20 Must-Have English Phrasal Verbs for Meetings and Updates [606]

Speak Better English with Harry

In this episode, Harry provides a comprehensive lesson on 20 essential Business English phrasal verbs used during meetings and project updat

Key takeaways

• Using phrasal verbs like 'kick off' instead of 'begin' helps non-native speakers sound more natural in professional settings.
• A critical distinction exists between 'follow up on' (checking status) and 'follow through on' (completing a promised action).

Main topics

• Business English Phrasal Verbs
• Meeting Communication Strategies

Notable quotes

If you want your spoken English to sound a little more natural, then phrasal verbs are very useful.

Conclusion

This episode serves as a practical toolkit for professionals seeking t

Transcript preview

Speaker 1 (0:09) Hi there, this is Harry and welcome back to Advanced English Lessons with Harry where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language and to speak English in a more natural and confident way. So, what are we going to help you with today? Well, in this particular business, English Lesson, we're going to look at 20 phrasal verbs that you will usually hear in meetings when somebody is giving an up. date or when people are talking about the progress of a project. These are, I promise you, expressions that people use every day at work and sometimes they use them without even thinking about them. Now, if English isn't your first language, you may understand a phrasal verb when somebody else uses it, but when it's your turn to speak, you may decide to use a more formal single word alternative. So you might use begin instead of kick off, investigate instead of look into, or resolve instead of sort out. There's nothing... Wrong with those words, of course, but if you want your spoken English to sound a little more natural, then phrasal verbs are very useful and they are part and parcel of everyday English. Let me give you an example of the sort of language you might hear when somebody is giving an update on a project. They might say, let's kick off with a quick update. We ran into a problem with the supplier and that held us up for a few days. We've had to push the launch back, but I'm looking into the extra cost and I'll get back to you tomorrow. So there are several phrasal verbs in that short update and when you understand them, you know exactly what the problem was, what effect it had on the project and what the person is going to do next. If you only understand the individual words, however, it can be a little confusing because run into, hold up, push back, look into and get back to all have their own particular meaning. So What exactly is a phrasal verb? Well, a phrasal verb is made up of a verb and another short word or sometimes two short words and together they give us a particular meaning. The important thing is to learn the complete expression and then practice it in a complete sentence because that's how you'll remember when and how to use it. Speaker 1 (2:48) So, I've divided the phrasal verbs into four groups to make them a little easier to follow. First, we'll look at the phrasal verbs you can use when a meeting begins or when you want to introduce some information. Then we'll look at progress and action. After that, we'll deal with problems and delays. And finally, we'll look at the next steps and how to bring the meeting to an end. For each phrasal verb, I'll explain what it means. I'll give you the situation in which you might use it, and then I'll give you a couple of examples so that you can hear how it works in a complete sentence. I'll also explain the word order where it's important, because with some phrasal verbs we can move the object, while with others we can't. Speaker 1 (3:43) Next one, to bring up. So to bring something up means to raise a point, OK, or to introduce something into the discussion. So perhaps you're in a meeting and everybody has been talking about the delivery dates, but nobody has mentioned the budget. And you say, oh, can I just bring up one point about the budget? So you're introducing that subject because you want people to discuss it. Or you could say nobody brought up the budget until the last 10 minutes of the meeting. So again, somebody introduced that particular topic quite late in the meeting. And you can also say I didn't want to bring it up. So when we use it, it goes there in the middle. I didn't want to bring it up. In something more formal, perhaps in a report, you might use raise an issue. But in a meeting. Bring up is perfectly natural. Okay? So to bring up, to introduce or raise a point for discussion. Speaker 1 (4:51) Number three, to go over. So to go over something means to review it, to look at it again, perhaps because you want to explain it or make sure that everybody understands it. So, for example, before you make a final decision, you might want to go over the figures once again just to make sure that everything is correct. Or perhaps you're giving an up. date in a meeting and you say I'll go over the three main risks first and then we can look at what we need to do about them so you're taking those points one by one and reviewing them with everybody and you can go over lots of things you can go over the figures you can go over the agenda you can go over the details of a proposal or perhaps something that was discussed in the previous meeting. So if somebody says, can we go over that again? They simply want to look at it or discuss it one more time. Okay, so to go over something, to review it or look at it again. Speaker 1 (6:02) Number four, to fill someone in. Now, to fill someone in means to give them information that they've missed, perhaps because they weren't at the meeting or they weren't involved in a particular conversation. So, let's say you missed the client call yesterday and you come into the office this morning. You might say to one of your colleagues, Sorry, I couldn't make the call yesterday. Can you fill me in on what was agreed? So you're asking them to tell you the important points, what was discussed and what decisions were made. Or perhaps somebody new has joined the project and they don't know about the changes that were made last week. So you might say, I'll fill Sarah in before the meeting on Friday. Meaning you'll... Give Sarah the information she needs so that she knows exactly where things stand. And you'll often hear it with on. Can you fill me in on what happened? I'll fill him in on the latest changes. So the person comes in the middle because it's the person you're giving the information to. Now, fill in can mean other things as well. You can fill in a form, for example, or you can fill in for somebody who's away from work. But here when we say fill someone in, we're talking about giving somebody the information they've missed. Speaker 1 (7:43) OK, so the second group is really about progress and the action that needs to be taken once a project is moving along. Perhaps you've had a meeting, you've made