Day4|I Need An Assistant

今天是和大家一起学习英语播客的第 4 天。

我们先来听一段关于讨论招聘员工的对话：

1

understaffed

= The company does not have enough employees.

意思是人手不足，员工紧缺，这个时候公司会考虑雇佣更多的员工。

We should consider hiring more employees or interns since we are now understaffed.

understaffed 的反义词是 overstaffed，也就是人员太多，这种情况下公司就需要进行 lay off / downsize（裁员）。

Downsizing is necessary to lower the company's burn rate.

严重超员或者人手严重不足，可以用 badly overstaffed / understaffed 来表示。

2

The timing is just not right.

= It's not a good time now.

表示时机不对，通常用于委婉的拒绝（那也是拒绝啊！）。

I'm gonna sell my house. But the timing is just not right.

- I think we should have a baby.

- The timing is just not right.

3

take some weight off someone's shoulders

= to take some of work away from someone

= remove pressure or stress

意思是帮我减轻一些压力，通常我们会说“我们肩上的担子很重”，所以 take some weight （重量）off somebody's shoulders（肩）还真是一个蛮形象的表达。

We could hire an assistant or intern so that she could take some weight off our shoulders.

4

give me a hand

= help

= assist

= do me a favor

表示请求帮忙，是口语中常见的说法。

Can you give me a hand on these boxes?

I need you to give me a hand on sales report.

Let me give you a hand on your suitcase.

5

keep the costs down

= to try to not spend so much money

意思是减少支出。

Many companies are doing control on printing so they can keep the costs down for paper.

不仅仅可以用于公司等商务场合，在家也同样需要开源节流。

The economy's not good and it's too risky to do investment. The only thing we can do now is to keep our costs down.

6

reasonable

= fair / acceptable

意思是合理的，可以接受的，口语中常用来形容价格合理。

The price for this restaurant is reasonable.