“The exchange rate is killing us.”

English Lesson: The exchange rate is killing us.

Your business sells products overseas. Right now the value of your country's money is higher than usual, so you've had to raise your prices and aren't selling as much. You complain to a friend who also runs a business.

The exchange rate is killing us.

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exchange rate

The "exchange rate" is the amount of one type of currency (money) that you're able to buy with another currency. The exchange rate between currencies changes daily. This can affect the prices of things that are bought and sold from other countries.

When you say what the current exchange rate is, you can say it like this:

The current exchange rate is 128 yen to 1 euro.

But in casual speech, we don't usually use the phrase "exchange rate" when saying what the rate is. Instead, we say something like this:

I read that the dollar is at 1100 won.

(something) is killing (someone)

This phrase is sometimes used in business, to talk about things that are causing problems for the business. For example:

These taxes are killing us!

All of these rules and regulations are killing us.

Competition from overseas is absolutely killing us.