1. Skills
  2. Speaking
  3. B2 speaking
  4. Dealing with a problem

Dealing with a problem

In this video, Vanya goes to Yuna with a problem. Listen to the language they use for dealing with a problem and practise saying the useful phrases.

Do the preparation exercise first. Then watch the video and do the exercises to check your understanding and practise the language.

Preparation

Speaking B2: Dealing with a problem – preparation

Transcript

Ana: Hi! I'm Ana. Welcome to What to Say! 

Do you know what to say when you need to deal with a problem? Listen out for useful language for dealing with a problem. Then, we'll practise saying the new phrases – after this.

 

Vanya: Yuna!

Yuna: Oh, morning!

Vanya: I've got a bit of a problem. 

Yuna: What's wrong?

Vanya: Can we talk in private?

Yuna: Of course.

Yuna: Right, so, what's the matter? 

Vanya: Well, I've made a mistake. A big mistake.

Yuna: OK. I'm sure we can work it out.

Vanya: It was such a silly thing to do! 

Yuna: I'm getting worried now. What's going on here? 

Vanya: OK. It was late last night and I was tired. I wasn't concentrating and I accidentally used my company credit card instead of my own to buy something! 

Yuna: Don't worry, these things happen. There's a procedure to deal with this. How much did you spend? 

Vanya: It was quite expensive.

Yuna: How expensive?

Vanya: It was very expensive.

Yuna: Vanya, how expensive?

Vanya: £3,782 … and 56 pence.

Yuna: What? You spent £3,782?! 

Vanya: … and 56 pence. 

Yuna: What was it? Vanya?

Vanya: Just a weekend break! I just like a really nice hotel!

Yuna: OK, I see. Thanks for letting me know.

Vanya: Ah! I feel so much better now I've told you. Please don't tell Noelia.

Yuna: Oh, I'm definitely going to tell her!

Noelia: Hi!

Vanya: Hi!

 

Ana: Hello again! Wow, that's a lot of money for a weekend break. So, did you notice the useful phrases used for dealing with a problem? Listen to me and then repeat. 

 

What's wrong?

I've got a bit of a problem.

Could we talk in private?

What's the matter?

I've made a mistake.

I'm sure we can work it out.

Don't worry, these things happen.

Thanks for letting me know.

I feel so much better now I've told you.


Ana: Try and use some of these phrases the next time you need to deal with a problem in English. Bye for now!

Task 1

Speaking B2: Dealing with a problem – 1

Task 2

Speaking B2: Dealing with a problem – 2

Task 3

Speaking B2: Dealing with a problem – 3

Discussion

When was the last time you helped someone with a problem at work?

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Worksheet103.03 KB

Language level

B2 Upper intermediate
Average: 4.4 (46 votes)
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Submitted by cittàutopica on Thu, 24/09/2020 - 15:48

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In the last three years I helped my niece, because she had a child one year old and she had having evident troubles studying for passing the academic exams. Therefore I wrote the summaries of the books which she would have to study and she easily passed all the exams.

Submitted by Asni on Thu, 27/08/2020 - 22:55

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Sorry, I didn't realize the comment was so long before submitting it! Thank you for understanding.
Thank you for your efforts too. All the material you provide is very useful. It is helping me a lot in my English learning and you, the LearnEnglish Team, are just great; your attention and all the explanations you give are really helpful! Best regards

Hello Asni,

Thank you for saying so! It's nice to know we're helping people.

 

Peter

The LearnEnglish Team

Submitted by Asni on Thu, 27/08/2020 - 22:53

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It wasn't at work. I helped my brother to deal with a problem he had. He failed to pass a subject for the second time. In Canada, studies are expensive and a quite big amount of my parent's money was going towards his university fees. The problem was that engineering students were not allowed to fail twice the same subject, otherwise, they had to leave or to change to some other study program different from engineering. My brother was really worried, frustrated and a bit depressed because of that. So first, I had to talk to him several times and try to convince him that the problem was not as big as it seemed to be and there had to be some way to work it out. After a couple of days, he could calm down and contacted the departement responsible for that kind of issues inside the university. As he'd always been brilliant and got good marks, he finally was able to deal with this by following an alternative procedure for students that had been progressing well in their program. Afterwards, I had to talk to my parents and explain the whole situation, I also tried to make them understand that these things happened and they didn't have to worry as that was only an exception and everything was already solved.

Submitted by Betty Corado on Thu, 27/08/2020 - 19:39

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Once, in the office, I lost some bank vouchers, in a confusing case, I told to my boss what happened and He told me that I had to pay for these, so I paid for those vouchers and I was more careful with the vouchers.

Submitted by macevedosalas on Wed, 29/07/2020 - 00:38

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This morning my coworkers and I we had a bit of a problem trying to solve an authentication problem in a servers' farm. Several users could not login those servers and at the end we involved other teams to work out the problem. It took us around 4 hours reading some logs and investigating how to fix it. We could not solve it today and we will continue tomorrow.