft drink that we want to market and how would we compare it?

Well, we could say how we marketed our soft drink in 2015 is

comparable in success to our marketing strategies in 2014.

So there we're commenting on the similarities

of our marketing strategies of the soft drink.

But perhaps we want to talk about the differences.

Well, that's contrasting.

This is where we detect a comment on the differences of two or more things.

Let's go back to our comparisons again of our soft drink, and

talk about the contrast with another soft drink.

Our soft drink is not as expensive as our competitor's, so this would be a contrast.

We're commenting on the differences.

We can also talk about the degree when we're talking about contrast.

You can comment on the difference in degree.

Something can be better or worse, for example.

So, let's go back to our contrasting between two different soft drinks.

We can say, our soft drink is tastier than our competitor's.

Again, the most important thing is you want to be

precise when you're comparing and contrasting.

So let's look at a very specific example.

Let's look at our soft drink.

Our soft drink is, we can think of different ways of comparing or

contrasting, our soft drink is considerably, or

our soft drink is a great deal, or our soft drink is somewhat, and

notice we're going over different degrees here, or our soft drink is slightly.

Next, we might think of it slightly better or tastier or

less expensive than our competitor's.

So if we choose a sentence out of this combination,

you could have something like this.

Our soft drink is a great deal tastier than our competitor's.

You'll want to avoid phrases like more and more and less and less.

This is what I would

call an amateur way of describing and comparing and contrasting.

It's quite common.

I see this by nominating speakers.

So, Instead of saying our marketing strategies have become more and

more effective over the years, which is not that specific, it would be better to

say our marketing strategies have become increasingly effective over the years.

And that gives you more of an understanding that it's getting better

increasingly over a duration of time.

When you turn off similarities,

differences and degree, you wanna think about what purpose does each serve.

Well, that will depend on whether you're writing proposals, reports,

whether you're in the middle of negotiations, or

you're making a presentation, or you're trying to pitch an idea or a product.

Later on in this course, we'll talk about some of these different types of

communication methods and genres.

And you'll need to probably do some sort of contrasting or comparison within these.

Let's look at a example for similarities.

Both local and

overseas customers are satisfied with the taste of our soft drink.

This might be an example that would appear in a report.

The response of local and

overseas customers to the taste of our soft drink are.

And they can continue on, again, of report.

We could've continue on by saying, the responses of local and

overseas customers to the taste of our soft drink are more or less the same.

If we're talking about differences an example would be is

it appears that local customers are far more satisfied with the taste of our

soft drink than overseas customers.

We could reword it and say, Unlike overseas customers,

local customers are quite satisfied with the taste of our soft drink.

So a lot depends on what you wanna focus on, which points you wanna focus on.

Basically, when you are comparing and contrasting,

you need to think about what type of genre you're writing in or speaking in.

You need to think of your audience, you need to think of the purpose, and

you need to be as specific as you can.

So now you should have a basic understanding of how to compare and

contrast ideas within a business context.

And you should have a basic understanding of how to be precise when you're comparing

and contrasting ideas.

Thank you.

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