Morning English Lesson: Negotiating Your Next Raise or Promotion

It’s Friday, so today’s lesson is Career & Growth. The topic: asking for a raise or a promotion without sounding either apologetic or aggressive. This is one of the hardest conversations in English for non-native speakers, because the phrasing has to be firm and polite at the same time.

Word of the Day: Negotiate

IPA: /nɪˈɡoʊʃiˌeɪt/
Vietnamese meaning: thương lượng, đàm phán

• I’d like to negotiate my salary before I accept the offer.
• She negotiated a later start date so she could finish her notice period properly.
• They spent two weeks negotiating the terms of the contract.

Watch and listen: YouGlish — “negotiate” in real videos and Cambridge Dictionary — negotiate.

Vocabulary Table

Phrase	Vietnamese	Example
make the case for	đưa ra lý do, lập luận cho	“Let me make the case for a 15% increase based on this year’s results.”
market rate	mức lương theo thị trường	“I checked, and my role is paying below market rate right now.”
walk away from the table	rời khỏi cuộc đàm phán (không chấp nhận)	“If the offer doesn’t move, I’m prepared to walk away from the table.”
meet in the middle	gặp nhau ở điểm giữa, thỏa hiệp	“We couldn’t agree on the number, so we met in the middle.”
put a number on it	đưa ra một con số cụ thể	“Can you put a number on what you’re looking for?”

Pronunciation Guide

Negotiate breaks into four syllables: ne-GO-shi-ate. The stress lands hard on the second syllable, “GO.” Many Vietnamese speakers soften the “sh” sound in the third syllable into an “s” — practice the “shi” sound by pushing air through rounded lips, like saying “she” quickly. The final “-ate” is a short “eɪt”, not a long “ayt.”

Practice sentence (read aloud 3 times):
“I’d like to negotiate the start date before we put a number on the final offer.”

Exercises

Exercise 1 — Fill in the blank:
“Before accepting, I want to ______ a higher base salary.” (negotiate / negotiation / negotiator)

Show answer

negotiate — “I want to negotiate a higher base salary.”

Exercise 2 — Translate to English:
“Tôi nghĩ mức lương này thấp hơn mức lương thị trường, nên tôi muốn thương lượng lại.”

Show answer

“I think this salary is below market rate, so I’d like to negotiate again.”

Idiom of the Day: To Have Skin in the Game

Vietnamese meaning: có lợi ích hoặc rủi ro cá nhân gắn liền với kết quả — nói cách khác, bạn thực sự quan tâm vì chính bạn cũng chịu ảnh hưởng.

• “I pushed hard for that project because I had skin in the game — my bonus depended on it.”
• “Ask for equity, not just salary, if you want real skin in the game.”

Recommended Watching

• LinkedIn (YouTube) — short clips on salary negotiation framing from recruiters and career coaches.
• Erika Veliz — English Interview & Career videos — practical scripts for raise and promotion conversations.
• YouGlish — “negotiate” — hear the word in dozens of real spoken contexts.

Daily Challenge

Today, write down one sentence you could say in your next 1:1 to open a negotiation — using “negotiate,” “market rate,” or “put a number on it.” Say it out loud once before you need it for real.