Business English vocabulary: perk

Posted on September 4, 2006
Filed under 2-minute English, Business English, Listening, Upper intermediate, Vocabulary | 9 Comments

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Transcript

Welcome to 2-minute English! Today’s word is perk.

One of the perks of my job as a salesperson is that I get to travel around the world.

Perk.
Meaning

In business contexts, a perk is an informal advantage or benefit that you get because of your job. In everyday English contexts, a perk is some kind of advantage or benefit in general.


Authentic example

We have two authentic examples for you today. The first is from CNN, from an article describing how a company gives its employees free towels to use in the company gym. The benefit, the perk, is that the employees save time and energy.

As the economy rebounds and the labor market tightens up … companies are once again trying to find new ways to attract and retain talent. And time-saving perks seem to be the answer.

Here is the second authentic example, about perks in everyday English. It’s also from CNN.

Bourbon, Spam and ski weekends are just some of the things you can get free or at discounted prices as long as you’re a shareholder. Shareholder perks are a pleasant, if monetarily insignificant, diversion from the normal headaches of owning most stocks. Unknown to many shareholders, they are sometimes eligible to receive free or discounted goods and services from the companies whose stock they own…While none of [the] perks are good enough reason to buy a company’s stock, they do spice things up a little.

Thanks for tuning in to 2-minute English. Don’t forget to contact us with your comments and questions! Write to [ADDRESS]. Bye for now!

Look up perk in the dictionary.

See how perk is used.

9 Comments

Comments

9 Responses to “Business English vocabulary: perk”

  1. RisingSunofNihon says:
    September 4, 2006 at 23:47

    I just wanted to say that I think your site is great! I’ve done a lot of ESL/EFL work in the past and I know how important it is to get “real world” examples of these words, idioms, and phrases. Keep up the good work!

  2. Lori says:
    September 5, 2006 at 06:42

    Thanks very much; we really appreciate the kind words!

  3. Alfred says:
    December 28, 2006 at 11:11

    Dear Lori
    Shouldn’t it be “2-minute English”? See Lynne Truss “Eats(,) shoots and leaves” . an excellent and entertaining book on punctuation.
    Thanks for an excellent site.
    Alfred

  4. Lori says:
    December 28, 2006 at 12:56

    Ah yes, Alfred. You have indeed spotted a naughty typo. Thanks for pointing it out.

  5. boualam ameur says:
    September 5, 2007 at 20:00

    Hello Lori,

    Just a quick note to thank you for this fabulous podcast program! I’ve been searching the web for something exactly like this. It’s great fun to listen to, it’s very helpful in class and I’ll definitely recommend it to all my students and friends.

    Thanks again for the great job you’re doing.

    Boualam

  6. Lori says:
    September 8, 2007 at 20:38

    Thank you very much, Boualam. We’re happy to hear that you’re enjoying our podcast. Good luck with your English learning!

  7. Héctor says:
    July 16, 2008 at 06:08

    Yea, I was looking at your site and I found it very interesting. That detail of showing word’s meaning when mouse cursor is put over is great.

    Thx / Héctor

  8. Quang Nguyen says:
    January 1, 2011 at 22:53

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