Speak like a Pro! 25 Business English Phrases

Hey, everyone. I'm Alex. Thanks for clicking, and

welcome to this lesson on 25 Essential Business

English Phrases. So, in this lesson, we are going

to learn 25 phrases that you can use in emails,

in everyday communications, whether you are talking to your boss, a client, a customer,

your colleagues. You will hear this in offices

all around the world. So, let's begin with

reach out. So, if you reach out to someone, you

send them a communication, you send them an email

or a message in an attempt to contact them, to make contact with them. So, for example,

your boss might ask you, "Did you reach out to

the client?" Right? "Did you make an attempt

to contact the client? Did you send them an

email?" Now, this is slightly different from the

next two, which are get in touch with someone or

get in contact with someone. If you get in touch,

you get in contact. This means you actually contact the person. Reach out has more of a

meaning of you attempted. You reach. So, I'm

reaching my arm. You reach out. You attempt

to contact them and say, "Hi, I need to talk

to you about something." So, to get in touch,

to get in contact means to contact someone.

So, "I will get in touch with you by Friday."

So, maybe you send someone, you leave a message

on their machine or you send them a message over

a chat program, a messenger service, or an email

and say, "I will get in touch with you by Friday."

Or, "I will get in contact with you by Friday." So, you can reach out to clients,

reach out to customers. You can get in touch

or you can get in contact with them as well.

Next, to check in with someone. Now, when you

check in with someone, it means that you contact

them for an update on something because you just

want to see the status of the project, the status

of the relationship that you are trying to develop

with a particular client or customer. So, when you

check in with someone, you are just tapping them

on the shoulder and saying, "Hey, how is it going?"

Okay? So, for example, maybe you have checked

in with Rob and Rob contacts you in return. He

returns your email and, or sorry, you are Rob,

and someone contacts you and they contact you in

return and they say, "Hi, Rob. Thanks for checking

in." Right? Like, "Thanks for sending me a message.

Thanks for tapping me on the shoulder." Okay?

It's possible if you work in an office that you

check in with your boss once a week, maybe, or

you check in with your team on a daily basis.

This means every day or maybe once a week. So, if you do, if you do work right now,

how often do you check in with your department?

How often do you check in with your boss to just

get the newest information, to get the latest

updates? Next, to follow up with someone.

So, this is similar to check in, but the

difference is when you follow up with someone,

it doesn't mean that they have caught, that the

communication has been two ways necessarily.

So, for example, if you are someone who is selling

your services to clients or potential clients,

potential customers, and you contact them and

you get no response. Okay? You get zero response.

Probably they saw your email. Maybe they deleted it. Maybe they haven't opened it.

Maybe they opened it and said, "I'm not interested." Or, "Oh, maybe later." Your

boss might ask you to, hey, follow up with them. This means contact them again. So,

when you follow up with someone, you send a subsequent communication, another message,

another email, because did you receive my

email? Did you receive my message? Do you have

any questions? These are the types of questions

you ask when you follow up with someone to get

more information, ask if they got your information

in the first place. So, for example, make sure you

follow up with them tomorrow. Now, I mentioned

that, you know, with follow up, sometimes the

other person hasn't even contacted you about

anything. It's possible that you already have

been communicating with this person for a while

as well. And maybe you're working on something

and the person hasn't responded to you in five

days about something. And your boss says, "Five

days? That's a long time." You should follow up

with them. Make sure you follow up with them.

In that case, they could also say, make sure

you check in with them. Ask them for an update.

What's the newest information? All right, next.

Now, these are some everyday common words,

but I want to show you which prepositions they

often work with and which of them don't need a

preposition. So, some people don't use these

correctly. And that's why I want to make sure

you have the basics so that you master them and

you use them effectively and correctly in your

English communications. So, ask about and inquire

about. So, you can ask about something. You can

ask someone about something. Inquire is a more

formal way to say ask. You can inquire with someone

about something or just inquire about something.

So, for example, "Hello, I'm writing to inquire

about your prices." Or, "Hello, I'm writing to ask

about your prices." So, both of these are possible.

Inquire is a nice formal word that you can use if you want to sound more professional.

Let's go. Next, we have reply, respond, answer,

get back to. All of these are in the same family

of words. You can use all of them in an email or

when talking with a customer, client, or colleague.

So, you reply to someone. Okay? You reply to a

message. So, don't say, "Thank you for replying me."

Say, "Thank you for replying to me." Don't say, "Thank you for replying my message."

"Thank you for replying to my message." So, you always reply to someone. You respond

to someone. Answer is different. You answer someone or you answer a message. If you use

answer to, this means, like, you are in a

subordinate position to someone. So, if someone

asks you, "Whom do you answer to?" This means,

like, "Who is your boss? Who is your superior?"

"Oh, I answer to David. David is my boss. I

answer to him." But you can answer a question,

answer a message, answer a person. So, to get

back to someone, this is a more informal way

to say, reply to, respond to, answer someone.

So, for example, very common sentence,

"I'll get back to you as soon as I can." Or, "As soon as possible." Or, "ASAP." So,

"I will respond to you. I will reply to you. I will answer you as soon as I can."

Did you respond to her? Did you reply to her?

Did you answer her? Did you get back to her?

So, all of these, as you can see, they talk about returning a message to someone. Okay,

how is it going so far? Are you listening to this

and saying, "Yeah, this is great stuff. Okay,

I got more great stuff. So, let's keep going."

Okay, next, we are talking about updates or

receiving the latest, the newest information

about something. So, you can provide an update

on something to someone. You can give an update.

Provide is a more formal word. Give is a more

neutral word. Give an update on something, and

again, to someone. You can get an update. This

to receive. Receive an update on something from

someone, and you can update someone. You can use

update as a verb as well. So, you can update

someone on something. So, let's look at the

example sentences. "Feel free to use these in

your emails. Could you please send me an update

on your availability?" So, your availability

means when you are free, when you are available

in your calendar. What's your schedule like?

Maybe I'm scheduling a meeting with you.

"I'll update you tomorrow." Right? You can also

say, "I will send you an update tomorrow. I will

provide you with an update tomorrow." And next,

"Did you get an update on the status of the

payment?" So, maybe your accounting department is

asking you this, or you are asking your department,

your accounting department this. "Did you get an update from the customer

on the status of the payment? Have they paid us

yet?" So, again, you can provide or give an update.

You can get an update to receive one, and you

can just update someone, give them the latest

information. Next, another common word, "send".

So, you can send something to someone, or you can

just send something. I put parentheses, which

means it's optional. This is absolutely necessary.

So, you send something. You can't just send,

you have to send something. Send something,

or send something to someone. Or you can send

someone something. So, you can send me the details,

send me your availability. Here we go. "Thanks

for sending me the file. I'll send the attachment

this afternoon." And here you could say, like,

"I'll send you the attachment this afternoon.

I'll send the attachment to you this afternoon."

It's also possible. And finally, "to forward

something to someone" or "to forward someone

something". So, when you forward something,

it can be a synonym for the word "send", but

typically, if you have an email, you know there

is a forward button, which means someone sent

you an email, and you want to send that email

to someone else. So, you just want to forward

that email to a different person. But you can

also just forward someone, meaning send someone

something. So, for example, "Could you forward me

the details?" Like, send the details to me. I

know you have them. Send them forward to me.

Okay, so we have "send", "forward", "update", a

lot of useful language. And it's funny how we have,

like, the word "update", but you can give an

update. You can get an update. You can provide

an update. You can just update someone. So, as

you can see, they're simple words, but they have

so many different uses. And I hope by watching

this video, you are getting that sense,

and you're feeling more informed and more

empowered with your language. So, we're almost

done. We have a few more phrases. These are great.

They're very essential. Let's take a look at them.

So, next we have "according to". So, this means

based on the information we have, or as stated in,

or as stated by someone, or in some documents.

So, "According to our records, the delivery date

is September 7th." So, based on our records,

our records say this, as stated in our records,

according to our records. According to your

previous email, you are not available to do this

until September 7th, for example. Why are you saying that you can do it earlier now,

like we weren't ready for you until September

7th? So, next, "in regard to". This is like with

attention to, when you are trying to focus the

topic of conversation. So, with attention to

something. So, I am writing in regard to your

late payments. I am writing to you about your late

payments with attention to, with focus on this

conversation piece, this topic that we are

discussing. So, I'm writing in regard to your late

payments. Some people write with "in regards to".

The correct form is "in regard to", but "in regards

to" is being used so much that it's probably just

going to become an accepted part of English

speech. My old boss used to write "in regards to"

all the time, but they say that some bosses don't

have actually really good grammar because they

don't need to. They're the boss. Bosses. Okay.

"Apologize for" and "my apologies for". So, if

you'd like to be a little more formal, you can

send your apologies for something. So, here,

"apologies" is being used as a noun. Here, it's a

verb. I apologize. Now, I'm in Canada, so we spell

it with a Z, and the U.S. also spells it with a Z.

If you are in England, and depending on, actually,

Z or Zed, however you want to say it. In England, you will see this with an S,

"apologize". So, we apologize for the delay.

My apologies for the delay. Our apologies

for the inconvenience, for example. So, this one

sounds a little more formal, a little more polite

if your company made an error, if you made a

mistake and you upset your clients. You can say,

"my apologies for the confusion", "my apologies for the delay", "my apologies for

my previous email". Maybe you send incorrect information or something.

Okay, next, "let me". This is a cheat. "Let me"

is not technically a phrase. It is a sentence,

like, "let me", "let me do something". So, "let me know if you have any questions",

"let me know if you require more details", "let

me know the best time to call", "let me know",

whatever it is, right? So, "let me see what I can do", "let me see if I can help",

"let me check my records". So, this is like

saying, "allow me", "give me a chance to do this".

And finally, "look forward to", which means to anticipate something in the future,

to be excited about something that is to come.

So, "I'm looking forward to hearing from you".

Very common ending for an email. Or simply, "looking forward to your response".

In writing, this is totally fine. In English,

technically, you need a subject. We don't have,

like, implied subjects in most constructions.

However, in certain phrases, certain writing

constructions, you can just leave out the subject

and just say, "looking forward to your response".

"I'm looking forward to your comments", "to your

likes", "to your shares". "I'm looking forward to

hearing from you", and to see if you enjoyed this

video. If you did, let me know in the comments.

What could I have done better? Could I have done

something better? What am I missing? What are some

other useful phrases? Tell me. Or, if you just

want to review everything we have learned here,

go to www.engvid.com. Check out the link in the

description of the video. Maybe here, maybe here,

here, here. Who knows how YouTube or mmmTube -

could be a different name when you see this - is

going to make videos in the future. So, yeah,

check out the quiz on www.engvid.com to test

your understanding of this material. I hope you

found it useful. Until next time, thanks for

clicking, and good luck with your work, with

school, with everything. Use this stuff because

it's good, and I hope you're good. So, this is too long.

Take care. Bye. Looking forward to your comments. Bye.