20 Essential English Phrases for Daily Conversation

Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.  Oh, what should I say? Let's talk about it. 

Sometimes I'm surprised because my English  students don't use expressions that I hear a  

lot around me in daily life. Even some advanced  English learners miss some of these expressions  

that we use commonly. But today I want to help you  learn some common English expressions for daily  

life. Especially since the pandemic began,  our interactions have been a lot different.  

There have been more online meetings, Zoom calls,  these type of interactions where there might be  

some communication problems due to bad internet  or wifi or some kind of misunderstandings,  

so I hope that today's expressions will help you  to have smoother interactions in these situations. 

These 20 phrases fit into four categories:  asking someone for information, making sure that  

you understand something politely interrupting  a conversation, and finally, politely agreeing  

or disagreeing with someone. Let's start  with our first category. When you're asking  

for information, yeah, you can say, "What's that?  What's this?" But this is really basic, and there  

are a lot of more common expressions that we use.  Do you happen to know what time the meeting is?  

Beautiful. Do you happen to know? This is  a little bit indirect, but it is beautiful. 

Do you have any idea if Katie is coming to dinner  tomorrow? Do you have any idea? This is simply  

asking, do you know if Katie is coming, but we  can use this word idea. Do you have any idea  

if Katie's coming to dinner tomorrow? I'd  like to know if Katie is coming to dinner.  

I'd like to know if. This doesn't seem like a  question, right? There's not a question mark,  

but you're asking for more information without  it being a direct question. Oh, I'd like to know  

if Katie's coming tomorrow for dinner. Maybe I'll  have to send her a message. I'd like to know if. 

You might hear someone say, "I'm wondering  if those reports about the marketing plan  

are finished." I'm wondering if those reports are  finished. If your boss says this, it means that he  

or she is trying to be indirect and asking are  they finished yet? But instead of directly asking  

that, they kind of indirectly say, "I'm wondering  if they are finished." It doesn't seem like a  

question, but it is and they're asking for more  information, to know are the reports done? So if  

your boss says to you, "Hey, I'm wondering if  those reports will be done by three o'clock."  

You can say, "Yes, they will be done by  three o'clock," or maybe, "Nope, they  

won't." All right, let's go to our next category. The second category is checking for understanding.  

Checking to see if someone else understands you,  or if you understand them correctly. So when  

someone asks you these questions, you want to make  sure that you respond accurately. Whether you are  

giving directions or telling a complex story, you  want to make sure that other people can understand  

because you don't want to get to the end of the  conversation and the other person, or you says,  

"Huh?" That's quite disheartening. So I  want to make sure that you can use these  

expressions to check along the way, to  make sure that you are being understood.  

Do you know what I mean? Especially if  you're talking about something that is  

annoying you or close to your heart. Let's imagine that your child is having problems  

going to bed at night and it's really frustrating  for you, so you're talking with your husband about  

it, maybe this is similar to my life, and you say,  "Oh yeah, it's so tough. Why won't he just sleep?  

I'm so annoyed. You know what I mean?" And here  I am asking to see if he understands how I feel.  

Did you notice that I cut off the first  question word "do"? The full question is,  

do you know what I mean? But we often just  say, you know what I mean? And you want the  

other person ideally to say, "Yes, I understand  what you mean. I understand how you're feeling."  

They might say, "No, I really don't," and then you  realize, okay, I need to explain it a different  

way or we're just on different pages. But this  is a great question to ask, you know what I mean? 

Or you can ask, are you following? Maybe if you're  telling some complex sets of directions about  

how to fill in this paperwork to get a  visa, and you're telling your friend,  

"First, you got to do this, and then you got to  go over here," and it's quite complex and their  

eyes start to look like this. We say their eyes  glaze over. You might say, "Are you following?  

Are you following these directions?" And they  might say, "Sorry, I lost you a long time ago." 

Or maybe their eyes are not glazing over. Instead,  they're saying, "Yes. Okay. Okay. All right. All  

right." But you know that your directions are  pretty complicated, so maybe they should write  

things down, but they're not. You might ask them,  "Got it?" That means, do you understand? Are  

you following my directions? Are you getting  it? This is another meaning of the word get,  

which means to understand. I get you. This means  I understand you. I understand how you're feeling.  

And an answer to this, if someone says, "Got it,"  you might say, "Got it." So you can just respond  

with the same phrase. If someone's telling you  something complicated and at the end, they say,  

"Did you understand?" Or they say,  "Got it?", you can say, "Yep. Got it." 

Let's go back to my previous example about my  son having difficulties falling asleep. Well,  

when I'm talking to my husband about it, I might  say, "Well, we need to make some changes in his  

nighttime routine to help him sleep better or  maybe changes in our daily routine to help him  

wind down and feel more tired at the end of the  day." I could ask him, "Are we on the same page?"  

We're not reading something, but this just means,  do we have the same ideas? Do you agree with me  

that we need to change something so that he  can sleep? Do you understand what I'm saying?  

Are we on the same page? This is very important  for relationships. You absolutely need to be on  

the same page as your partner for a lot of  stuff, but you can even use this at work. 

If you're talking about a project that  you're working on, you want to make sure  

that everyone in the team is on the same page,  understands the same thing. So you might say,  

"All right, everyone, are we on the same page?  Everyone understands what we're doing now.  

Are we on the same page? All right, let's do it." Our next category are polite interruptions. This  

could be in real daily life conversations where  you need to interrupt someone, or it could be on  

a Zoom call when someone's internet cuts out and  you need to tell them something, but you want to  

tell them it politely, or maybe they say something  and they got some information wrong about your  

marketing meeting. So you need to interrupt  them before they continue. You want to do that  

politely. What can you say? Here's some ideas. You might say, "Excuse me, may I have a word?"  

Excuse me, great way to introduce this, may  I have a word? This is not just one word.  

This means, can I say something? Can I interrupt  you and say something? So you might say, "Excuse  

me, may I have a word?" You can use this when you  knock on your boss's door and you want to tell him  

something. Knock, knock knock. Excuse me. May I  have a word? Great. That means you got to tell him  

something. Usually something brief and short. Do you mind if I jump in her?,  

Jump in means interrupting. You're not literally  jumping, but we can imagine that idea that someone  

else is talking and you are jumping or cutting or  interrupting in the middle of what they're saying,  

but this is very polite. Do you mind if I  jump in there? Do you mind if I jump in here?  

I want to say something that is important  right now. Do you mind if I jump in here? 

Sorry, I didn't catch that. Is it possible to  repeat that last point? This this especially if  

it's something organized where someone is giving  a presentation or they're trying to tell you some  

steps and you missed the last thing they said,  you could use this whole phrase, sorry, I didn't  

catch that, means I didn't understand that. Can  you repeat that last point? Or you can shorten  

this even further and just say, "I'm sorry."  Notice my head here. It's tilting. I'm sorry.  

That means I didn't get it, but this is really  polite because you're apologizing for not  

understanding. And you can just say, "I'm sorry,"  and they'll be able to repeat what they said. 

And finally, our more direct question you  can say is, "Do you mind if I interrupt  

you?" You're still using this polite expression,  do you mind if, but you're using a clear word  

interrupt if someone is speaking, speaking,  speaking. Do you mind if I interrupt you?  

I want to share something that's relevant to this  exact point before we move on to something else.  

Do you mind if I interrupt you? Great. Our final category of common daily phrases for  

daily conversation are different ways to agree or  disagree with someone. Let's start with agree. For  

one word responses, strong agreement, you can say,  "Totally. Absolutely. Right." Great, you strongly  

agree. English is the most fun language to learn.  You might say, "Totally. Absolutely. Right." 

For partly agreeing with someone, you can use  these slightly longer phrases. I see your point,  

but... This means, yeah okay, I understand  where you're coming from. I understand your  

point of view, but I disagree. So if someone  says skiing is the best sport in the world,  

you might say, "Well, I see your point,  but I really would rather play basketball."  

It's warm outside. It can be on a team. Okay.  You're agreeing with them, that's polite,  

but you're also showing your point of view. Or if someone again says, "Skiing is the  

best sport in the world," you might  say, "I'm not so sure about that."  

Here, you're just kind of partly agree. Not  100%. Well, I'm not so sure if. You see this kind  

of indirect language? I'm not so sure. You could  say, "I'm sure about it. 100%. I'm sure." But here  

they say, "I'm not so sure about that. I would  really rather play basketball. I'm not so sure  

about it." Very polite way of partially agreeing. Our final three phrases or for disagreeing. Let's  

imagine that you really do like basketball more  than skiing. You could say, "That's not always  

true. Skiing is dangerous. Skiing is really cold."  Yeah, that's not always true. Or you might say,  

"I don't agree. I don't think so." This is  pretty clear, but you know what? Sometimes  

you just got to get your point across. I don't  agree. Basketball's better. I don't think so.  

Basketball is better. This is my opinion.  I disagree. And that's just the way it is. 

I hope that your daily English vocabulary  has improved and these phrases will be more  

understandable to you as you're listening to  conversations. And also as you're participating  

in them in daily life or in meetings on Zoom or  online, I hope these will be helpful to you. I  

know the 20 expressions is a lot to learn. You  know what I mean? But I hope you got it. Got it?  

Got it. And now I'm wondering if you can use any  of these expressions in the comments below this  

video. Let me know which one of these you would  like to use. And thank you so much for learning  

English with me. I'll see you again next Friday  for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. 

The next step is to download my free ebook, Five  Steps to Becoming a Confident English Speaker.  

You'll learn what you need to do  to speak confidently and fluently.  

Don't forget to subscribe to my YouTube channel  for more free lessons. Thanks so much. Bye.