Read Business English for Free Online Page B

problem?
    Bringing arguments / Argumentieren
On the one hand … On the other …
In addition …, furthermore …
Because of this / as a result of this …
Consequently / therefore …
However, I think that …
Generally speaking / in general we could say …
On the whole …
We should take into account the following …
Instead of increasing our production,
    I suggest …
Not only … but also …
There are two reasons for this.
    First … second …
This is due to …
    Offering solutions / Lösungen anbieten
One way to solve this problem would be …
We propose the following solution …
A possible solution would be …
I found a way to deal with this problem.
However, there's another alternative.
Another option would be to …
    Making forecasts / Prognosen stellen
What's the forecast for next year?
The long / short term forecast is …
The outlook is (not) very encouraging.
The prospects for next year are pretty good.
We expect this trend to continue.
Sales are expected to rise.
We see signs of growth.
    Declining interruptions / Unterbrechungen unterbinden
If I might just finish my sentence.
Perhaps we could return to that question later on.
If you would be so kind as to let me finish.
    I'll answer questions later on.
If you would allow me to finish off first.
I'll come back to you as soon as I've finished my talk.
There are two more points I'd like to mention before I answer your questions.
    Picking up the thread / Den Faden wieder aufnehmen
As I was saying …
Coming back to what I was trying to explain …
To return to my subject …
If we could just return to the topic …
If I could just continue …
This leads us back to what I was saying before …
    Grafiken und Diagramme
    Häufig ist es sinnvoll, Entwicklungen und Veränderungen mit Grafiken (graphs), Tabellen (tables) oder Diagrammen (charts /diagrams) zu veranschaulichen (siehe auch: „Technical facilities“, S. 45). Das Kreisdiagramm heißt pie chart; flow chart ist das Flussdiagramm, organisation chart nennt man im Englischen das Organigramm, bar chart ist das Balkendiagramm, das Piktogramm heißt auch im Englischen pictogram (siehe auch S. 85 f. „Vorsicht: Zahlen“).
    Example
    As you can see from this graph, profit increased only slightly between 1989 and 1990. The following year it plunged to just under $50 m owing to a change in management. After that there was a steady growth reaching a peak at 1994 followed by a steady fall until profits then levelled off at around $60 m for years.
Useful phrases
    Commenting diagrams / Diagramme kommentieren
Let's have a look at this graph / diagram.
The horizontal / vertical axis represents …
Production is indicated by a red line.
This solid line gives us …
The broken line shows …
The dotted line illustrates …
This curve here indicates …
With this pie chart I'd like to show you …
The shaded section represents …
The table in the middle gives us last year's sales figures.
The right-hand / left-hand column shows …
At the top / bottom you see …
    Upward trend / Aufwärtsgehender Trend
The number of … has grown / gone up / risen / increased / climbed.
Prices have jumped since …
There has been an enormous boom / upturn.
Market has picked up / recovered again.
Sales reached a peak in 1992.
It reached an all-time high.
    Downward trend / Abwärtsgehender Trend
Profits have declined / gone down / dropped / decreased / fallen.
Sales have slumped / plummeted.
We could almost speak of a recession.
There has been an enormous down turn in production.
Prices bottomed out.
We reached an all-time low.
    Continuing trend / Gleich bleibender Trend
Our sales figures have remained stable / steady.
Prices have been stable / unchanged for several years.
Profits held firm for two years.
    Adverbs of change / Adverbien der Veränderung
    barely, slightly
kaum, leicht
gradually / slowly but steadily
sanft / langsam, aber sicher
substantially, markedly;
    significantly, considerably
bedeutend
unexpectedly,