20 Important Business English Phrases

Hey, I'd love to pick your brains on some best  practices. Do you have a minute to hop on a  

call? What in the world, pick your brains?  Am I some kind of Frankenstein monster? No,  

absolutely not. These are some common business  English expressions that if you work in English,  

if you speak with clients in English, if you  speak with coworkers or colleagues in English,  

you need to know these phrases so that you can  accurately convey what you want to say so you  

can understand what other people are saying, and  so you're simply not embarrassed in the workplace. 

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  And today I have some good news, you are going  

to learn 20 Essential Business English  phrases, plus five bonus acronyms that  

you are likely to see in the workplace, and  you need to know what they mean. Like always,  

I've created a free PDF worksheet for you with  all 20 of these essential phrases plus the five  

acronyms. And at the bottom of the free worksheet,  you can answer Vanessa's Challenge Question. 

You can click on the link in the description  to download that free PDF worksheet today and  

never forget what you are about to learn.  Let's get started with the first Essential  

Business English phrase. It's kind of a  two for one. It is a case of the Mondays,  

or you might hear some people say, "Mondays, am  I right?" I got a question for you. Do you love  

waking up early on Monday morning and going to  work? If you said no, well, you're not alone. 

A lot of people really do not look forward to  starting a new work week. They had a great time  

relaxing over the weekend and ugh, here comes  Monday again. So sometimes we just simply blame  

Monday. You could say, "Ugh, I just don't have  any motivation to do anything today. I guess,  

I have a case of the Mondays." Or  you could say, "Ugh, this printer  

really isn't working. Mondays, am I right?" Of course, it's not Monday's fault that the  

printer isn't working, but it's kind of a silly  way to blame Monday. Poor Monday. The second  

Essential Business English phrase is actually a  question and it's extremely polite and you just  

heard me say it at the beginning of this lesson,  when you have a minute or do you have a minute? 

This is a great way to ask, do you have some time  to help me? I see that you're in the middle of  

your work, but I'd like to ask you a favor. So  you can use this really polite phrase, "When you  

have a minute, could you look at this report  for me?" Or, "Do you have a minute to look at  

this report?" Wonderful, polite phrase. Essential  Business English phrase number three is a fun one. 

I'd like to bounce some ideas off of you. Do you  get the idea here that there's a bouncy ball,  

the ideas, and one person shares an idea,  the other person shares an idea. Your idea  

gets better and better and better as you  bounce ideas off of each other. This is  

a wonderful phrase to use when you want to share  an idea and you want the other person's opinion,  

but they don't have to give you solid answers. You just want to share your idea. Let's look  

at some sentences. Do you want to grab some  coffee right now? I'd like to bounce some  

ideas off of you for this assignment. You  just want their opinion. I've been thinking  

about this project and I'd like to bounce  some ideas off of you. Do you have time? 

And just a little note, sometimes we cut off the  final of and we simply say, "I'd like to bounce  

some ideas off you." Both of these are equally  acceptable, and it's just a personal preference.  

Essential Business English phrase number four  is, first thing in the morning. Notice that  

there is no the, in this phrase. Take a look at  a sentence, "First thing in the morning, I make  

a pot of coffee." Or, "If I don't hear from her  today, I'll call her first thing in the morning." 

This is a good fixed phrase to remember  and you can add it when you're talking  

about something that you do right away. Sorry,  I don't have time to finish the report today,  

but I will do it first thing in the morning.  Essential Business English phrase number five  

is pick your brains. This is a fun one, and it  means that you're asking for someone's input or  

advice when they have more experience than you. So you could say, "I know you've worked at this  

company for five years, so I'd love to pick  your brains about what it's like to work  

here." Or you could say, "Could we hop on a  call and I can pick your brains about what  

you're thinking about the next quarter?"  This means you simply want to know what  

they're thinking about the next quarter. Phrase  number six is one I just used, to hop on a call. 

This could be a phone call or it could be a Zoom  call, which are becoming more and more popular  

nowadays. And it means you're talking probably  unexpectedly. It's not planned, it's spontaneous,  

and you want to discuss something. So you could  say, "Do you have a minute to hop on a call?  

Our client has some questions and I don't know  exactly how to answer them." Or you could say,  

"I was going to send you an email,  but it might be easier to talk. 

Can we hop on a call?" Great phrase. Essential  Business phrase number seven is kind of two for  

one. It is to shoot off an email or to fire off  an email. Both of these verbs to shoot and to  

fire have the sense of it's quick, it's fast,  it's organized, it's not long and drawn out. So  

this means that you are quickly sending an email.  You could also shoot off a text on your phone,  

but it has this idea of something fast. So you could say, "I'm going to fire off  

an email with these questions before we meet with  the client." Or you could say, "Shoot me an email  

and I'll get to it first thing in the morning."  Oh, a good way to combine both of these phrases,  

shoot me an email and first thing in the  morning, check. Check Essential Business  

phrase number eight is keep someone in the loop. If we have a loop, that means that no one is left  

out, everyone is included. So we often say, "Hey,  I missed the meeting yesterday, so could you keep  

me in the loop and still send me the emails?"  This means I don't want to be not included. Please  

send me the information I need to know. We can  change that pronoun in the middle. You could say,  

"The boss wants you to keep her in the loop." That means you are going to need to tell her  

everything that's going on. You need to tell  her everything, you need to keep her in the  

loop. Essential Business phrase number nine  is brainstorm. This is commonly used to talk  

about generating new ideas. So you could  say, "Hey, tomorrow during our meeting,  

we are going to brainstorm our new marketing  ideas for the next quarter." Great. 

Everyone's going to throw out ideas. Maybe some  of them will be great, maybe some of them won't  

be great, but we're going to put all ideas on the  table and just see what works. Or you could say,  

"Our team got together to brainstorm  better ways to help our customers."  

Excellent. Essential Business phrase number  10 is debrief. This is when you're kind of  

summarizing or giving information after an event. So you could say, "After the project is complete,  

let's have a meeting to debrief." Maybe you're  getting together and you're talking about what  

went well, what didn't go well, how can we  do it better the next time. After the project  

is finished, we'll have a meeting to debrief.  You can use this as a noun. So you could say,  

"We had a debrief and decided to make some  changes the next time we do this project." 

This is a debrief versus to debrief, but they all  mean the same thing. Essential Business phrase  

number 11 is one that you do not want to have to  use. It is a slacker. Oh, no. This is someone who  

is lazy and does not do their part of the work.  You might unfortunately say, "Ugh, he's such  

a slacker. He's always late with his projects  and he expects me to work harder to keep up." 

No one wants to work with someone who's a  slacker. Have you ever been part of a group  

project and said this? In every group project,  there's always a slacker who expects other people  

to do the work for him. That's so frustrating,  isn't it? But on the other hand, our next phrase  

is beautiful. Essential Business phrase number 12  is the opposite of a slacker, it is a workhorse. 

This is someone who works really hard and  diligently. So you might say, "He is a real  

workhorse. Whether it's in the office or at home,  he always gets projects done." Or you could say,  

"She really deserves a promotion. She's a  workhorse." We know that she is always on  

the ball. So I hope for you, you are more of  a workhorse and less of a slacker. Essential  

Business phrase number 13 is all hands on deck. This used to come from boating and sailing.  

The main part of a boat where you walk is  called the deck, but here we're using this  

more figuratively to talk about a project that  is really all consuming, so we need everyone  

to be active. We need all hands on deck. So  you could say, "We need all hands on deck if  

we're going to finish this project on time." You  might even hear this phrase twisted just a bit. 

You might hear someone say, "The boss called  for an all hands meeting on Thursday." That  

means everyone needs to be there. It sounds  pretty urgent. Talking about manager's,  

Essential Business English phrase number 14 is  really annoying. It is micromanage. Ugh. This  

is somebody, usually a boss or a manager,  who tries to control every little detail  

that their employees do. If you've ever been  micromanaged or you've had a micromanager  

watching you, ugh, that's so frustrating. You could say, "He tries to micromanage his  

team by telling everyone how to do their job."  And if you have a boss who micromanages you,  

you might say, "No one likes to be micromanaged.  Can't you just trust me to do my work?"  

Business English phrase number 15 is align.  Notice that the G is silent align. And this is  

talking about being in agreement or supporting  something. So you might say, "You know what? 

That project does not align with the company's  goals, so we're not going to do it." For example,  

I get contacted by companies all the time who  want me to promote their products, but 99.99% of  

these products don't align with the Speak English  With Vanessa goals, which are teaching you better  

English and helping you speak confidently.  So I just tell these people, "No, I'm sorry. 

Our goals don't align. This isn't a good fit  for us." We can also use this to talk about  

supporting someone else or another company. So  you could say, "The company aligns itself with  

other organizations that have similar  goals." They're friends or allies with  

other companies. It aligns itself. This is a  very beautiful business english expression. 

Essential Business English phrase number 16 is  to streamline. This is not going crazy all over  

the place. Nope, it is effective and efficient.  So you could say, "If we take time to streamline  

this process, we will lower costs and be more  efficient." So when you have a good system,  

when your system is streamlined, it's not  an email here, a document here, a call here. 

No, it's very streamlined. They know what to  do at what time. You can lower costs and be  

more efficient. Or you might say, "The  organization streamlined its company by  

reducing the number of managers." Great.  Essential business English phrase number  

17 is scalable. You'll especially hear this  for small businesses that would like to grow.  

This means that you are efficiently able to expand  the business and grow profits at the same time. 

So you could say, "This business is  small, but it is scalable and has a  

lot of potential for growth." For example, if  I were teaching English in a classroom, well,  

I can only fit maybe 30 people in the classroom,  but teaching English on YouTube is scalable. I can  

teach millions of students around the world  at the same time. Great. Or you could say,  

"She proved that her idea was scalable and  it brought increased profits to the company." 

Essential Business English phrase number 18  is in the weeds. Sometimes we say lost in the  

weeds. This is the idea that you are too focused  on unimportant details and you're not seeing the  

big picture. So you could say, "Let's not get lost  in the weeds. We need to focus on the main goal." 

If you're having a meeting about an  important topic and people start to  

go off topic and they're sharing ideas that  maybe are too detailed or there's something  

that you should focus on later down the road  in the process, you can use this expression,  

"All right, everyone, let's not get lost in the  weeds. We can focus on those details later. Let's  

talk about the overall goals right now." Essential Business English phrase number  

19 is to circle back. So if you start here and  then you make a circle and you end that circle,  

where are you now? You're at the same place that  you began. That's the idea here. It means you  

are going to come back to something or reconsider  something later. So talking about a meeting that  

kind of gets out of hand. People are talking about  things that are not so related to the main topic. 

You might say, "Okay, can we circle back  to those questions later in the meeting?  

I want to make sure that we can finish the  main reason for our meeting first." Okay.  

Your questions are important, but we will circle  back to those later. And maybe if someone forgot  

to circle back to your question, you could  say, "To circle back to my question earlier,  

when do we need to get this done?" Great. That means, "Hey, I asked you this earlier.  

You haven't answered it yet, but I want to  politely and clearly tell you my question  

again." Beautiful. All right. Let's go to  our 20th Essential Business English phrase  

before we get to some bonus acronyms. Our final  Essential Business English phrase number 20,  

is to put a pin in it. This is somewhat  similar to circling back to something. It  

means that, Hey, I think your idea's important. We don't have time to discuss it now, but let's  

[inaudible 00:15:39] put a pin in it, so a mental,  or maybe you're writing it down, a little reminder  

to circle back to this later. Let's put a pin in  it and we'll circle back to that later. Wonderful  

phrase. So you might say, "Let's put a pin in  it and we'll discuss it at next week's meeting."  

Okay, you're saying, "I want to talk about it. We can't talk about it right now,  

but I made a mental note that we'll talk  about it next time." Before we go today,  

I'd like to share with you five important Business  English acronyms that are specific to work culture  

in English. I'm sure you'll see these in emails.  You might even hear people say them, and hey,  

even if you don't use English in the workplace,  you'll probably see these on TV shows and movies. 

You might get an email that says, "We need  this report by EOD on Wednesday." What in the  

world? EOD means end of day. But they maybe  didn't want to type out that whole thing,  

so they might have written, "We need that  report by EOD on Wednesday." You're not  

really likely to hear someone say this, but you  will definitely see this in emails or in reports. 

You might send someone an email, and then you get  an auto reply back that says, "Sorry, I will be  

OOO until February 5th." What? This means out of  office. I don't know why someone didn't just write  

out of office, but hey, you're going to see OOO to  mean I'm not here, but I'll be back at this date.  

The next business acronym you will hear people  use in spoken conversation as well as written  

Business English, and that is this fun one, ASAP. That's how we would pronounce this. Or you can  

say each individual letter, A-S-A-P. And it  means immediately. So you could say, "Hey,  

I didn't receive your reports that you sent me  yesterday. Can you send them over ASAP?" Or, "Can  

you send them over ASAP?" This conveys extreme  urgency, now. I need it now. So be careful using  

ASAP because it does mean this is really important  and I need it absolutely without any delay. 

You can use this in written English. For example,  in an email, you might say, "I'm sorry, I didn't  

receive the reports yesterday. Can you send them  over ASAP?" Make sure you capitalized ASAP. What  

if you got an email that said this, "FYI, the  meeting time has changed to 1:30." FYI? For  

your information. If you're just adding a little  extra bonus information, this is something that's  

pretty important though too. You might add FYI. It's just like saying, "Hey, just to let you know,  

the meeting time has changed to  1:30." But in business emails,  

you might see that written as FYI. Sometimes  you'll hear people say this in spoken English,  

"Oh, FYI, I can't make it to the party tomorrow."  You might hear people use that in spoken English,  

but it's more common in written English. Our final business acronym, and the last one  

to finish off this lesson is a fun one, TGIF.  I can't wait for the weekend. If you have a  

company chat where you chat about different things  throughout the day, at the end of the work week,  

you might see someone send you TGIF. Huh? This  is thank God, or thank goodness it's Friday. 

This is a expression of, "Yes, it's the weekend.  We finished this week, and now I can go and have  

a relaxing or fun weekend." So this is a common  thing to write. You might hear people say this  

in conversation, "TGIF, have a good weekend."  But it's a little less common to say. Instead,  

you might write this in a business chat with  someone or in a chat with a friend, TGIF. 

Great. Well, congratulations on learning 20  Essential Business English phrases in English  

plus five bonus acronyms. I have a question for  you. In the comments let me know, do you need to  

use English for your work? Or maybe you'd like  to get a job where you need to use English? This  

can be a great motivating way to practice  English if you have to use it for your job. 

Let me know in the comments. And don't forget  to download the free PDF worksheet for this  

lesson with all of the essential phrases,  sample sentences, ideas, and concepts. You  

can download that free PDF with the link in the  description and never forget what you've learned. 

Well, thank you so much for learning English  with me, and I'll see you again next Friday  

for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel.  Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend  

watching this video next where you will learn  some essential polite Business English phrases,  

including how to politely leave a conversation  if someone's talking too much and you need to  

get out of there. Watch that video  to find out, and I'll see you there.