Attending a Meeting in English Useful Phrases for Meetings Business English
Hello, I’m Gina and welcome to Oxford Online
English!
Tomorrow, you have a meeting to attend.
If the meeting is in English, will you be
ready?
This lesson will help you learn useful phrases
to introduce yourself, respond to suggestions
and ideas, and ask questions in a business
meeting.
I want you to imagine you’re in the meeting,
and the chair has asked everyone to introduce
themselves.
What are some phrases you can use?
Sometimes, you’ll be in a meeting with people
you don’t know.
Other times, the chair will ask for quick
introductions to break the ice.
There are three things you should do here:
Say your name
Say your job title
Describe your responsibilities
To say your name, you can use a formal, ‘My
name is _____’ or, if the meeting is more
informal, you can say, ‘Hi, I’m_____’.
For your position title, use ‘to be’,
just like for your name.
Then, decide if your position is the only
one in the company, or if there are others
who have the same job title.
For example, if you are the only secretary,
use ‘the’:
I’m the secretary.
If other people also have this position in
the company, use ‘a’:
I’m a project manager.
If necessary, you can say which department
you work in.
You can use the preposition ‘in’ plus
the noun: ‘engineering’, ‘marketing’,
‘finance’, etc.
For example:
I’m in the engineering department.
Or: I work in the marketing department.
Finally, you can briefly describe your responsibilities,
like this:
I manage each project from start to finish.
I’m responsible for web analytics and testing.
Or: I handle purchasing and our negotiations
with suppliers.
You can see that using verbs and phrases like
manage, be responsible for or handle can be
useful here.
Here is an example of a full introduction
in a formal meeting with people you don’t
know, or don’t know well:
My name is Gina Mares and I’m the marketing
manager here.
I handle online advertising and web analytics.
Here’s an example of a more informal introduction:
Hi, I’m Gina.
I’m in the sales department.
I manage our sales team.
How would you introduce yourself in a meeting?
You can give it a try now.
Now that you’ve introduced yourself, the
meeting will begin.
During the meeting, you might need to give
your opinion on the different agenda items
which you are discussing.
You might also need to react to other people’s
suggestions.
How can you do this?
When making suggestions, modal verbs can be
very useful.
‘Should’ ,‘ought to’ or ‘might want
to’ can express something you think is a
good idea, but not an obligation:
We ought to give new clients a gift from the
company.
We might want to consider looking for another
engineer to help with this.
Or: I think we should make this a priority
for this month.
‘Have to’ and ‘need to’ can express
something that is an obligation:
We have to improve the way we collect and
record sales data.
Or: We need to find a cheaper solution—our
budget is very tight.
Remember, you can also use these to make negative
suggestions:
We shouldn’t rush this—we need to think
it through carefully.
Or: We don’t need to hire new staff at the
moment.
Now, it’s your turn.
Choose a phrase and make a suggestion for
something in your own company.
Next, what can you do if you want to respond
to another suggestion?
Well, if you think it’s a good suggestion,
you can show you agree with phrases like:
I agree with _______.
That sounds good.
Or: Let’s go with this idea.
Here, go with means you agree with this idea
and think you should put it into action.
However, what if there is a suggestion you
don’t agree with?
Here are some good, professional ways to disagree:
To be honest, I’m not sure about this idea.
Good suggestion, but I can see a few problems…
Or: I see your point, however…
After a phrase like this, explain your point
of view.
For example:
I see your point, however, I don’t think
advertising in a magazine is a good idea.
People don’t read them as often these days.
Or: To be honest, I’m not sure about this
idea.
I think improving our website UI is a higher
priority right now.
OK?
Now, take the suggestion which you made earlier.
Pause the video and write down two sentences:
one to agree, and one to disagree.
Use the language you just learned.
Now, let’s move on to different ways to
ask a question in a meeting.
As an attendee, it’s important to make sure
you understand the content in the meeting.
Sometimes, the chair will ask everyone to
save questions until the end.
If you’re in a meeting where you can ask
questions at any time, there are a few good
phrases you can use.
For more formal meetings, you can begin with
a phrase like ‘sorry’, or ‘excuse me’
to politely bring the attention to you.
Then, you can use phrases like:
I have a question.
Why is…?
How…?
Or: Does this mean…?
For example:
Excuse me, how will the new requirements affect
the project deadline?
Or: Sorry to interrupt, but I have a question.
Does this mean that the new IT systems won’t
be in place this year?
If there is something in the meeting that
you don’t understand, you can use phrases
to ask for clarification:
I didn’t understand…
Can you elaborate on…?
Or: Can you clarify…?
When using these phrases, it’s important
to explain exactly what you don’t know or
ask for clarity on something specific that
they said.
Again, you can use ‘excuse me’ and ‘sorry’
in more formal meetings to begin.
For example:
Sorry, can you clarify the third step in your
proposal?
I didn’t get the main idea.
Or: Excuse me, but could you elaborate on
how this will fit with our existing marketing
campaigns?
Now, it’s your turn.
Practice asking a question or asking for clarification
about something.
It can be from a recent meeting or something
from your job in general.
Again, you can pause the video and write down
your ideas, for extra practice.
OK, now you can make suggestions and respond
to what other say in the meeting.
You can also ask questions if there is something
you don’t understand.
Next, imagine that you’ve discussed the
agenda items and come to an agreement on the
important decisions you needed to make.
You might need to show what you’re going
to do about these decisions after the meeting
has finished.
Here, you can offer to do something using
a few different phrases.
For something that you decide to do at that
moment for the future, you can use ‘will’.
For example:
I’ll call the client tomorrow.
Or: I’ll discuss this with the rest of my
team and get back to you by the end of the
week.
If you had a plan even before the meeting
began, you can use ‘going to’ or ‘planning
to’:
I’m going to get a team together for this
project.
Or: I’m planning to do one more round of
testing, and then we can go live.
If you want to make an offer, you can use
‘can’, could or shall:
I can contact the supplier next week if we
need to.
I could put together a report if you think
it would help.
Or: Shall I talk to our engineering team and
get a cost estimate?
On the other hand, what if you are asked to
do something that you cannot do?
Well, there are some useful, polite phrases
you can use:
I’m afraid I can’t…
I’m sorry, but I don’t think I can…
Unfortunately, I won’t be able to…
Think about this.
What if someone asked you to move your project
deadline forward, but it wasn’t possible?
You could say:
Unfortunately, we won’t be able to complete
the project any sooner because we don’t
have the supplies yet.
Or: I’m sorry, but I don’t think we can
finish by the end of this month.
We need at least another six weeks.
At this point the meeting is wrapping up and
hopefully you have been able to make good
suggestions and offers and take part in
discussions effectively.
Will you be attending a meeting in English
soon?
Hopefully some of these phrases will be useful
for you!
That’s all for this lesson.
Hope you enjoyed and thank you for watching!
Please visit Oxford Online English.com
for more free lessons like this.
See you next time!