English in the workplace, at work, in the office. Knowing the idioms, phrasal verbs and unique vocabulary that’s used in these professional contexts is so important!
Today we will focus on some really common very useful expressions that you’ll hear often at work and in these professional contexts .
At the office. With your colleagues. With your boss. With your clients, your customers. In interviews, speaking exams, with your teacher or your university professor. If you haven’t already noticed, you’ll soon realise that the office is where idioms and English expressions go wild. At times it feels like people only speak using idioms and slang.
So whether you’re flat out, getting off-track, losing your train of thought or banking on an early finish, these 10 essential business English expressions will help you to sound more natural and confident at work.
Now, let’s start!
Table of Contents
10 Important Business English Expressions
1, Flat out
If you’re “flat out”, you’re incredibly busy, you have lots to do, so much that you can’t stop to have a break.
For example:
- I’ll be flat out next week because there’s a new shipment arriving.
- I’ve been flat out all week, I’m exhausted!
In Australia, people might also use “flat chat”. It’s used in exactly the same way to mean that someone is very busy.
2, Train of thought.
Have you ever been talking about something and then completely forgotten what you’re talking about and why you’re talking about it. It happens to people more often than they would like to admit but this happens when your train of thought gets distracted by something else. The clear progression of your thoughts are stopped by something.
For example:
- “Oh! I’ve lost my train of thought! What was I talking about?”
- My mum called and completely disrupted my train of thought.
- Can I ask you a question?- Just give me a minute, I don’t want to disrupt my train of thought.
3, On track
If you lose your train of thought, you’ll need to ‘get back on track’. If something is ‘on track’, it’s happening as it should be, there’s no problem at all. If something is not happening as you planned and you want to change it, you want to get back on track.
For example:
- We missed the deadline last week, but we’ve just submitted the report now, so we’re getting back on track.
- Are you on track to complete the report by the end of the week?
Logically, if something is not on track, it’s not happening as it should be, then you’re off track.
Imagine this, you’re busy, you’re flat out, and you have to attend a meeting about a project that you’re working on. But the people at the meeting are not prepared and the conversation is just going everywhere! People are talking about their kids, what they had for dinner last night, any other issue except what you should be talking about.
So you decide to interrupt the conversation and say:
- “We’re getting off track here guys. We’ve only got ten more minutes left and we need to confirm the marketing budget”.
It’s used to say that a person or a group of people have become distracted from their main purpose. They’ve lost their focus.
Here are a few more examples:
- It’s difficult to stay on track with so many disruptions, perhaps we should move to the conference room.
- I don’t want to get off track, but we can all agree that the new marketing manager is difficult to get along with.
- We should have completed the work by now, but the team got off track with some technical issues.
This idiom also has a literal meaning “To get lost or lose your direction”. To literally get off the track and here, a track means a path or a road. So if you’re off the track, you’re not on the road, on the path that you need to be on.
4, (To) bank on
To bank on something means to bet that something will happen in a certain way. To be really sure or confident that something will happen
For example:
- I’m banking on Sarah to get a promotion, so that I can apply for her position.
- Since it’s a public holiday on Monday, we’re banking on an early finish tonight.
It can also be used in a negative sentence, often advising someone against something.
For example:
- I wouldn’t bank on it.
That means it’s not a good idea to assume that it will happen.
5, (To) brush up on
This is a phrasal verb, but one that’s idiomatic, and it means to update or to improve your skills in some way.
It can be used in any context really, formal or informal, but this expression is so useful in a professional context because sometimes it can be a little awkward or embarrassing to say that you don’t have fantastic skills in one area. Just by saying that you need to brush up on those skills is a much softer way of saying that you’re not that good at something, but you are willing to practise or study to improve those skills.
For example:
- I’m brushing up on my Italian because I’ve got a business trip in July.
- I got the job at the publishing company! But I really need to brush up on my editing skills. I’m out of practice!
6, (To) bring something to the table
This idiom means to provide something that will be of benefit, or something useful. And it’s often used in a professional context to describe the skills or experience that someone brings to a team or to a company.
For example:
- The great thing about Sam is that she brings years of management experience to the table.
- He brings excellent communication skills and award-winning design experience to the table.
See how the “something” in our structure is a noun phrase here. This is really common with this expression.
But during a meeting you might also hear someone use this expression:
- “What have you brought to the table?”
And that means what suggestions or ideas did you bring to the meeting, can you offer to the people in the meeting.
7, (To) bring up
This is a very common phrasal verb, and you’ve probably heard it before. It means to mention or introduce a topic.
Someone can bring something up during a meeting, a call or a casual conversation.
For example:
- I’ll bring it up with Stephanie when I see her next week.
- Our presentation is missing some of the key points. So I’m going to bring it up with the team tomorrow, we can spend some more time on it.
8, (To) turn down
Again, this is another common phrasal verb, but it’s also idiomatic. It means to say “no” to something or to refuse something.
For example:
- They offered me tickets to the conference, but I had to turn them down because it’s my son’s birthday.
- He turned it down because they offered him the promotion, but told him that they couldn’t increase his salary.
- I applied for the position, but then I found out I had to spend six months of the year living in New Zealand. So I had to turn them down.
9, Wing it
Now, when you do something without planning or preparing for it, there are a couple of useful expressions that you can use.
You can say that you’ll “wing it”.
- My presentation’s on my laptop, which I left at home, I’ll just have to wing it.
- If you haven’t received the notes, you’ll just have to wing it.
Usually this idiom suggests that you didn’t really plan it to be that way but for some reasons, you’re under-prepared.
10, Off-the-cuff
If you do something that’s off-the-cuff, you’re doing something without preparing for it but you’re kind of comfortable with that, you’re cool with that.
For example:
- I wish that I was confident enough to make presentations off-the-cuff, I spend so much time planning for our monthly board meetings.
- Paul won an award last night and made a fantastic speech totally off-the-cuff!
This is the end of our lesson today, we hope you learnt some new expressions. Remember that these expressions are often used in a professional context. But not only in a professional context, you’ll often hear them used in casual, informal contexts as well, so they’re good ones to learn and practise. In order to get further explanation and practice your listening skills also, watch the video below. Thank you for reading and see you in the next writing!
Credit: Youtube Channel ‘mmmEnglish’
