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

My name is Catherine. And today we've got one more episode in our series about interview skills. This is an elementary level series and we're here today to talk about things that you might not be very good at.

That's right. Today we're going to talk about weaknesses and that is our word for vocabulary preview. So let's take a look at it now.

Vocabulary Preview

Okay. So, what is a weakness?

A weakness is a thing or an activity or something that you're just not very good at or something that you think you can improve.

Okay. So, obviously no one is perfect and uh like we saw in the previous lesson, we had a lot of good things about ourselves, key strengths, and now we're going to talk about our weaknesses. Maybe um you're a little bit lazy. That might be a weakness.

That's right. So weakness is the opposite of strength and that is the topic today. So let's take a listen to today's dialogue.

Dialogue

Mr. Parsons: Okay, Rebecca. Well, I think you've given me a clear impression of your positive qualities, but let's talk a little bit about your weaknesses.

Rebecca: Okay. Well, it's always more difficult to describe them, isn't it?

Mr. Parsons: Definitely. But if you had to pinpoint one weakness, what would it be?

Rebecca: Well, as I mentioned before, I do tend to get frustrated if I don't see progress in my work or career. I suppose I'm quite a restless character. My father always taught me to be a high achiever. So...

Mr. Parsons: So would you say if things don't go your way at work, it could easily get you down.

Rebecca: Well, in a way, yes. But I must say that even if I'm not completely happy in my work, I always give 110%. I would never sherk my responsibilities. I suppose sometimes I expect too much too soon.

Mr. Parsons: Well, you know, journalism is a highly competitive world, so you do need to keep pushing yourself.

Rebecca: It's true.

Mr. Parsons: Okay. Well, let's move on to talk about the job position here, shall we?

Rebecca: Yes, please.

Language Takeaway

All right. We're back. So, obviously, Rebecca did a very good job at talking about her weaknesses in a very positive way. So, before we get into analyzing that, why don't we take a look at a couple of words she used on language takeaway.

One of the first words that Mr. Parsons used was a clear impression. So, impression.

All right. So, I think this is a very common word when people talk about first impressions or uh I get the impression. So, what is an impression?

Well, an impression is like an idea or a feeling. So, I can have an impression about something. It means that I don't necessarily understand it really well or I don't have experience with it but it's it's an idea that I have about something.

That's right. So for example, uh maybe you meet somebody new and you say "I get the impression that he is a liar."

But maybe then you get to know him and he's not. So this is your idea about something or the way you feel about something. So in this case, Mr. Parsons has a clear impression of her positive qualities. That means that he has an idea or an understanding of the things that Rebecca is good at, but he wants to know more about her weaknesses.

That's right. And Mr. Parsons asked her to try and pinpoint uh one of her weaknesses. So, this word to pinpoint.

This is a great word. I'm not really sure where it comes from in English, but I think it's very visual. You can see what the word means. Pinpoint means to to locate or identify or uh really be specific about something.

That's right. So maybe if you go to the doctor and uh you say that your back hurts, the doctor might ask you to try and pinpoint where on your back you have the pain.

That's right. So it's a way to be specific or very exact about something.

Okay. So, uh, if she had to pinpoint something, she said, "Well, I do get a little bit frustrated."

Okay. So, frustrated is a way you feel. I feel frustrated. He is frustrated. It's uh it's basically a feeling that you get when you have to do something, but you don't think you can do it. Or maybe something annoys you and you get frustrated. Um, for example, when people tap like this and I'm working, I get frustrated because it's a distraction. So, everyone has different things that frustrate them.

Now, if we take a look at this word, uh, it is actually an adjective and we usually use it "you get frustrated" or as you said, "you feel frustrated." So, remember, it may look like a verb, but it's actually an adjective that ends in -ed. Frustrated. To get frustrated.

He got frustrated or we feel very frustrated.

Okay. And uh well apart from being frustrated she also said that uh she is a restless character.

Okay. So someone is restless if they don't like to stay in one place all the time. That means someone who wants to move around or to go places or to travel or to see new things is restless.

That's right. So uh she has a restless character. That means she likes to move around. She doesn't like to stand still in one place.

Maybe she gets bored very easily.

Mhm. Okay. Okay, so that's somebody that would be restless. But uh moving on, she also said that she doesn't like to sherk her responsibilities. Okay, you often hear these words go together. So responsibilities are things that we need to do, right? Uh things that other people expect us to do. Uh to sherk a responsibility means to to not do something that you're supposed to do. It means to avoid responsibility or to uh to push it away.

Okay. So, it's a verb to sherk your responsibilities. You shouldn't sherk your responsibilities.

That's right.