Episode 0267

Hello everyone and welcome to English Pod. My name is Marco.

My name is Catherine and today we have an intermediate level lesson about going to the bank.

That's right, today we're going to go to the bank and we need to do something there. We're not going to put money in the bank actually, we're going to make a transfer.

Okay, so you'll learn all about this in a minute. Uh, let's take a listen to the dialogue first.

Good morning. Welcome to Bank of the USA. How may I help you today?

Hi, I need to transfer some money to another account. It's urgent.

Okay, have you made a wire transfer at our bank before?

No, I've never made a transfer before.

It's all right. I will take you through the procedure. Are you transferring funds to a company or an individual account?

A company account. I need to pay a bill.

Okay. I'll need the name of the company and their bank routing number, as well as their bank's address and phone number.

I have all the information in this folder.

I have all the necessary materials, so we can go ahead and make the transfer right now. It's a simple transaction and we can process it today.

It's my pleasure.

All right, we're back. So interesting dialogue, very common situation, we need to transfer money to another account.

So we have some very interesting vocab words right there. Why don't we take a look at those on language takeaway.

Language takeaway.

So Marco, the first word is one that you've already said a couple of times in today's lesson, it is to transfer.

Okay, that's right. We need to transfer money. So to transfer, what does this verb mean?

So to transfer means to move from one place to another. In the case of money, you're moving money from one bank to another bank, or from one account to another account. So just think of transferring as moving.

That's right. But the bank teller also mentioned something about a wire transfer. So that's basically the same thing, right?

That's right. So when you're talking about money, you don't actually take a bag of money and you don't walk to another bank to put it in the account. A wire transfer means that the transfer is electronic. One bank tells another bank that you're going to exchange this money.

Mhm. So it's going to move from one person to another person or from one company

to another company. But it's never actually the money itself. It's always just the number of funds in the account.

That's right. Okay. So a wire transfer, to transfer money electronically from one account to another.

And talking about this word account, we're we're talking about a bank account. What is this?

Well, this is really important even if you're not making a wire transfer, or if you're not working at a bank, this is something that most people have for their personal use. So an account is a space for money in a bank that's kind of registered to one person or one company. And there are many, many different kinds of accounts.

That's right. Many of you probably have a savings account. This is where you keep your money to save for the future. Or many companies or people have a checking account or a default account where basically you put money in but you're also taking money out and paying for bills and paying to go to the movies, etc.

Yeah, so these different accounts have different rules. They have rules about how much money you can keep in them or how much money you need to open them. So the basic word here is account and just remember that companies and people can all have accounts at a bank.

That's right. Okay, so when talking about an account, we're talking about transferring money to another account. Uh we we don't say we want to transfer money, we say we want to transfer funds.

Funds. So funds, we usually say in the plural funds with an S. This means money. So we're talking about transferring funds from one company to another, or I could say, I need to deposit funds in my account.

That's right. Now, an interesting word because funds with an S at the end, that's a plural noun as you said. But if we use it in the singular, it could also be a verb to fund.

That's right. And that means to pay for something or someone. So, my grandfather funded my college education. He paid money for my college education.

That's right. Okay, so both words either the verb or the noun have to do with money. And when we're talking about transferring money, we're talking about different a type of transaction, right? Where a bank transfer or a wire transfer is a type of transaction.

That's right. So a transaction is a noun and it's something that you do at a bank, for example, usually involving the exchange of money. So a wire transfer is a kind of transaction. But also depositing or putting money into my savings account is also a kind of transaction.

That's right. So a transaction is kind of like a business move or a business deal involving money. For example, a transaction can also be buying a car.

That's right. So the transaction is I give my money to Marco the car sales person and the transaction is exchanging that money for the car.

That's right. Okay. And lastly, since we needed to pay a bill, we were worried that the bill will be overdue, and that's why we really needed to make this wire transfer.

Okay, so to be overdue is to be late. So think about due. This is the time when something has to be done by.

So for example, if the bill for the electricity is due on Wednesday, but I pay it on Thursday, it's overdue.

Okay. So it not only has to do with money, it could also be something that is late, for example, if I visit my grandma after not going there for three months, you would say, this visit is long overdue.

That means Marco should have visited his grandmother earlier, but he didn't.

That's right. Okay, so a lot of great vocab there, all involving banks and uh different types of words you may find when transferring funds. So why don't we listen to the dialogue again and we'll be back in a bit with fluency building.

Good morning. Welcome to Bank of the USA. How may I help you today?

Hi, I need to transfer some money to another account. It's urgent.

Okay, have you made a wire transfer at our bank before?

No, I've never made a transfer before.

It's all right. I will take you through the procedure. Are you transferring funds to a company or an individual account?

A company account. I need to pay a bill.

Okay. I'll need the name of the company and their bank routing number, as well as their bank's address and phone number.

I have all the information in this folder.

I have all the necessary materials, so we can go ahead and make the transfer right now. It's a simple transaction and we can process it today.

It's my pleasure.

All right, we're back. So we have three key phrases for you. Let's take a look at those now on fluency builder.

Fluency builder.

So our first phrase comes from something that the person at the bank told the client. That person said, it's all right, I will take you through the procedure. Okay, so let's look at this word procedure. Procedure can be many different things, but what is it in this case?

It's it's basically the steps or the process of taking money from the account and transferring it to another one. That's the procedure. What we have to do all the steps, you have to fill out the paperwork, you have to sign here and all these things.

Right, so we're talking about a wire transfer. So there is a procedure for doing a wire transfer. That means like you say, there are steps that we have to go through to complete this action. But we can also have a medical procedure. So a heart surgery has its own procedure, but that's that's very different from a wire transfer procedure.

That's right. But it still, it has different steps and different things that you must do in order to operate.

But when we have a bank teller who will take us through the procedure, this means that he or she will help us understand the steps we need to complete.

That's right. So this we could also use this in another bank scenario if maybe my little brother wants to open a bank account. So I'm going to take him through the procedure of what he needs. He needs to maybe get a copy of his ID, he needs to have $20, etc. take him through the procedure.

So you're going to help him. All right.

That's right. And after this we find out why the person is so anxious to transfer this money. The person says, um, I have a company account. I need to pay a bill. So this is why the money is going to be transferred from one place to another to pay the bill.

So this is something we say not just about, you know, company things or business things, we say it about our things at home, like the electricity bill.

That's right. And actually, this is more and more common, we pay our bills using our electronic banking services. So for example, uh maybe he needs to pay the electricity bill or the telephone bill and this is why we're transferring money. So to pay a bill is to cancel the bill.

That's right. And now an interesting phrase here, um, very specific to making transfers, when we talk about bank routing number, a bank routing number.

Well, this is pretty simple actually. If you're going to transfer money, you need to be able to tell the bank where the money will go. So you can't just say Mr. Smith. You have to have a number for the account and each number is unique, it's, it's special, and it's usually very, very long.

Mhm. That's right. And uh actually it also has to do with what bank it is, because obviously you can't just say, oh, Bank of USA, because, you know, maybe there are two banks with the same name, or maybe there's one Bank of USA in the United States, and there's another one in, I don't know, in Europe.

Right. So each bank will have a certain number or letter combination in the bank routing number and so will the kind of account, is it savings, or is it a business account and so on and so forth, so that you know exactly where the money will go, because you don't want to give the money to the wrong person.

That's right. Okay, so a lot of great things on on this lesson. Why don't we listen to the dialogue for one last time.

Good morning. Welcome to Bank of the USA. How may I help you today?

Hi, I need to transfer some money to another account. It's urgent.

Okay, have you made a wire transfer at our bank before?

No, I've never made a transfer before.

It's all right. I will take you through the procedure. Are you transferring funds to a company or an individual account?

A company account. I need to pay a bill.

Okay. I'll need the name of the company and their bank routing number, as well as their bank's address and phone number.

I have all the information in this folder.

I have all the necessary materials, so we can go ahead and make the transfer right now. It's a simple transaction and we can process it today.

It's my pleasure.

So Marco, this is really, really important stuff even if you're not talking about the business context, but you're trying to make transactions for your personal life.

That's right, just imagine maybe you're abroad, you're in the United States and maybe your parents need to send you money. So maybe you need to go to the bank and receive those funds. So now you have the language and the vocab necessary to more or less talk about a bank transfer. You can say I was wired money from Spain, for example.

Right, and one of the most famous places to do this that you'll find all over the United States is Western Union.

Mhm. That's right. You can just go up to them and say, I need to transfer money or I need to transfer funds.

And so they will send the money from one Western Union to another Western Union. And then the person at home or wherever will pick up your money. And so they will wire the money from one place to another.

That's right. And I think this is how it started, uh wire transferring was I don't think it was originally with banks. I think it was something, some sort of service similar to Western Union or maybe Western Union started it.

Seems like it was like telegraphs?

Yeah, something like this, but I don't know if it was from bank to bank. It's an interesting story though.

Well, I'll have to look it up and let you know. I'm not sure of the story either. But if you're out there and you need to wire some money, now you know how to do it. Uh well, not how to do it, but you how to talk about it. Uh we hope you have luck with this and if you have any questions, you know where to find us englishpod.com.

All right, we'll see you guys there. Bye.

The English part audio review.

Listen to the meaning, then say the vocabulary word.

Important, needing immediate action.

Urgent.

Guide someone along the process.

Take one through.

A series of actions.

Procedure.

An occurrence in which money is transferred from one account to another.

Transaction.

Not paid at an expected or required time. Missing the deadline.

Overdue.

Let's try that faster.

An occurrence in which money is transferred from one account to another.

Transaction.

Important, needing immediate action.

Urgent.

Not paid at an expected or required time, missing the deadline.

Overdue.

A series of actions.

Procedure.

Guide someone along the process.

Take one through.

Now say the word and hear it in a sentence.

Urgent.

Where's Mr. Jameson? I have some urgent news for him.

Urgent.

Could you call me back as soon as you get my message? It's urgent.

Urgent.

I could tell something was wrong by the urgent tone of Lydia's voice.

Take one through.

Let me take you through the manufacturing process.

Take one through.

He took me through the steps and helped me fix my computer.

Take one through.

If you just follow my secretary, Miss Finn, she will take you through what we do at this company.

Procedure.

The company has a set manufacturing procedure that you must follow.

Procedure.

We check the quality of our products through a complicated procedure. This is how we make sure our products are safe.

Procedure.

There was not really a procedure, so we just did what we wanted.

Transaction.

The transaction with the bank went smoothly.

Transaction.

If you come prepared, it will really help speed up the transaction.

Transaction.

You can go online and see all the transactions you made with your credit card.

Overdue.

He wouldn't accept my paper because it was overdue.

Overdue.

You are charged a dollar every day that your library books are overdue.

Overdue.

Manny always forgets to pay his bills, so many of them are overdue.