Lesson 4

1. colleague [`kOli:g];

AmE [`kα:li:g]

• a person who works at the same place as you, especially in a profession or a business: She is a colleague of mine from the office. I got an email from one of my colleagues. John is swapping ideas with colleagues.

He is my former / junior / new / senior colleague.

2. co-worker (AmE spelling coworker)

• a person that sb works with, doing the same kind of job: 95% of our employees know their co-workers on a first-name basis.

3. counterpart [`kauntəpα:t];

AmE [`kauntərpα:rt]

• a person or thing has a similar position or function in a different country or organization: Our engineering teams called their counterparts at IBM to help resolve the problem.

4. opposite number

• a person who does the same job as you in another organization: The CEO received an angry letter from his opposite number at a rival company.

5. the competition [ֽkOmpə`ti∫n]

AmE [ֽkα:mpə`ti∫n]

• the people who are competing against sb: We’ll be able to access the competition at the conference. They are working on a strategy to beat the competition.

He has always been able to beat / keep ahead of / out-think the competition.

6. competitor [ֽkOm`pətitə(r)]

• a business, person, product, etc. that competes against others: We need to win market share from our competitors. The web authoring software promises to be a strong competitor to the market leaders.

They are our biggest / largest / main / major / nearest competitor.

Having a fierce / strong / tough competitor makes you stronger.

7. rival [`raivl]

• a person, company, or thing that competes with another: We fought off competition from dozens of rivals to win the contract. This new magazine is widely seen as a rival to the major news weekly. The two men are now rivals for a top job in broadcasting.

The company beat its bigger / larger / smaller rival.

They are our closest / main / nearest rivals.