Foscari - Dipartimento di Scienze Ambientali, Informatica e Statistica

Describing Trends
We can describe trends in English in different ways:
Verbs of change
Profits are falling.
Unemployment is rising in many areas.
Prepositions
Our business grew by 10% last year.
Sales grew to $5.8 million.
Different Tense
In recent months our profits have risen dramatically.
In January we were making a loss.
We've been going through a difficult period.
To describe changing circumstances we can use verbs of movement.
Improve increase recover rise
Decline decrease drop fall
A dramatic movement may be expressed by:
rocket soar
dive plummet
A slight movement can be indicated by:
edge up edge down dip
The amount of increase can also be indicated using these verbs:
halve double triple quadruple increase tenfold
Or with a preposition:
Our business grew by 15% last year
Sales have increased from 1.0 million to 1.8 million.
Changes which have not reached their end point are expressed using -ing.
Profits are falling.
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