English Benefits: What Benefits Does Your Job Have?
| This is an entry in the series on “Job Benefits.” This week we’re talking about the positive side of our jobs.
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The word ‘benefit’ has a couple of synonyms in English. In normal American conversation, we talk about the ‘upside’ of something, meaning the positive side. A benefit can also be a ‘positive effect,’ like in this sentence: “a benefit of laughter is that it can help you reduce stress.”
When we talk about benefits, we often use the preposition ‘of,’ like I did in the sentence above. Or in this sentence: “a benefit of learning English is that I can understand Billy Joel songs.”
Obviously, the positive side, or the positive effect of your job is—for most of us—the money. Talking about a job, though, the one thing your benefits can’t be is money. In ‘work English,’ benefits refer to all the things you get from your job that aren’t money.
Is there a positive side to your job that isn’t money? Does your employer pay for something for you—from a car to English lessons—so that you don’t have to pay for it yourself?
Teaching English in Germany isn’t a ‘job with benefits’ in the American sense—we’ll talk about what that means tomorrow—but it does have a lot of benefits: because I have (mostly) great students, I feel very connected to the city that I live in. They tell me what’s happening, they have different opinions on local problems, and they teach me about their own jobs. In fact, I think I must learn as much from them as I teach to them. I think that’s a very clear benefit.
Before we talk about the ‘American’ meaning of benefits, what are some of the positive things you can say about your job? What are the benefits of doing what you do? What are the benefits of owning a car? Of not owning a car?
Here’s a question people have been asking me: what are some benefits of having children?
I’m interested to hear what you think! Let me know!
