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Unit 7: Career changes
Past perfect tense

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  1. 1Pop-ups
  2. 2Hidden talents
  3. 3Can't buy me love
  4. 4Travellers' tales
  5. 5The colleague from hell
  6. 6Jurassic mystery: unpacking the past
  7. 7Career changes
  8. 8Art
  9. 9Project management
  10. 10The dog ate my homework!
  11. 11The diary of a double agent
  12. 12Fashion forward
  13. 13Flat pack skyscrapers
  14. 14Extreme sports
  15. 15Food fads
  16. 16Me, my selfie and I
  17. 17Endangered animals
  18. 18A nip and a tuck: cosmetic surgery
  19. 19I'm really sorry...
  20. 20Telling stories
  21. 21Fakes and phrasals
  22. 22Looking to the future
  23. 23Becoming familiar with things
  24. 24From rags to riches
  25. 25Against the odds
  26. 26Our future on Mars?
  27. 27Where is it illegal to get a fish drunk?
  28. 28Dodgy dating
  29. 29Annoying advice
  30. 30I'll have been studying English for thirty weeks

Session 3

How do you prepare someone for disappointment? There's some apologising to do at the offices of Tip Top Trading. Find out why and learn some useful phrases.

Sessions in this unit

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Session 3 score

0 / 6

  • 0 / 0
    Activity 1
  • 0 / 6
    Activity 2
  1. Activity 1
  2. Activity 2

Activity 2

Your turn

Preparing someone for disappointment

How well do you know these expressions? In this activity you need to prepare people for bad news. What's the best way to let them know they're not going to get what they expected? Let's see if you can use the expressions from this session correctly.

Read the text and complete the activity

To do

You have to decide on the best option to complete the sentences. When selecting your answer, try to:

1. Make sure your answer fits the meaning of the sentence.

2. Make sure it matches the form introduced in this session.

3. Make sure your answer is polite, if appropriate.

Choosing the right thing to say

6 Questions

Choose the correct option to make a polite and accurate English sentence, using phrases from this session.

Congratulations you completed the Quiz
Excellent!Great job!Bad luck!You scored:
x / y

End of Session 3

That's all for Session 3. We hope you enjoyed hearing from the English at Work team and learnt some useful expressions about preparing someone for disappointment.

In Session 4 the topic is changing careers. Have you ever wanted to change yours? Learn some useful language and share your thoughts with us!

Session Grammar

  • Preparing someone for a disappointment: phrases and use of 'but'

    1. I'm really sorry to let you down + but... [explain the problem]

    Examples:

    I'm really sorry to let you down but someone obviously got their apples mixed up with their avocados.

    I'm really sorry to let you down but there was a mix-up with our paperwork.

    2. Sorry to disappoint you + but… [explain the problem or how you're going to solve it]:

    Sorry to disappoint you but we haven't got any more Awesome Apples in stock to send you.

    Sorry to disappoint you but I will do all I can to sort out the problem.

    How to explain why something went wrong:

    It's not how we planned it + but... [explain what has happened]

    Examples:

     It's not how we planned it but something has gone wrong.

     It's not how we planned it but there was a problem in our warehouse which we are now sorting out.

View full grammar reference

Session Vocabulary

View full vocabulary reference

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