25 Important Phrases for the Workplace

0:00College football is back. So, Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Oh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwick up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler, the new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security and pasquies, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Today's English lesson will be pure gold for you.

1:02If you're speaking English in the workplace, if you're working remotely with an American company, I know these phrases will help you in your everyday English. In today's lesson, I'm going to teach you 25 phrases that are so common to use. You'll hear them every day and you can start using them after listening to this lesson as well. My name's Kayla. I could be your English teacher if you've visited my website, Englishwithcala.com. Sign up for my monthly membership there. Each week you'll receive a new English lesson with no advertisements. You'll receive the notes that will help you understand the lesson deeper. You can ask me questions in the community and you can even take the quizzes to make sure that you are understanding what you're learning. I can't wait to see you there, but let's get started with the lesson. We're going to start with some of the most common phrases that you'll hear on a daily basis. This phrase in the corporate environment is used all the time. It's circle back. Check and circle back. Have you heard this phrase? This phrase means that you're going to check in with someone at a later time

2:02or you're going to check in with them about a topic later in the conversation, meeting or discussion. Some ways you might hear this phrase used is during a meeting or conference call or a Zoom call, you might ask a question and the leader of the call might say, I don't know the answer right now. Let me circle back to it later when I have the answer to this question. Or that's a really important topic. Let's circle back and make sure we have time to go over all the things in the meeting first. So you're basically returning to the conversation or returning to the subject that the person brought up later. And for this phrase to circle back to something, you could mean just literally later in this conversation, later in this meeting, later in this day, or it could be, let's circle back at the end of the month to this, meaning let's check in again at that time. A similar phrase, if you're going to touch base with someone, it's like, touch base. This is used all the time in the business place and in personal conversations. This just means that you're going to have a really brief

3:04conversation just to kind of make contact with someone or check in with them about a plan. For instance, you might be talking to your friend and it's Monday and you kind of are talking about the weekend, but you might say, let's touch base on Friday and talk about our plans for Saturday. This just means we'll come into contact again, we'll have a brief conversation later. You might also use this phrase telling someone, can you touch base with the customer? This just means can you contact them really quickly and make sure everything's going okay? It's going to be a brief conversation, not a lengthy, detailed discussion. Sometimes we just send an email saying, hey, I just wanted to touch base is everything going okay. This means I just wanted to make a quick email, I don't want to take a lot of your time. So this phrase, it also kind of softens and making contact with someone like, hey, I'm not trying to be annoying, I'm just trying to touch base. I don't want to take a lot of your time. An interesting phrase that we use in English is to take something offline. Yes, to take it offline.

4:05You might have heard someone say online, meaning on the internet or connected to the internet, right now my computer is online or you might hear someone say, oh, my computer is offline right now, meaning it's not connected to the internet, maybe because of a technical difficulty or something is broken. This phrase, it's not quite related to the internet here, we're saying we're taking something offline, usually when there's a big meeting or conference call or a Zoom call, there's lots of people on it and there's an agenda of things that need to be discussed and someone asks a question or starts talking about something that isn't relevant or important to the bigger group. So the leader of the call might say, hey, we're going to take this offline, meaning I can talk to you about this in private later. It doesn't mean it is private, but it just might not be relevant or very important to the bigger group. So this just means we're going to take this on the side. It doesn't literally mean off the internet. It just means it's not important to the big group

5:05so we're going to take this conversation in private or with only the important people that it matters to. You definitely are going to want to know this phrase. If you are on the same page. What happened to being on the same page? This phrase is super common again in everyday conversations and in the workplace. It just means you have the same understanding as someone. Being on the same page in the workplace is definitely essential, especially if you have policies, guidelines and plans that you need to follow in your workplace. So for instance, if you are planning a construction project, you're going to want to make sure that all the workers are on the same page. Hey, let's have a quick meeting and make sure everyone's on the same page with what needs to get done today. Or maybe you're in a sales pitch with someone and you're saying, hey, let's make sure we're on the same page before we talk to the customer or the potential customer because you wouldn't want to say information that contradicts each other or the wrong information and one person saying something else.

6:08And in that same situation, you want to make sure that you're on the same page with the customer. You want to make sure you understand exactly what they're asking for and exactly what they're expecting. So you can see how this phrase is so natural to use and it's so important because it's used in so many different situations. You want to make sure we're on the same page. Even just in your personal relationships, you always want to make sure you're on the same page with someone to make sure they were expecting something and then you do the opposite thing. These next two phrases again, extremely common in the workplace and you can start adding them so naturally into your everyday vocabulary. It will help you sound more natural and it will help you sound like you've been speaking English for decades because honestly, these are the phrases we actually use every day. The first phrase is, keep me posted. Keep me posted. Hey, can you keep me posted on this? Keep me posted on that project. Keep me posted on what the customer says. This phrase, it just means, keep me informed. Keep me informed with the latest information.

7:09So this phrase, it's not like everything's urgent. You need to alert me right away. It's just kind of like, make sure you give me information as it happens, not super urgent. And then a similar phrase is, keep me in the loop. And I keep me in the loop, Jimmy. Make sure you keep me in the loop with what the customer asks for. This means the same thing, basically, keep me informed or let me know any changes. You might have a friend that's going through a difficult time and you can use these phrases to let them know, I want to know the latest information on your situation. Maybe your friend is going through sickness or they have a family member that's sick or maybe they are thinking about moving. They're having big life updates. You might say, hey, I really want to help out. So make sure to keep me posted or keep me in the loop. I want to know what's going on. This just means alert me of any changes or any major information that I need to know. One really professional phrase you can use is that you are going to follow up with someone. Serious. Follow up. You might end a discussion or an email by saying,

8:11I'm going to follow up on this day. Or you might say to a coworker, can you follow up on this project with this person? It's kind of giving instructions to contact this person again and figure out what's going on. Or if you say, I'll follow up with you after you give the presentation. It means you're going to check in with the person to make sure everything went well. This is definitely one of the most important business phrasal verbs instead of just saying, you're going to follow someone because that wouldn't really make sense in this situation. You say you're going to follow up with someone. Meaning you are going to check in after something happened. They gave a presentation. They talked to a customer. They spoke with someone on the team. Whatever it is. I'm going to follow up with you to make sure it went well. This means I'm going to chat with you after it happened. One phrase you can use if you need to tell someone that you don't know the answer to their question. You don't have the information. Or you just, you need to have a discussion later as you can say, I'm going to get back to you. I'll get back to you.

9:12Let me get back to you on that. In your everyday conversations or in your workplace conversations, this just means I don't have the answer or I can't talk about it right now, but I can talk to you about it later. It's kind of promising too that you're going to talk to them about it later. I will get back to you. Let me get back to you on that. I've also seen this phrase used a lot of times in emails just to mean, let me figure out what's going on with it. I'll get back to you. And then a phrase I would say is mainly used in email is just checking in. Just checking in. Just checking in, how is your progress going on this project? Just checking in, I wanted to see if you talked to the customer. This just means that you wanted to see where you are in process or in a plan or just making sure that everything's going well for someone. We can use this again in our everyday conversations. Sometimes I call a family member, I haven't talked to him in a while, and I'll say, hey, I'm just checking in. How are things going? Or the same with a friend, if they've had a new baby or if something has changed in their life,

10:14I just want to check in with you and making sure everything is going okay. So this phrase, it's really kind, it's really friendly. It comes off as polite. I don't want to take up your time or bother you. I just want to check in to make sure everything goes well. And it's the same in the workplace. You're checking in to make sure the person doesn't have any questions or they don't need any help. This is a very common way to start an email. Hey, just wanted to check in or, hey, I'm just checking in. And then you ask, you know, how are things going? So this is again, super common, easy to start to integrate into your emails or your everyday conversations. A much more professional way of saying, I don't understand that or what do you mean? It's to say, clarify. Let me clarify. Could you clarify exactly what you needed on this? Or could you send me an email clarifying when you need this report, something like that? So you're basically just asking the person to explain it in a different way because you don't quite understand it.

11:14But it's much more professional than just saying, I don't understand or what do you actually want? Can you clarify it for me? Can you clarify what exactly you needed here? It's just a very polite and very professional word to use. And sometimes instead of saying, can you clarify this? You might say, could you send me some clarification on this? So it's just a slightly different way to ask for more instructions or a different explanation. And then a word that is a bit different than clarifying, but it's just as professional is elaborate. Elaborate. If someone brings up a topic or an idea that you really like and you want them to go into more detail, you could say, could you elaborate on that? Or if you're asking a customer exactly what they want, could you elaborate on exactly what you want on this? Could you elaborate on exactly how we can help you with this? This just means can you provide more detail or provide more instructions? It's like you understand it here, but you're asking them to tell you more.

12:14You want to know exactly what they're thinking and exactly what kind of plan they've come up with. So this phrase to elaborate on something, it's perfect for meanings and presentations. One phrase that I know is super important when you work in kind of an operational role. You kind of have lots of projects and processes going, is it you might check in with someone and say, what's the status on this? What's the status? Hey, what's the status on this report? Or what's the status on this project? Meaning where are we at in the process of it? Lots of jobs have really detailed complicated processes so you might need to know exactly what step in the process they're at. So by asking someone what's the status of this, they could tell you. You can also use this phrase in a more general sense like, hey, I just want to see what's the status of your project. Maybe it's not as detailed of a process, but you're wondering how they're feeling about it or how closely are to being done. So this phrase, hey, what's the status of that report?

13:15You're not asking, like, is it done? You're asking, like, how close is it to being done or how much more time do you need on it? Speaking of getting things done, another common corporate phrase is, what's the timeline? What's the timeline on this? What's the timeline? When will things happen? If you're asking for a timeline, you're asking for a somewhat detailed plan of how things are going to go, how long it's going to take or what needs to be done before something is complete. So in any sort of project, whether it's something that's written or something physical, like construction or building of a product, you might ask someone, what's the timeline of this? So you're asking, kind of, when can you start on it? What steps need to be taken before everything's finished and how long you think it will estimated to be taken? When we're talking about taking action on a plan or you're moving a project along, one phrase you'll hear in almost every meeting in the English-speaking workplace is, what are the next steps?

14:16Step to the next step, to the next step. Can we talk about next steps? What are you thinking for next steps? So this just means you're asking the person, what kind of actions need to be taken after this meeting to keep things going or to keep things progressing in the right direction? If you started a business, you might come up with a company name, you might get a phone number, might make a website, and now you'll say, okay, what are the next steps now to actually make a sale? You're asking, what are your next actions in this plan or in this process? A similar phrase that you'll hear in corporate America, you'll hear executives or managers say this is, let's move this forward. What do we need to move this forward? Let's move forward. So a boss might ask their employees, what do we need to move this forward? And the employees might say, we need some support on this or we need this person to work on this. So again, you're asking about the actions that need to be taken in order to accomplish a goal. These phrases start using them in your everyday English.

15:18Take, what do we need to move this forward or what are our next steps? This helps you figure out what you need to do and you were workplace on a project. Speaking of figuring out what you're supposed to be doing, what's the status of things, you need to know how to respond to these kind of questions. You can either say things are on schedule, right on schedule. Are things are behind schedule? Behind schedule. College football is back. So Hilton called to me the superstition concierge to make your fan rituals a reality. Need a room to match your lucky number? We got you. Want to make sure our team doesn't wash your lucky jersey? Ooh, that smells lucky. Hilton's unmatched hospitality can keep up with any superstition. Even a marching bandwick up call it 555 and 55 seconds. Hit it! When you need a team that will do whatever it takes on game day, it matters where you stay. Hilton, for this day. This episode is brought to you by PayPal. You know how a mom's bag has everything? Sunscreen, snacks, a stapler.

16:20The new PayPal app is like that, but for your money. Shop, pay, manage your account, and earn rewards all in one place. And with purchase protection on eligible items, biometric security, and pass keys, you're protected at every step. Download the new PayPal app to get started. See PayPal.com slash protection terms. Both of these are important things to know. So if you want to say that everything is going smoothly on time, everything's working out the way it's supposed to. It's very predictable because things are on schedule right now. So whenever your deadlines are, they're going to be complete. Now, if things are behind schedule, it means you're not going to make things on time. It's going to be late on the deadlines. So these are the two most common ways to update someone on how a project is going. You can either say things are great. They're on schedule or things are a little challenging. We're running behind schedule, which doesn't always mean it's going to be bad, but maybe it's just taking longer than anticipated.

17:23We're behind schedule, but things are turning out really well. So we might be a little later than we anticipated. When we want to talk about how important something is to get done, we can say either something is top priority, making it top priority, or low on my totem pole. The lowest on the totem pole first. So these two idioms, these two phrases, they're kind of interesting. So you might tell someone, this is my top priority. Like I will get this done right away. So when you use this phrase, you're expressing how important something is to you. And it can be kind of reassuring if you're talking to your boss or if you're talking to a client, or your boss might even say, hey, this is top priority right now. Meaning it needs to get done. I don't want you to focus on anything else besides solving this problem or finishing this project. Now, if you say that something is low on the totem pole, it means it's not very important. Sometimes we talk about people being low on the totem pole, meaning they don't have a lot of authority. It's not necessarily insulting.

18:24It's just kind of expressing how much people matter in an organization or how much authority or how much they can boss people around. So if you're low on the totem pole, it means maybe you just started at your workplace, you don't manage anyone, you don't have a lot of input on things yet. If someone is high on the totem pole, it means they are a boss, they're very important in the company, and they get a lot of say or authority or decision making power. If you want to say you're having an extremely busy day, use the phrase swamped. I am swamped today. I'm swamped. So you might not want to use this phrase with your manager because it is kind of implying that you're a bit overwhelmed and you have too much to do, and it could come off as a bit unprofessional, but if you're just talking to a coworker and they're saying, hey, can you help me out with this right now? Instead of saying, no, I'm too busy, you could just say, I'm so swamped right now. This means I have a lot of my own work and I can't help you. So again, saying swamped instead of saying busy

19:25means you're busy and you're a little bit stressed as well. A lot of times when people are swamped, it means they have a lot of people asking them things, calling them, they have a lot of customers trying to reach out to them. Now, you might hear your boss or manager saying, can you handle this? Handle it. This just means can you manage this or take care of it? And if you want to be reassuring, you can say, I can definitely handle this or you could say, I can handle all this work myself. I don't need any help or let me handle this project. I don't need anyone else to be in charge of it. So what you're using this phrase, you're showing that you are the owner and you are very responsible for something. A phrase that might be a little bit more friendly is I can take care of this. I'll take care of this project. Don't worry about it. Take care of it. Or your boss might say, hey, can you take care of this project? This just means can you be the one responsible for it and can you manage it without any help? Yes, I can take care of it. Don't worry, I'll take care of all this.

20:27You might say this in your personal life as well. If you want someone to not be stressed about things, like in the family or onification or whatever it may be, don't worry, I'll take care of it. Sometimes also this can mean that you are paying the bill. If you are out to eat with someone, even in a professional relationship, you might say, don't worry, I'll take care of the bills. It means I'll pay for it. You don't have to pay any money. A really nice idiom that you can use if you incur a problem or if you have an issue with something that you're working on that kind of prevents you from making progress on it, is you can say, I hate a roadblock. Well, I hate a roadblock. This idiom means that you have a problem that you can't quite solve that's kind of stopping your progress on any sort of project. For instance, a lot of times if we have technical issues, meaning a problem with software, the internet, or anything on our computer that stops us from working or figuring something out, you can say,

21:28I have a roadblock, I cannot figure out this problem on my computer or whatever it might be. Sorry we hit a roadblock this afternoon, our internet went out. We weren't able to work on this. This is just expressing there was a problem that stopped you. And hopefully you can figure out how to get around the roadblock if you have a problem in your workplace. Many times more speaking about these technical issues whether it has to do with our software, our internet, our computer, we can figure out workarounds. And there is a workaround. Workarounds are used to say that we figured out how to do something that we had a problem with. It's not a perfect way and it's usually a temporary solution. For instance, sometimes you'll be at work and a software won't let you upload a certain file. Now a workaround could be to download the file and change the name and then it will let you upload it. So it's not perfect, you have to do more work, but it's a workaround the problem.

22:29So you figure out how to do something in a less perfect way or in a temporary way. So this phrase, a workaround, it's super common in technology situations. And it means it's not a perfect fix to a problem. It's not ideal. Hopefully you can come up with a real solution later. But you might tell your teammates out work your coworkers, hey, for now, just use this workaround. Meaning do this to solve the problem. We'll figure out a better way later. The last very corporate phrase in this lesson is to get to the root of a problem. We're really getting to the root of the problem. If you tell someone, hey, we need to get to the root of this problem. This means we're trying to figure out what is really going wrong rather than making temporary fixes or quick fixes. For instance, if you're saying, hey, just use the workaround. We'll get to the root of this problem later. It means we'll figure out actually what's going on later to make this situation very ideal and very perfect

23:30and actually fix things rather than just ignoring them or doing a quick fix. You might be in a meeting in the workplace too. And you're trying to figure out what's going wrong with the company. Maybe you're in a more operational role and you're trying to say, hey, we need to actually get to the root of the problem here. We need to figure out why people can't get their work done on time instead of just saying, hey, like stop assigning more work, thinking that will help things. We need to figure out why the work isn't getting done. So you're really actually trying to solve problems when you use this phrase to get to the root of the problem. Think of this as, you know, digging down, getting to the roots of the trees or the plants. You're not just looking at what's above the ground. You're looking at what's below too. Thank you so much for studying with me today. I hope these phrases help you out in the workplace and I know that you'll naturally be able to start using these in your everyday conversations. If you wanna learn more with me, check out one of the lessons that are gonna be on screen next.

24:30I know I can take you more phrases that will be very important in your everyday English. And join my membership at EnglishwithKaila.com and I'll teach you English every week there as well and give you the extra resources that you need to really upgrade your English. Thanks again for watching. Booking.com is the easiest way from a day surrounded by noise. To a state surrounded by nature. That's nice. Go on, book it. It's easy. Booking.com. Booking.com. Booking.com. Yeah. Close your eyes, exhale. Feel your body relax and let go of whatever you're caring today. And let's go. Body relax and let go of whatever you're caring today. Well, I'm letting go of the worry that I wouldn't get my new contacts in time for this class. I got them delivered free from 1-800 contacts.

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