Business English

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, surprisingly
unerwartet, überraschend
suddenly, abruptly
plötzlich
dramatically, sharply
dramatisch, steil
    Contrast and comparison / Kontraste und Vergleiche
If we compare these figures, we see that …
Compared with last year, sales have increased by 5 %.
Although we invested a lot, sales figures fell.
Investment increased whereas sales dropped.
The higher the costs, the higher the price.
Investment was not as high as last year.
Despite the recession we managed to expand.
    Zum Abschluss kommen
    Nach der Zusammenfassung der wichtigsten Themen können Sie schließen, indem Sie Ihr Publikum zu Fragen auffordern. Formulierungen wie: If there are no questions I'd like to finish, halten die Zuhörer eher davon ab, noch Fragen zu stellen. Ermutigen Sie sie lieber: I presume (nehme an) you will have a lot of questions. Was anything unclear or did I forget anything important? I'm very curious (neugierig) to know what you think of this project.
    Manchmal wird nach einer Präsentation applaudiert, auf keinen Fall sollten Sie auf den Tisch klopfen, wie das in Deutschland üblich ist. In den meisten Ländern will man damit lediglich Aufmerksamkeit erreichen oder um Ruhe bitten.
    Example
    Mr Horst: Well, with this summary I would like to finish off my presentation. I hope I have been ableto convince you of the importance of our new project on the international market and would be happy to answer any questions that remained unanswered. For more detailed information you may call me at my office any time, as soon as I'm back in Germany. You'll find my phone number and E-mail address on the top right of the handout.
    Thank you very much for the attention.
Useful phrases
    Closing words / Abschließende Worte
I'd like to conclude by making the following statement.
Let me go through the main arguments again before finishing this presentation.
I hope it has become clear through this presentation …
I'd like to close off with the following suggestion …
To put it in a nutshell …
So, to summarize we could say that …
    Inviting questions / Fragen anregen
I'd now like to turn to the questions that you certainly have.
If you have any questions, I'd be happy to answer them now.
I'd welcome any questions or comments.
Please tell me if anything was unclear.
Any further questions?
    Difficult questions / Schwierige Fragen
I don't think I'm the right person to answer that question.
That is beyond my competence.
I'm afraid I don't have those figures here, but I could let you know later.
Let me pass this question to Mr Marks who is an expert on this matter.
Could we come back to that later?
    Dealing with criticism / Umgang mit Kritik
I quite see your point but still …
That's an interesting observation but we shouldn't forget …
I understand your criticism, but don't you think …?
I entirely agree with you. On the other hand …
Perhaps I should make myself clearer on this point.
It seems that you have misunderstood me there.
I don't think this is the place or time to discuss this.
    Closing the discussion / Die Diskussion abschließen
With this last question I'd like to finish this presentation.
I'm sorry to break off this interesting discussion but I think we're running out of time.
I think we should call it a day.
Thank you for your attention, ladies and gentlemen.
Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for sacrificing your valuable time.
Thank you very much for coming and I hope I've been able to inform you sufficiently.
    List of vocabulary
    abstentions
Enthaltungen
acknowledge;