Review the word list to see which words you know and actively utilize and which you do not. Then use the business conversation below to improve your intonation and examine appropriate usage of these words. Check out more English practice at speakmethodpro.com.
| Word | Pronunciation (u = schwa sound) |
| 1. routine | roo-TEEN |
| 2. appropriate | u-PRŌ-pree-yit |
| 3. inappropriate | in-u-PRŌ-pree-yit |
| 4. diverse | dī-VERS |
| 5. clarify | KLĀR-i-fī |
| 6. convenient | kun-VEEN-yunt |
| 7. prosperity / prosperous | pros-PER-i-dee / PROS-per-us |
| 8. theoretically | thee-or-ED-i-klee |
| 9. scarcely | SCĀR-slee |
| 10. critical / criticism | KRI-di-kul / KRI-di-si-zum |
| 11. discreet / discretion | dis-KREET / dis-KRE-shun |
| 12. accelerate | ak-SEL-er-ate |
| 13. dictator | DIK-tā-der |
| 14. obtain | ub-TAIN |
| 15. flaw | FLAH |
| 16. cultivate | KUL-ti-vate |
| 17. transport | TRANS-port (n) trans-PORT (v) |
| 18. burgeoning | BUR-jun-ing |
| 19. enormous | ee-NOR-mus |
| 20. blind | BLIND |
Daily Stand-up: Project Phoenix
Liam (Team Lead): Good morning, everyone. Let’s keep today’s stand-up quick. Sarah, how’s the database migration coming along?
Sarah (Backend Developer): It’s moving along. I’ve established the basic deployment routine, but I’m looking at ways to accelerate the data transfer. Right now, it’s scarcely fast enough for our go-live date.
Liam: Understood. Mark, any updates on the new API endpoints?
Mark (Frontend Developer): The integration with the frontend is convenient thanks to the new shared component library, but I did hit a snag. The authentication method we planned is theoretically sound, but it’s causing latency issues in real-world testing.
Liam: Hmm. Can you clarify the source of the latency? Is it a network bottleneck or an issue with token validation?
Mark: I’m still isolating it. On a separate note, I wanted to mention that I’m trying to cultivate a more diverse set of unit tests for the user-facing forms. I feel like we only test the happy path currently.
Chloe (DevOps Engineer): That’s an appropriate goal, Mark. We should all be broadening our testing scope.
Liam: Agreed. Chloe, what’s on your plate?
Chloe: I’m focusing on our new microservices architecture. It’s a burgeoning system, and I need to obtain feedback on the resource allocation from the product owner. We have to use discretion with cloud costs in the early stages.
Sarah: Speaking of feedback, Liam, I received some pretty harsh criticism in the last pull request review about my error handling implementation.
Liam: Sarah, let’s look at that after the stand-up. Remember, code criticism is always about the code, never the person. We need to maintain high quality, and sometimes that means direct feedback.
Sarah: Thanks, I appreciate that.
Liam: Alright, everyone knows their focus for the day. Let’s get back to work.
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