Students who join our Business English intensive often arrive with good grammar and a fear of meetings. The problem is rarely vocabulary. It is not having a ready phrase at the moment you need it, so you stay quiet and the moment passes. Here are the twenty phrases our teachers drill until they come out automatically.
Joining and opening
1."Thanks for making the time."
2."Before we start, can I check what we need to decide today?"
3."Shall we go through the agenda in order?"
Taking the floor
4."Can I come in here?"
5."Just to add to what Maria said..."
6."I would like to pick up on one point."
Agreeing and disagreeing without drama
7."I see it the same way."
8."I take your point, but I see it differently."
9."I am not sure that follows. Can you walk me through it?"
10."Can we agree to disagree and move on?"
Asking for clarity
11."Sorry, could you say that again?"
12."When you say X, do you mean...?"
13."So, if I understand correctly, the plan is..."
Managing the conversation
14."Let us park that and come back to it."
15."We are running short on time. Can we move to the next point?"
16."Can we take this offline?"
Closing
17."So, to sum up, we have agreed on three things."
18."Who is taking this away?"
19."Let us set a date for the follow-up."
20."Thanks, everyone. I will send the notes this afternoon."
How to make them stick
Pick five, not twenty. Use them in your next real meeting, even if it feels forced. Then add the next five. In our intensive course we run meeting simulations every week so the phrases get used under mild pressure, which is exactly where they need to work. If you want to practise with a teacher, book a free trial lesson and tell us which meetings scare you most.