Facultad de Ciencias Económicas y

Sociales

Taller de Idioma I

Textos Generales

Carrera: RRHH.
.

Año: 2021

Profesora Titular: Adriana Gorza

Profesora Asociada: Andrea Tassara
1
Ad or no ad? 2
Is advertising really necesary? Billions of dollars are spent on
it every year, so it must be important. After all, it’s a busy
world. You have to advertise, sell products, and make money!
Not every company thinks that way. The NO-AD company
(“no-ad” stands for “not advertised”) avoids big advertising
campaigns. The company was started in 1960 and is successful
today. Their products are still affordable because the company
saves money on advertising. They also use their savings to
support a drug and alcohol awareness program to edúcate high
school students.
NO-AD sells by word of mouth. “Word-of-mouth
advertising” happens when a person tells another person about
a good experience with a product or service. That second
person then tells another friend, family member, or colleague.
And so a chain of information is created.
Typically, advertisers talk about how good their product is.
Although they say things like, “Studies show that our product
is the best”, or “Everyone loves this product”, it can sound
insincere or unconvincing.
It’s much more believable to hear about a product from
someone who did not make it. Our friends’ opinions are very
important to us, so we often listen to their advice about a
product.
Word-of-mouth advertising has other advantages, too. it´s
cost-effective (after all, it’s free) and a company doesn’t have
to create a complex business plan to do it. Here is some advice
for small businesses about Word-of-mouth advertising:
 Be prepared to talk about your company at any time. You
never know who you will meet. Always carry business
cards.
 Only say positive things about your company. Don’t say
negative things about your competition.
 Help other companies by referring people to them. The
more you help others, the more good fortune will come
back to you.
 3

The best shopping street in the world

No, it isn’t Oxford Street, The Champs-Elysées, or even Fifth Avenue. A new
survey shows that the most popular shopping street in the world is…. Nowy
Swiat. Where’s that? In Warsaw, Poland, of course
By Anne Applebaum
Survey: Food
Make it cheaper and cheaper
How technology pushes down prices
A) Prices have fallen in the food business
because of advances in food
production and distribution technology.
Consumers have benefited greatly
from those advances. People who
predicted that the world would run out
of food were wrong. We are producing
more and more food with less and less
capital. Food is therefore more plenti-
ful and cheaper than it has ever been.
Spending on food compared with other
goods has fallen for many years, and
continues to drop.
B) Supermarkets have helped push down
prices mainly because of their scale.
Like any big business, they can invest
in IT systems that make them efficient.
And their size allows them to buy in
bulk. As supermarkets get bigger, the
prices get lower.
C) Huge retail companies such as
Wal-Mart have tremendous power and
they can put pressure on producers to
cut their margins. As a result, some
producers have had to make cuts. In
recent years, Unilever has cut its
workforce—by 33,000 to 245,000 and
dropped lots of its minor brands as part
of its “path to growth” strategy.
4
Cadbury has shut nearly 20 per cent
of its 133 factories and cut 10 per
cent of its 55,000 global workforce.
These cuts help keep costs down,
and the Price of food stays low.
D) Does cheap food make people
unhealthy? Cheap food may
encourage people to eat more. Food
companies certainly think that
giving people more food for their
money makes them buy more.
Giving people bigger portions is an
easy way of making them feel they
have got a better deal. That is why
portions have got larger and larger.
In America, soft drinks came in 8oz
(225g) cans in the past, then 12oz
(350g), and now come in 20oz
(550g) cans. If a company can sell
you an 8oz portion for $7, they can
sell you a 12oz portion for $8. The
only extra cost to the company is the
food, which probably costs 25 cents.
Now companies are under pressure
to stop selling bigger portions for
less money. But it is hard to change
the trend

The high cost of fashion shows is worth every
penny to the industry.
What is the point of top-end fashion? An
haute couture dress can cost more than
$100,000. Not surprisingly, there are no
more than 2,000 haute couture customers
in the world. The commercial point is
that haute couture is the fashion house’s
loss leader. It creates the image of the
brand. Someone who would never pay
$20,000 for a hand-made dress might pay
$1,000 for an off-the-peg dress with the
same designer label– or $50 for its
perfumes.
Fashion shows may be expensive, but
the publicity they generate works out
cheaper and more effective than spending
$80,000 a page on advertisements in the
glossy fashion magazines. One New York
consultancy calculates that a 20-minute
show, which could cost up to $500,000,
generates as much publicity as $7m of
advertising in American fashion
magazines. Most people could never
wear the clothes, but the idea is to create
a buzz.
Survey: Fashion 5
Fashion’s favourite
The true capital of fashion is Paris. It is home
to the most famous brands, and it has the
biggest number of talented designers.
France’s fashion and luxury-goods industry
represents some 2,000 firms, 200,000 jobs
and 5% of total industrial production. Include
the textile industry, with 60,000 employees
and the share of industrial activity rises to
8%. With advertising graphic design and
media, it all adds up to real economic weight.
And France exports much of this output.
Can Paris continue to be the centre of the
fashion industry? Perhaps New York, with its
huge domestic market and new creative
talent, will become fashion’s centre in the
future. But for now, the challenge for
everyone is to sell: after all, fashion is a
business
Vincent Van Gogh 1853-1890 6

Nobody has ever painted cornfields or sunflowers

like Van Gogh. His paintings are full of color and
sunlight. Today his paintings are worth millions of
pounds but in his lifetime he only sold one.

his friend, the artist Paul Gauguin. In

another fit of madness, Van Gogh cut
off part of his own ear. Eventually he
went into a mental hospital but he
did not get any better.
Finally, on Sunday 27th July
1890, in the small village of Auvers,
north of Paris, Vincent Van Gogh
took a gun, went into a cornfield and
shot himself. When his brother Theo
arrived, he said: ‘I hope I did it
properly.’ Thirty-six hours later Van
Van Gogh was born in Holland in 1853. He
Gogh died in his brother´s arms. His
did not start painting until he was twenty-seven,
last words were ‘La Tristesse
ten years before he died. Before becoming a
durera’ (The sadness will continue)
painter, he was a teacher, an art dealer and a church
preacher.
In 1886 he left Holland and joined his
younger brother, Theo, who was working in Paris
at the time. After living there for two years, he
moved to the warmer climate of Arles in the south
of France. Here he painted some of his most
famous pictures.
However, Van Gogh was mentally ill.
During one of his fits of madness, he attacked
 Tech of the future: technology predictions for our world in 2050 7
Today’s article is about tech of the future! We talked to Ray Kurzweil – the world’s foremost
futurist. He’s so influential that Google hired him to lead its artificial intelligence efforts. He is
very well known for making predictions, which are right about 86% of the time.
 Nanobots will plug our brains straight into the cloud
Tech of the future: nanobots. He believes, that by the 2050, nanobots will plug our brains
straight into the cloud, it will give us full immersion virtual reality from within the nervous
system. Just like we do know with our smartphones, we will be able to do it with our brains,
we’ll be able to expand our neocortex in the cloud. And forget about memory problems,
evidence problems, etc.
 People reincarnation through AI
Sounds scary, I know! And probably most of the religious people will be very against it,
however, Kurzweil says that we will be able to “bring back” our relatives through artificial
intelligence.
He says that by 2050, we’ll be able to send nanobots into people’s brains to extract memories
of loved ones. Augment that with a DNA sampling of the deceased, and it will be possible to
create a convincing virtual version of somebody who’s passed on. If you are interested in it,
there is a movie about it: the discovery.
 IoT (Internet of Things) technology will change product designs
According to Forbes, by 2020, IoT technology will be in 95% of electronics for new product
designs. And by 2050 it is expected to have everything connected to the cloud and to the
internet.
 Space tourism: a week in orbit
According to Business Insider, Space tourism could be feasible in 2050, but likely only for the
very wealthy. Rocket companies like Jeff Bezo’s Blue Origin and Elon Musk’s SpaceX will
push the envelope with space travel enough that tourism will be feasible in the year 2050.
 Self-driving cars will make driving safer
Despite the crashes involving self-driving cars that have hit the headlines these years, this area
of AI could dramatically reduce deaths and injuries on our roads. According to a report by
Stanford University, not only will self-driving cars reduce traffic related deaths and injuries,
but they could bring about changes in our lifestyles as well. We will have more time for
ourselves.
The town of
MEGAPOLIS
Shenzhen, just forty
kilometres north of Hong Kong, is the
world’s biggest building site. In 1982 it
was a fishing village with two main roads,
fields, and a population of 30,000. now it
has a population of 3 million. It is
growing at an incredible speed. It is
spreading north towards Guangzhou (also
known as Canton) and west towards
Macau. The Chinese government hopes
that in less than ten years this area will be
the biggest city on earth, with a
population of 40 million people.
China is changing. It is no longer a
country where absolutely everything is
owned and controlled by the state.
Developers are welcome. As Deng
Xiaoping, the Chinese leader, said in
1992, ‘to get rich is glorious’. The old
China of bicycles and Little Red Books is
disappearing. A world of mobile phones
and capitalism is arriving.
The Chinese people seem to welcome
dramatic change. They don’t worry about
losing traditional ways of life. They want
the new. As the posters on the sides of the
highways shout ‘Development is the only
way’.
Shenzhen is a shocking place, like nowhere
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else on earth that I have ever seen. It is a city
with no boundaries and no centre. There are
new concrete office blocks, factories, and
housing blocks as far as the eye can see. Not
just dozens of new buildings, nor even
hundreds, but thousands. And it is all
happening so fast. It takes just six months to
design, build, and finish a 60-storey,
air-conditioned skyscraper. As one architect
said to me, ‘if you move too slowly here,
someone will walk over you’.
The new Hopewell Highway runs from
Shenzhen to Guangzhou, and it takes just two
hours to do the 123 kilometres. This
superhighway will become the main street of a
huge new city, as it gets bigger and bigger until
the east meets the west, and the countryside in
the middle disappears under concrete.
There will of course be more and more cars on
the road. People don’t want bicycles. If you
have a car, it means you have made money. So
the traffic will be like in Bangkok, where
people spend four hours commuting every day.
People eat and work in their car.
9
I.Q. Tests 10
How not to behave badly abroad By Norman Ramshaw 11
Travelling to all corners of the world gets easier and easier. We live in a global
village, but this doesn´t mean that we all behave in the same way.
 Greetings In Britain and the United States, it´s not
How should you behave when you meet unusual to have business banquets, but you
someone for the first time? An American shouldn’t discuss business during the meal.
or Canadian shakes your hand firmly
 Doing Business
while looking you straight in the eyes. In In most countries, an exchange of business cards
many parts of Asia, there is no physical is essential for all introductions. You should
contact at all. In Japan, you should bow, include your company name and your position. If
and the more respect you want to show, you are going to a country where your language
the deeper you should bow. In is not widely spoken, you can get the reverse side
Thailand, the greeting is made by of your card printed in the local language. In
pressing both hands together at the chest, Japan, you must present your card with both
as if you are praying and hands, with the writing facing the person you are
bowing your head slightly. In both giving it to.
countries, eye contact is avoided as a sign In many countries, business hours are from 9 or
of respect. 10 to 5 or 6. However in some countries, such as
Greece, Italy and Spain, some businesses close in
 Clothes the early afternoon for a couple of hours , then
Many countries have rules about what remain open until the evening.
you should and shouldn’t wear. In Asian Japanese business people consider it their
and Muslim countries, you shouldn’t professional duty to go out after work with
reveal the body, especially women, who colleagues to restaurants, bars, or nightclubs. If
should wear long-sleeved blouses and you are invited, you shouldn’t refuse, even if you
skirts below the knee. don’t feel like staying out late.
In Japan, you should take off your shoes
when entering a house or a restaurant.
Remember to place them neatly together
facing the door you came in. This is also
true in China, Korea, Thailand, and Iran.
 Food and Drink
In Italy, Spain, and Latin America, lunch
is often the biggest meal of the day, and
can last two or three hours. For this
reason many people eat a light breakfast
and a late dinner. In Britain, you might
have a business lunch and do business as
you eat. In Mexico and Japan many
people prefer not to discuss business
while eating.
Lunch is a time to relax and socialize,
and the Japanese rarely drink alcohol at
lunchtime.
 12

Things go better with

Coca-cola is enjoyed all over the world.

1.6 billion gallons are sold every year, in over one hundred and sixty
countries. The drink was invented by Dr John Pemberton in Atlanta as a
health drink on 8 May 1886, but it was given the name Coca-Cola by his
partner, Frank Robinson, because it was originally made from the coca
plant. In the first year, only nine drinks a day were sold.
The business was bought by a man called Asa Candler in 1888, and the
first factory was opened in Dallas, Texas, in 1895. Coca-cola is still made
there. Billions of bottles and cans have been produced since 1895, but the
recipe is still kept secret!
Diet Coke has been made since 1982, and over the years many clever
advertisements have been used to sell the product. It is certain that
Coca-Cola will be drunk far into the twenty-first century.
 WONDERS OF THE MODERN WORLD 13
I don’t believe that today’s wonders are similar in kind to the wonders of the Ancient
World. They were all buildings, such as the Pyramids in Egypt, or other architectural
structures. Over the past 100 years, we have seen amazing technological and scientific
achievements. These are surely our modern wonders.
1. Internet
It is everywhere. More than half a billion people use it, and the number of people who are online
increases by 100 million every year. In 1994 there were only a few hundred web pages. Today
there are billions.
It has revolutionized the way we live and work. But we are still in the early days. Soon there will
be more and more interactivity between the user and the website, and we will be able to give
instructions using speech.

2. Space Travel
In 1969, Neil Amstrong stepped out of his space capsule onto the surface of the moon and made his
famous statement: ‘That’s one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind’. Since then, there
have been space probes to Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, and even to the sun. One day, a space observatory
will study how the first stars and galaxies began.
So far, it seems that we are alone in the universo. There are no signs yet that there is intelligent life
outside our own solar system. But who knows what the future holds?
3. Medical Science
Surely nothing has done more for the confort and happiness of the human race than the advances in
health care! How many millions of people have benefited from the humble aspirin? How many
lives has penicillin saved? Average life expectancy worldwide has risen dramatically over the past
100 years, from about 47 years in 1900 to about 77 years today.
4. International Travel
We are a world on the move. Airlines carry more than 1.5 billion people to their destinations every
year. It is estimated that, at any one time these days, there are as many people travelling in
aeroplanes as the total number of people who travelled abroad in the whole of the nineteenth
century (but I have no idea how they worked this out!).
5. The Olympic Games
It is true that they are now commercialized, and there is greed and drug abuse. However, it is a
competition in which almost every country in the world takes part. Every four years, for a brief
moment, we see the world come together in peace and friendship. We feel hope again for the future
of mankind.
6. Agriculture
In 1724, Jonathan Swift wrote, ‘Whoever makes two blades of grass or two ears of corn grow
where only one grew before serves mankind better than the whole race of politicians’. In Europe
our farmers have done this. In 1709, whole villages in France died of hunger. Now in Europe, we
can’t eat all the food we produce. If only politicians could find a way to share it with those parts of
the world where there is famine.