The Monthly Figures: describing trends in sales figures

Q: How do you describe sales figures in English?

Describe sales figures with the big picture first, then each part : Total sales stood at $3,575,000, about 4% up year over year. For each part, give the movement, its size and the new level: Online sales grew steadily, from $120,000 to $150,000. Use the past simple for a finished month, and pick precise words: a significant increase , not a huge one .

Q: How do you describe trends in English?

To describe a trend, name the movement, then add its size and speed : Sales rose by 15%. There was a sharp drop in August. Café sales remained stable. Pair verbs with adverbs ( increased steadily ) and nouns with adjectives ( a steady increase ), and use level off , peak and recover for turning points. The Monthly Figures , a B2 Business English lesson on edio.ai, practices each of these on one quarter's sales.

Q: What vocabulary do you use to describe trends?

Trend vocabulary is a set of verbs and nouns for each direction : up ( rise , increase , grow , climb ), down ( fall , drop , decrease , decline ), no change ( remain stable , stay the same ), a stop after a change ( level off ), the top and bottom ( peak , reach a low ), up and down ( fluctuate ) and back up ( recover ). Slight , steady , sharp and dramatic give the size.

Q: What's the difference between rise and raise?

Rise has no object, while raise needs one : sales rise, but a manager raises a budget. Their forms differ too: rise, rose, risen and raise, raised, raised . So Sales have raised by 10% is wrong; say Sales have risen by 10% . Increase works with or without an object. A homework quiz in The Monthly Figures on edio.ai sets have raised as a trap.

Q: Is it "rose by" or "rose to"?

Both are correct, with different meanings: by gives the difference, to the new level . Online sales rose by $30,000 says how much they grew; they rose to $150,000 says where they ended. Together: Wholesale rose by 15%, to $483,000. After a noun, the size takes of : an increase of 25% . In the listening of The Monthly Figures on edio.ai, a finance director catches exactly this slip.

Q: Is it "fell sharp" or "fell sharply"?

It's fell sharply , since a verb takes an adverb : Wholesale sales fell sharply in August. A noun takes the adjective: a sharp fall , a steady increase , a slight dip . Remain and stay are the exception: they describe a state, so they take an adjective. It's Sales remained stable , not remained stably .

Q: What does year over year mean?

Year over year means compared with the same period twelve months earlier : Sales were about 4% up year over year compares this quarter with the same quarter last year, so seasonal ups and downs don't distort the picture. It's the usual phrase in American business English, often shortened to YoY in reports; British English often says year on year .

Q: What does bounce back mean in business?

To bounce back is to return to normal after a bad period : Sales bounced back in September, rising by 15% to $483,000. It's informal but common at work, while formal reports often say recover or a recovery . The short fall before it is a dip , and if it comes at the same time every year, it's seasonal , not a one-time event .

Q: What business vocabulary do you need to talk about figures?

Talking about figures takes phrases for shares, progress and comparison : account for ( The online store accounts for about 12% of sales ), break down ( figures broken down by month ), on track , hit a target and outperform . Add a dip , bounce back , seasonal and a one-time event to explain a change. The word cards of The Monthly Figures , a B2 lesson on edio.ai, teach all ten with pictures and audio.

Q: What's a good game for practicing describing trends?

A good game is describe and draw : one learner describes a trend from a real report ( Sales rose steadily, then leveled off in May ) while a partner draws the line, and then they compare. Precise words pay off, since a slight dip and a sharp drop draw differently. The wheel in this lesson adds ready-made figures to interpret, such as a store's daily customers from May to October.

This B2 Business English lesson plan teaches describing trends in a quarter's sales figures, with the right verb, size and preposition.

Grammar: Verbs and nouns of change (rise, a drop, level off, peak), irregular past forms, a sharp rise vs rose sharply, prepositions with figures (by 15%, to $483,000) and rise vs raise.
Topic: A coffee roaster's sales for one quarter, prepared for a management meeting, with words such as a dip, bounce back, on track and year over year.
Activities: A finance director's email, a talk about slide wording, self-checking drills, a chat with the CEO and a wheel of figures to interpret, then a report and a recorded presentation.

What's inside

Chapter 1Warm-up: Talking Numbers
- PictureUnlock
- Open a box and discussOpen the boxUnlock
- Study the vocabulary: talking about figuresVocabularyTry it
- Match the phrases to the situationsMatchUnlock
Chapter 2Reading: The Numbers Are In
- Read Priya's emailReal-life documentTry it
- True or false? Check Priya's emailTrue or falseUnlock
- Choose the correct answer: the quarter's figuresQuizUnlock
Chapter 3Listening: Huge or Significant?
- Listen to Priya and Sam preparing the slidesListeningTry it
- Transcript, for the teacherUnlock
- Choose the correct answer: preparing the slidesQuizUnlock
Chapter 4Grammar: Up, Down and Steady
- Study the scheme: describing trendsGrammar schemeTry it
- Choose the correct word: adjective or adverb?Choose the optionUnlock
- Choose the correct prepositionChoose the optionUnlock
- Put the verbs in the correct formFill in the gapsTry it
- Fill in the table: describe the figuresFill in the tableUnlock
Chapter 5Speaking: How's Business?
- Choose the best replyChatTry it
- Spin the wheel and talk about trendsSpin the wheelUnlock
Chapter 6Homework: The Seattle Numbers
- Choose the correct sentenceQuizUnlock
- Sort the words: up, down or steady?Sort into columnsUnlock
- Write a short report on the Seattle figuresWriting, checked by the teacherUnlock
- Record a two-minute presentation of the Seattle figuresSpeaking, checked by the teacherUnlock

Business vocabulary for figures

10 words and phrases from the lesson, each with a picture and audio in edio.

+7 more with pictures and audio in the lessonMore words

bounce back
on track
hit a target
a one-time event
year over year
seasonal
outperform

Grammar: describing trends

Figures go up, go down, hold steady or bounce back, and English has a verb, and often a noun, for each move. Working with one quarter's sales, learners add the size and the right preposition to every change, so a report says rose by 15%, to $483,000, not went up a lot.

Describing trends

Verbs, nouns, adverbs and prepositions for figures that go up, go down or stay the same.

Up, down or steady: verbs and nouns

Most moves come as a verb and a noun: rise and a rise, drop and a drop, recover and a recovery. For no change, say remain stable; for a stop after a rise or fall, level off; for the top, peak at a figure.

Movement	Verbs	Nouns
↑ Up	rise, increase, grow, go up, climb	a rise, an increase, growth
↓ Down	fall, drop, decrease, decline, go down	a fall, a drop, a decrease, a decline
= No change	remain stable, stay the same	–
→ Stop changing after a rise or fall	level off	–
▲ ▼ The top and the bottom	peak (at $…), reach a low (of $…)	a peak, a low
↕ Up and down	fluctuate	fluctuations
↗ Back up after a fall	recover	a recovery

Rose, fell, grew, and which tense

Three trend verbs are irregular: rise, rose, risen; fall, fell, fallen; grow, grew, grown. A finished month takes the past simple (Sales rose in July), a period up to now the present perfect: Online sales have risen since June. American spelling writes leveled off.

Irregular verbs and spelling

Base form	Past simple	Past participle
rise	rose	risen
fall	fell	fallen
grow	grew	grown
drop (double p)	dropped	dropped
level off (American: one l)	leveled off	leveled off
raise (regular)	raised	raised

Which tense?

A finished month or quarter takes the past simple: Sales rose in July. A period up to now takes the present perfect: Online sales have risen since June. After remain and stay, use an adjective: sales remained stable (not stably).

A sharp rise or rose sharply?

A noun takes an adjective and a verb takes an adverb: a sharp rise but rose sharply, a slight fall but fell slightly. After remain and stay, the adjective stays: Sales remained stable, not stably.

Adjective + noun

a sharp rise
a slight fall
a steady increase
a gradual decline
a dramatic drop
a significant recovery

Verb + adverb

rose sharply
fell slightly
increased steadily
declined gradually
dropped dramatically
recovered significantly

By, to, from, at, of and in

By gives the difference and to the new level: Online sales rose by $30,000, to $150,000. At marks a level at one point (peaked at $1,225,000). After a noun, of gives the size and in what changed: an increase of 25% in online sales.

Prepositions with figures

Preposition	What it shows	Example
rise / fall by	the difference	Online sales rose by $30,000.
rise / fall to	the new level	They rose to $150,000.
from … to …	the start and the end	They rose from $120,000 to $150,000.
stand / peak / remain stable at	a level at one point	Total sales peaked at $1,225,000.
an increase / a fall of	the size of the change (after a noun)	an increase of 25%
a peak / a low of	the highest or lowest level (after a noun)	Wholesale reached a low of $420,000.
an increase / a fall in	what changed (after a noun)	an increase in online sales

Presenting figures

Give the difference with by and the new level with to: Wholesale rose by 15%, to $483,000. Choose your words with care: 25% in three months is a significant increase, not a huge one. In American English, write percent as one word, or use %.

Rise or raise?

Rise has no object (Sales rose), but raise needs one: Claire raised the budget. So it's Sales have risen by 10%, never have raised. Increase works both ways: Sales increased. We increased sales.

rise: no object (rise · rose · risen)

Sales rose in September.
Online sales have risen by 25%.
There was a rise in online orders.

raise: + an object (raise · raised · raised)

Claire raised the budget.
The campaign has raised awareness.
Increase works both ways: Sales increased. / We increased sales.

Typical mistakes

Sales have raised by 10%.
Sales have risen by 10%.
Raise needs an object. With no object, use rise · rose · risen.
Online sales increased of 25%.
Online sales increased by 25%.
After a verb, the difference takes by. Of follows a noun: an increase of 25%.
There was a rise of online sales in July.
There was a rise in online sales in July.
What changes takes in; the size takes of: a rise of 10% in online sales.
Wholesale sales fell sharp in August.
Wholesale sales fell sharply in August.
A verb takes an adverb; a noun takes an adjective: a sharp fall.

Try the describing trends exercises

Try them yourself: these are the same exercises your students do in edio.

What's in the lesson

11 auto-checked exercises
2 games
2 teacher-checked tasks
1 real-life document
1 grammar scheme
1 set of word cards
1 audio clip
1 picture
1 transcript

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

describe a movement with a verb or a noun of change: Sales rose in September. There was a sharp drop in August. Café sales remained stable.
give the difference with by and the new level with to: Wholesale rose by 15%, to $483,000.
pick the right past form and an adjective or adverb: rose, fell, leveled off; a steady increase, grew steadily
brief a busy manager on a quarter's results in two lines: Sales stood at $3,575,000, about 4% up year over year.

Lesson 6 of Business English B2 · A Year at Wrenfield belongs to the unit Meetings and figures, between setting up a meeting and running one. It brings back lesson 2's choice between the past simple and the present perfect, now for months and quarters, and the adverbs of manner of English A2.1 lesson 19; lesson 11 returns to slightly and significantly with comparatives. When every sentence carries a dollar figure, one wrong preposition changes the number.

The warm-up asks which numbers matter at work and how to present mixed results, then teaches ten phrases with pictures and audio, from account for and break down to seasonal and outperform. Priya's email gives the key figures for July to September: online sales up 25%, steady cafés and a seasonal dip in wholesale. In the AI-voiced listening, she talks Sam down from huge to significant and from by to to.

After the scheme, students choose adjectives or adverbs, pick prepositions, put verbs in the right form and complete a table that turns figures into sentences, all checked as they answer. In the chat, they brief the CEO between her meetings; the wheel asks them to interpret figures and explain a dip. Homework adds a sentence quiz and an up, down or steady sort, then a report on a café's sales from January to June and a recorded presentation of them, both for the teacher.

Grammar:: describing trends · verbs and nouns of change · prepositions with figures
Topic:: sales figures · presenting data · business reports

Teaching tips

Bring the group's own figures: in-company learners describe one real line from a report in three sentences, with a verb of change, by or to, and an adjective or adverb.
Show Sam's slide title before the listening, Online sales go through the roof!, and ask what a finance director would change. Then play the dialogue and compare.
Draw the wholesale line on the board: $480,000, $420,000, $483,000. Students describe it three ways, with a verb (fell sharply), a noun (a sharp drop) and a phrase (bounced back).
Rehearse the recorded presentation live with one-to-one clients: they present the café's January-to-June figures while you note every vague word, such as huge, and every by that should be to.

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The whole course: Business English B2 · A Year at Wrenfield

20 lessons at B2 in American English that follow a year at Wrenfield Coffee Roasters in Portland, Oregon, as founder Claire Morgan and her team win a Dutch hotel contract. Learners network, write emails, run meetings, negotiate, handle complaints and present figures, with one grammar point per lesson.See the course

Unit 1 First contacts
networking, a company story, a business lunch and emails: present tenses, the present perfect, question tags, indirect questions
Unit 2 Meetings and figures
scheduling, sales figures, running a meeting and negotiating: future forms, trends, gerunds and infinitives, conditionals
1. Lesson 5Setting Up MeetingsFuture forms for meetings and schedules
2. Lesson 6 · you're hereThe Monthly FiguresDescribing trends
3. Lesson 7Running a MeetingGerunds and infinitives in meetings
4. Lesson 8Negotiating a DealFirst and second conditionals in a negotiation
Unit 3 Problems and growth
a complaint, a late shipment, a launch and hiring: the present perfect continuous, the passive, comparatives, relative clauses
Unit 4 Reports, prices and feedback
reporting back, explaining prices, expenses and feedback: reported speech, linking words, modals of obligation, past modals
Unit 5 Looking back and ahead
what went wrong, other cultures, an agency and next year: the third and mixed conditionals, past deduction, the causative, the future perfect

Questions about this lesson

How do you describe sales figures in English?

Describe sales figures with the big picture first, then each part: Total sales stood at $3,575,000, about 4% up year over year. For each part, give the movement, its size and the new level: Online sales grew steadily, from $120,000 to $150,000. Use the past simple for a finished month, and pick precise words: a significant increase, not a huge one.

How do you describe trends in English?

To describe a trend, name the movement, then add its size and speed: Sales rose by 15%. There was a sharp drop in August. Café sales remained stable. Pair verbs with adverbs (increased steadily) and nouns with adjectives (a steady increase), and use level off, peak and recover for turning points. The Monthly Figures, a B2 Business English lesson on edio.ai, practices each of these on one quarter's sales.

What vocabulary do you use to describe trends?

Trend vocabulary is a set of verbs and nouns for each direction: up (rise, increase, grow, climb), down (fall, drop, decrease, decline), no change (remain stable, stay the same), a stop after a change (level off), the top and bottom (peak, reach a low), up and down (fluctuate) and back up (recover). Slight, steady, sharp and dramatic give the size.

What's the difference between rise and raise?

Rise has no object, while raise needs one: sales rise, but a manager raises a budget. Their forms differ too: rise, rose, risen and raise, raised, raised. So Sales have raised by 10% is wrong; say Sales have risen by 10%. Increase works with or without an object. A homework quiz in The Monthly Figures on edio.ai sets have raised as a trap.

Is it "rose by" or "rose to"?

Both are correct, with different meanings: by gives the difference, to the new level. Online sales rose by $30,000 says how much they grew; they rose to $150,000 says where they ended. Together: Wholesale rose by 15%, to $483,000. After a noun, the size takes of: an increase of 25%. In the listening of The Monthly Figures on edio.ai, a finance director catches exactly this slip.

Is it "fell sharp" or "fell sharply"?

It's fell sharply, since a verb takes an adverb: Wholesale sales fell sharply in August. A noun takes the adjective: a sharp fall, a steady increase, a slight dip. Remain and stay are the exception: they describe a state, so they take an adjective. It's Sales remained stable, not remained stably.

What does year over year mean?

Year over year means compared with the same period twelve months earlier: Sales were about 4% up year over year compares this quarter with the same quarter last year, so seasonal ups and downs don't distort the picture. It's the usual phrase in American business English, often shortened to YoY in reports; British English often says year on year.

What does bounce back mean in business?

To bounce back is to return to normal after a bad period: Sales bounced back in September, rising by 15% to $483,000. It's informal but common at work, while formal reports often say recover or a recovery. The short fall before it is a dip, and if it comes at the same time every year, it's seasonal, not a one-time event.

What business vocabulary do you need to talk about figures?

Talking about figures takes phrases for shares, progress and comparison: account for (The online store accounts for about 12% of sales), break down (figures broken down by month), on track, hit a target and outperform. Add a dip, bounce back, seasonal and a one-time event to explain a change. The word cards of The Monthly Figures, a B2 lesson on edio.ai, teach all ten with pictures and audio.

What's a good game for practicing describing trends?

A good game is describe and draw: one learner describes a trend from a real report (Sales rose steadily, then leveled off in May) while a partner draws the line, and then they compare. Precise words pay off, since a slight dip and a sharp drop draw differently. The wheel in this lesson adds ready-made figures to interpret, such as a store's daily customers from May to October.

What's good homework for practicing trend language?

Good homework is a short report on a real set of figures: the big picture first, then the details, then one possible reason. In The Monthly Figures, a B2 Business English lesson on edio.ai, a sentence quiz and an up, down or steady sort check themselves; then students write about six months of a café's sales and record a presentation of them, which the teacher reviews.

Are there interactive exercises for describing trends?

Yes: verb-form gap-fills and chats that check themselves make trend language quick to practice. This page plays four parts of The Monthly Figures, a B2 Business English lesson on edio.ai, without an account: a finance director's email with the quarter's figures, two colleagues preparing slides, a drill that puts rise, fall, grow and level off in the right form, and a chat briefing the CEO. The other exercises are locked.

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About this lesson

What's inside

Business vocabulary for figures

Grammar: describing trends

Up, down or steady: verbs and nouns

Rose, fell, grew, and which tense

Irregular verbs and spelling

A sharp rise or rose sharply?

By, to, from, at, of and in

Prepositions with figures

Rise or raise?

Typical mistakes

Try the describing trends exercises

What's in the lesson

The main objectives of this lesson are to:

Teaching tips

Teach the whole lesson in edio

Start a free trial

Open the lesson

Teach it live or as homework

The whole course: Business English B2 · A Year at Wrenfield

Unit 1 First contacts

Unit 2 Meetings and figures

Unit 3 Problems and growth

Unit 4 Reports, prices and feedback

Unit 5 Looking back and ahead

Questions about this lesson

Teach this lesson with your students