Business English- Problems with Too & Not Enough Presentation and Practice

Problems with too and not enough presentation and practice

Take turns asking each other for advice on problems from below, reacting to the recommendations that you get.

Useful language for asking for advice “My/ Our problem is…” “What do you think I/ we should do?”/ “What’s the best solution?”/ “How can I/ we solve this problem, do you think?”/ “What’s your advice?”

 

1. The working hours are too inflexible for working mothers’ lives.
2. You are too stressed to be polite to everyone.
3. It’s too difficult to work out which urgent requests are really urgent.
4. The office isn’t quiet enough to be able to concentrate on your work.
5. The office is too dark.
6. The office is too far from the station.
7. The meeting room isn’t big enough for regular meetings.
8. The Wi-Fi in the office isn’t fast enough for video conferencing.
9. The boss’s English emails are too difficult to understand.
10. The company’s website isn’t interesting enough.
11. People finish too late to take the last train home.
12. Lunchtime isn’t long enough to be able to get to a local restaurant, queue for a table, eat, and get back to your desk in time.
13. Your products are too expensive but your costs are rising.
14. The office door is too narrow to get the new desks through.
15. Customers tell you too late that they want to change their orders.
16. The office is too hot in summer and is too cold in winter.
17. The top shelves are too high for some people to reach and it’s too dangerous to stand on something to reach.
18. The company laptops are too heavy to take out of the office but they aren’t old enough to throw away.

 

Useful language for giving advice “You (really) should…” “I (would) recommend…” “My (main) recommendation is to…”

 

Useful language for reacting to advice “That’s a good idea.”/ “I’ll try that.”/ “I’ll do that.” “Are you sure that’s a good idea?”/ “I’m not so sure that will work.”/ “Do you have any other ideas?”

 

The sentences below all have the same meanings as the sentences above but different wording. From memory or your language knowledge, try to put them back into their original forms, making sure that you don’t change the meaning.

1. The working hours aren’t flexible enough for working mothers’ lives.

 

2. You aren’t relaxed enough to be polite to everyone.

 

3. It isn’t easy enough to work out which urgent requests are really urgent.

 

4. The office is too noisy to be able to concentrate on your work.

 

5. The office isn’t light enough.

 

6. The office isn’t close enough (= near enough) to the station.

 

7. The meeting room is too small for regular meetings.

 

8. The Wi-Fi in the office is too slow for video conferencing.

 

9. The boss’s English emails aren’t easy enough to understand.

 

10. The company’s website is too boring.

 

11. People don’t finish early enough to take the last train home.

 

12. Lunchtime is too short to be able to get to a local restaurant, queue for a table, eat, and get back to your desk in time.

 

13. Your products aren’t cheap enough but your costs are rising.

 

14. The office door isn’t wide enough to get the new desks through.

 

15. Customers don’t tell you early enough that they want to change their orders.

 

16. The office isn’t cool enough in summer and isn’t warm enough in winter.

 

17. The top shelves aren’t low enough for some people to reach and it isn’t safe enough to stand on something to reach.

 

18. The company laptops aren’t light enough to take out of the office but they are too new to throw away.

 

Check your answers on the previous page.

Do the same with the previous page, trying to convert those sentences into the ones on this page.

Make other problems with “too” and “not enough” for your partner to give advice on, with sentences like “I have a problem. The issue is that… What do you think I should do?”

Possible topics:

• Complaints
• Co-workers (= colleagues)
• English at work
• Getting a promotion
• Improving your English
• Information
• Meeting people
• Meetings
• Money
• Negotiations
• Networking
• Office
• Overtime
• Paperwork
• Sales
• Telephoning
• Travel
• Work
• Work-life balance