Juggling with Numbers

Zu Teil 4

So, what is it all about numbers and their ups and downs? In companies, decisions have more far-reaching consequences because so many more people are affected by them. Numbers are always the basis for making decisions. In this way, a company‘s financial situation, progress, trends for market analysis, and growth can be tracked.

Different people prefer different ways of reading about the statistics mentioned above. Some prefer articles and texts, others charts and diagrams. In company presentations, you are most likely faced with impressive, colourful line graphs, pie and bar charts or Venn diagrams in which you can grasp the information at first glance. After all, figures don‘t lie, do they?

Types of graphs, charts, and diagrams

• A Bar chart compares quantities in different categories. Each category has its own bar. The length of the bar indicates the value.
• A line graph shows trends over time. All points are connected with a line and increases or decreases can be easily seen.
• A pie chart is a circle divided into slices that each represent a proportion of the whole.
• A Venn diagram has overlapping circles to show the relationships between two or more sets, showing differences and similarities.

These are just a few examples of different visual ways to display figures and statistics and talk about ups and downs as well as highs and lows.

So let‘s talk about verbs to describe trends and changes.

Words that mean going up

• Verbs: to go up, to rise, to increase, to grow, to climb, to double, to triple, to quadruple etc.
• Nouns: rise, increase, growth, upswing, uptrend, upturn, upward trend

Words that mean going down

Verbs: to decrease, to decline, to drop, to fall, to shrink, to slump, to halve etc.
Nouns: decrease, decline, drop, slump, downswing, downtrend, downturn, downward trend, cut, fall

Verbs that mean going up or down

To move, to vary, to change

Verbs that mean going both up and down

To fluctuate, to be unsteady, to be unstable, to recover, to pick up, to bounce back, to rebound, to regain lost ground

Verbs that mean staying on the same level

To stay flat, to remain stable, to remain constant, to not vary, to remain steady, to stay the same, to stabilize, to stagnate, to even out

Verbs that mean becoming flat

To flatten out, to bottom out, to plateau, to level off.

Verbs that mean big changes

Up: to increase by five/ten times, to increase fivefold/tenfold, to take off, to rocket, to skyrocket, to boom, to explode, to accelerate, to soar, to peak
Down: to crash, to dive, to plummet, to plunge, to collapse, to tumble

Verbs that mean small changes

To creep up, to dip, to slow down

Verbs with positive meanings

To improve, to ameliorate, to boom, to recover, to bounce back, to be enhanced, to regain lost ground, to be boosted

Verbs with negative meanings

To crash, to escalate, to worsen, to deteriorate, to slump, to collapse

Remember

Different verbs or nouns can use different prepositions depending on the context.

• There was a change from 30% to 45%. So there was an actual change of 15%.
• We hope that were will be an increase in sales. We hope for an increase of 10%.
• Sales increased by 15% last year.

• You use ‘an increase in’ to describe what increases: an increase in sales/interest rates/taxes.
• You use ‘an increase of’ when you talk about the percentage: an increase of 10%.
• You use ‘to increase by’ with the verb ‘to increase’: interest rates increased by 4%.

What is the difference between ‘rise’ and ‘raise’?

• ‘To rise’ means to move upward or to increase.
• ‘To raise sth’ means to lift or move something or someone upward. It also means to increase.
• ‘To raise’ always includes the words ‘something’ or ‘someone’. Something is causing the upward movement of something else. With ‘to rise’, the cause is not stated.

‘To rise’ (ansteigen, steigen, zunehmen, aufstehen)

It is an irregular verb: rise, rose, risen!

• Warm air rises.
• The sun rises in the east.
• Rise and shine! (A common saying in the morning which means: get up!)
• Global temperatures continue to rise.

‘To raise’ (erhöhen, etw. anheben)

It is a regular verb: raise, raised, raised.

• The student raised her hand when she had a question.
• Flower shops always raise prices before Valentine´s Day.
• Banks raise their interest rates when there is an increase in the demand for credit.
• The bucket was so heavy that he couldn´t raise it.

You can use adjectives and adverbs to describe the degree or the speed of change.

Adjectives are put in front of a noun: There was a slight increase in sales in June.

Adverbs (adjective + ly) describe the verb in more detail: Interest rates have gradually decreased.

Describing the degree of change

• slight/slightly (leicht)
• modest/modestly (mäßig, gemäßigt)
• marginal/marginally (geringfügig)
• noticeable/noticeably (spürbar, merklich)
• considerable/considerably (beträchtlich, beachtlich)
• substantial/substantially (erheblich)
• sharp/sharply (stark, deutlich)
• steep/steeply (steil)
• dramatic/dramatically (dramatisch)

Describing the speed of change

• slow/slowly (langsam, schleppend)
• sluggish/sluggishly (träge, lahm)
• gradual/gradually (allmählich, schrittweise)
• steady/steadily (stetig, kontinuierlich)
• progressive/progressively (zunehmend)
• swift/swiftly (rasch)
• fast/fast (schnell)
• quick/quickly (schnell)
• abrupt/abruptly (abrupt)
  
  

A summary of your company’s sales could look like this:

Have a look at this line graph showing our sales in the last six months. The x-axis represents the months, and the y-axis represents our sales in euros, ranging from € 0 to € 10,000. As you can see, the line starts at around € 2,000 in January and goes up to about € 4,000 in February. This shows a modest increase in sales which was a result of intensified marketing measures and a decreasing rate of inflation during this time. In March sales rose even more to € 6,000 because people simply had more money on hand due to sinking inflation. We had a small dip in April, sales dropped to € 5,000 but, as you can see, the line rises again in May. Sales are recovering and going up again. Finally in June, the line peaks at € 9,000, which is the highest point in the graph. We haven´t got the latest results for July yet, but are sure that sales will further pick up in the third quarter.

Sales – turnover – revenue – income - profits

Let’s bring some light into this jungle of terms.

• Sales are the number of goods, products or services sold by a company but also refers to the income of companies, often measured in sales figures.
• Traders say that sales are stagnating or even declining slightly.
• Turnover is the total amount of sales or business a company does in a certain period of time.
  The company´s annual turnover is somewhere around €60.5 million, up 3% on the previous year.
• Revenue is the total amount of money made in sales.  
  The company is looking for another source of revenue.
• Income is a company´s total earnings after deducting expenses.
  Operative losses can often be compensated by other company income.
• Profit is the amount of income that remains after accounting for all expenses. Profit is revenue minus expenses. For gross profit, you subtract some expenses. For net profit, you subtract all expenses.
  Even though the profit we were making there was not so big, it was guaranteed.

Expressing certainty (Gewissheit) and probability (Wahrscheinlichkeit)

When you make predictions about the future or speculate about further developments, it is useful to use combinations such as ‘might go up’, ‘could possibly bounce back’, ‘probably improve’, etc.

You can also use ‘(un)likely to’, ‘certain to’ and ‘due to’ to talk about certainty and probability.
Our new advertising campaign is likely to increase profitability this year. (= probable)
It is highly unlikely that consumer prices will drop. (= improbable)
We are certain to improve our sales figures this year. (= certain)
The conference is due to start at 8 am every day. (= planned)

Remember

False friends when talking about numbers:

1. Billion         trillion
   Not: billion (Milliarde)
2. Quote         quota
   Not: quote (Angebot, Kostenvoranschlag, Zitat)
3. Prägnant    concise
   Not: pregnant (schwanger)
4. Groß        big, large, huge, tall
   Not: gross (ekelhaft, ordinär, brutto)

So much for today. Now you have a large variety of expressions to talk about statistics and trends. I hope you only need the positive ones. So stay tuned!