https://www.fluentu.

com/blog/business-english/english-for-finance/#

3 Quick Tips for Increasing Your Financial Vocabulary

Most major news websites have a Business Section featuring business news stories. This is the
best place to keep up with the latest financial news, both local and international, and improve
your financial vocabulary and language usage at the same time.

2. Sit Down with a Good Finance Book

Get your hands on a good finance book.

Forbes‘ top 10 personal finance books is a great place to start finding one that works for you.
This list includes many popular titles, like:
 “The Millionaire Next Door” by Thomas J. Stanley and William D. Danko
 “Why Didn’t They Teach Me This in School?: 99 Personal Money Management Principles to
Live By” by Cary Siegel

The best part is that many of these are written for people who don’t know about finance, so
they’re quite fun and easy to read—and they explain finance terms clearly.

3. Note the Use of Financial Language at Work

Be sure to note down any new financial language you encounter. Set yourself the goal to learn
five new words a day from this list, and you’ll be on your way to improving your financial
vocabulary very quickly.

Want to learn finance vocabulary even faster? Watch the authentic English videos on
FluentU. These videos are specifically designed to teach you English through real-world
contexts, like business dialogues, business news reports, interviews with analysts and more.
Each video comes with interactive subtitles—just click or tap a word in the subtitles for an
instant definition, grammar info and useful examples. There are also flashcards and quizzes built
into every video to ensure that you remember all the words you’ve learned.
The videos are conveniently organized by genre and difficulty. Just click “Business” and select
your English level to find perfect videos for you. FluentU will also keep track of what you’ve
learned and suggest new videos based on that information. Plus, if you want to boost your
general English, you can do that too—there are thousands of English videos on FluentU, from
movie trailers to music videos to inspiring speeches and more.
And you can take them all everywhere you go with the FluentU mobile app for iOS and Android.
The Top 20 Business English Words for Finance
Topics You Must Know
To start you off, let me list 20 financial words that you’ll find useful. While these words often
have other meanings not related to finance, I’ll only be discussing them in the financial context
here.

1. Interest Rate
Interest is the amount the bank (or other moneylender, which is any person or organization that
gives you money) will charge you or your company for the money you borrow from them. That
amount, or interest rate, is expressed as a percentage of the loan.
As part of the loan repayment, you’ll have to repay the amount of the loan plus interest.
I would advise you to shop around for the best interest rate you can find before taking up that
loan.
2. Investment
The noun investment refers to money that you put into your business, property, stock, etc., in
order to make a profit or earn interest.
A great Reuters article said that “investment is drawn [attracted] to the UK because it provides a
gateway [place of entry entry] to a single market of 500 million consumers.”
The word investment can also be used as an adjective. An investment destination refers to the
location that businesses choose to place their investments in.
The article above also names the UK as the top investment destination within Europe.
3. External capital
The word external means outside. Capital refers to your money or assets. So, external
capital refers to the money that a company receives from outside sources.
The use of external capital can help your company recover from the recent drop in sales
performance.
4. Cash outflow
Cash outflow refers to the money that your company spends on its expenses and other business
activities.
The key to surviving in business is to keep an eye on cash outflows and manage them well.
5. Revenue
Your revenue is the amount of money your company makes from the sale of goods and services.
The total sales revenue from our latest range of sports shoes is expected to top $1.5 million this
year.
6. Profit
Profit describes the amount of revenue your company gains after excluding expenses, costs,
taxes, etc. The goal of every business is to make profit.
Since we started advertising on the internet, our company’s profits have increased by 20% over
the last year
7. Loss
In finance, we often hear the phrase profit and loss. Loss is when you lose money. It’s the
opposite of profit, and it’s a word that no one in finance ever wants to hear. Still, it’s something
that can happen when a company makes less money than it spends.
Since we decided to stop print advertising, our sales revenue has suffered a loss of 20% over the
last year
8. Recession

When we talk about a recession, we’re referring to a period of significant (major) decline in a
country’s economy that usually lasts months or years.

Bloomberg reports that the risk of a global recession is now more than 50 percent after the
UK voted to leave the European Union.
9. Debt
Debt refers to any kind of borrowing such as loans, mortgages, etc. Debts are a way for you or
your company to borrow money (usually for large purchases) and repay it at a later date with
interest.
I think we should consider other options to fix our business rather than running into more debt.
10. Collateral
Collateral is something valuable, such as a property you own, that you pledge (temporarily give
to) a bank, financial company or other moneylender as a guarantee of your loan repayment.
The moneylender will hold your collateral until your loan is completely paid in full. If you fail to
make your loan payments, the bank will seize (take away) your property to recover their losses.
This way, there’s no risk that they’ll lose the money they gave you.
If Mr. Jones intends to use his farm as collateral for his business loan, he will have to show
proof of ownership to the bank.
11. Mortgage
A mortgage is a loan in which your property—most commonly your house—will be held by a
bank or other moneylender as collateral. You’ll receive a loan for the value of the property. This
means the moneylender will hold your property until your loan has been fully repaid.
It has been hard for the Quinns to keep up their mortgage payments since Mr Quinn lost his job.
12. Short-term loan
As a business or individual, you can borrow money from the bank for short periods of time.
A short-term loan is usually repaid in less than five years.
BHS, a large retail chain, was charged a high interest rate for the short-term loan they took out
in order to stay in business.
13. Long-term loan
Sometimes businesses need to buy assets, equipment, inventory and other things. Banks
offer long-term loans for businesses that need to borrow a large amount of money for a longer
period of time.
Long-term loans are generally repaid over a period of time that exceeds five years.
At the meeting, it was decided that the company would opt for (choose) a long-term loan that
offers a lower interest rate.
14. Credit rating
The credit rating of a person or company is either a formal evaluation or an estimate of their
credit history, and it indicates their potential ability to repay any new loans.
Banks and financial companies will usually check your credit rating before approving your loan.
We’re confident that our company’s loan application will be approved as we have a good credit
rating.
15. Overdraft
An overdraft is when you spend more money than you have in your bank account. The bank will
often make you pay an overdraft fee if you do this.
If you have an overdraft account, this simply means that your bank will allow you to
continue withdrawing (taking out) money from you account, even when you don’t have available
funds (enough money) in your account to cover your withdrawal amount.
There will still be some limits on how much you can overdraft, but having this special type of
bank account means you don’t have to worry as much about those overdraft fees.
In a BBC news article, it was suggested that banks should warn customers before they go
into overdraft and limit the overdraft fees that they charge.
16. Shares
Some companies divide their capital into shares and offer them for sale to create more capital for
the company.
If you own shares in a company, you’re known as a shareholder. Each share you hold represents
a unit of your ownership of the company.
Owning shares in a company doesn’t mean you have control over the day-to-day running of the
business, but it does entitle (allow) you to receive a share of its profits.
Recent financial news say that Japanese shares are higher as investors regain their confidence
across the region.
17. Stocks
The word stocks is a general term used to describe the ownership certificates of any company.
The holder of a company’s stocks is a stockholder. As a stockholder, you’re entitled to a share of
the company’s profit based on the number of stocks you hold.
Have you read the news that stocks are plunging all around the world shortly after the UK voted
to leave the European Union?
18. Rally
As you know, stock markets go up and down. A stock market rally is when a large amount of
money is entering the market and pushing stock prices up.
So, a rally is good news for investors, because it means that the market is recovering after being
down.
Even though he doesn’t have money, it’s hard for him watch the stock market rally from afar
without doing anything.
19. Bull market

Stop for a moment and picture a bull charging at an enemy—or even at you! Aggressive, right?
Its horns are facing upwards, and they’re coming at you fast.

A bull market is a financial market situation where stock prices are up (just like the bull’s horns)
as a result of investor confidence and the expectations of a strong market.
John’s job on Wall Street is even more hectic (busy) now that the bull market is in full swing.
20. Bear market

Now picture a bear as it tries to swipe (swing) its paws at its enemy, or you. It’s probably
standing up and its paws are above you, moving downwards.

A bear market is the opposite of a bull market. In a bear market, stock prices are falling and the
financial market is down—the bear’s paws are facing downwards, and coming down on its
enemies.
While John’s friends are worried about a possible bear market, John is confident that the market
will hold steady (remain good).