Joy English · Level C2 · Workjoy-english.com
Renegotiating the deadline
Name:Date:
Follow polite negotiation using hedges and conditions.
Listen to each sentence and write what you hear.
Audio and answer checking: https://joy-english.com/listening-lessons/renegotiating-the-deadline
Words to know
- bearer
- A person who brings or carries something.
- provisional
- Not final; likely to change.
- flag
- To mark something so people notice it.
- anticipated
- Expected before it happened.
Answer key
- I would hate to be the bearer of bad news, but the data cleaning has taken considerably longer than we anticipated.“I would hate to” softens bad news. “Would” is often reduced to ’d in speech, but write it in full here.
- I appreciate you telling me now rather than on Friday, although I did promise the board a finished report by then.“Appreciate you telling me” uses an -ing form after a pronoun. “Although” introduces the speaker’s concern.
- What if we delivered the headline findings on time and followed up with the full analysis a week later?“What if” plus past simple makes a polite suggestion. “Followed up” stresses “up”.
- That might work, provided nobody mistakes the summary for the final word, which has happened before.“Provided” means only if. “The final word” means the last and complete decision.
- Then I will label it clearly as provisional, and I will flag every figure that could still shift.“Provisional” has four syllables, with stress on the second. “Shift” here means change.