Hey, everyone. I'm Alex.
Thanks for clicking, and welcome to this lesson
on 25 Essential Business English Phrases. So, in
this lesson, we are going to learn 25 phrases that
you can use in emails, in everyday communications, whether you are
talking to your boss, a client, a customer, your colleagues. You
will hear this in offices all around the world.
So, let's begin with reach out. So, if you
reach out to someone, you send them a communication,
you send them an email or a message in an attempt to contact them,
to make contact with them. So, for example, your boss might ask
you, "Did you reach out to the client?" Right? "Did
you make an attempt to contact the client?
Did you send them an email?" Now, this is
slightly different from the next two, which are get
in touch with someone or get in contact with
someone. If you get in touch, you get in contact. This means you actually
contact the person. Reach out has more of a meaning of you attempted.
You reach. So, I'm reaching my arm. You
reach out. You attempt to contact them and
say, "Hi, I need to talk to you about something."
So, to get in touch, to get in contact means
to contact someone. So, "I will get in touch
with you by Friday." So, maybe you send
someone, you leave a message on their machine or you
send them a message over a chat program, a
messenger service, or an email and say, "I will get in
touch with you by Friday." Or, "I will get in contact with you by
Friday." So, you can reach out to clients, reach out to customers.
You can get in touch or you can get in
contact with them as well. Next, to check in with
someone. Now, when you check in with someone,
it means that you contact them for an update on
something because you just want to see the status
of the project, the status of the relationship that
you are trying to develop with a particular client or
customer. So, when you check in with someone,
you are just tapping them on the shoulder and
saying, "Hey, how is it going?" Okay? So, for example,
maybe you have checked in with Rob and Rob
contacts you in return. He returns your email and,
or sorry, you are Rob, and someone contacts
you and they contact you in return and they say, "Hi,
Rob. Thanks for checking in." Right? Like, "Thanks
for sending me a message. Thanks for tapping me
on the shoulder." Okay? It's possible if you
work in an office that you check in with your boss
once a week, maybe, or you check in with your
team on a daily basis. This means every day or maybe once a week.
So, if you do, if you do work right now, how often do you check
in with your department? How often do you check
in with your boss to just get the newest
information, to get the latest updates? Next, to
follow up with someone. So, this is similar
to check in, but the difference is when you
follow up with someone, it doesn't mean that
they have caught, that the communication has
been two ways necessarily. So, for example, if you
are someone who is selling your services to clients
or potential clients, potential customers,
and you contact them and you get no response.
Okay? You get zero response. Probably they saw your email. Maybe they
deleted it. Maybe they haven't opened it. Maybe they opened it and said, "I'm not
interested." Or, "Oh, maybe later." Your boss might ask you to, hey, follow up with
them. This means contact them again. So, when you follow up with someone, you send a
subsequent communication, another message, another email, because
did you receive my email? Did you receive
my message? Do you have any questions? These
are the types of questions you ask when you follow
up with someone to get more information, ask if
they got your information in the first place. So, for
example, make sure you follow up with them
tomorrow. Now, I mentioned that, you know, with
follow up, sometimes the other person hasn't
even contacted you about anything. It's possible
that you already have been communicating
with this person for a while as well. And maybe
you're working on something and the person hasn't
responded to you in five days about something.
And your boss says, "Five days? That's a long
time." You should follow up with them. Make sure
you follow up with them. In that case, they could
also say, make sure you check in with them.
Ask them for an update. What's the newest
information? All right, next. Now, these are some
everyday common words, but I want to show you
which prepositions they often work with and
which of them don't need a preposition. So, some
people don't use these correctly. And that's
why I want to make sure you have the basics so
that you master them and you use them effectively
and correctly in your English communications.
So, ask about and inquire about. So, you can ask
about something. You can ask someone about
something. Inquire is a more formal way to say ask. You
can inquire with someone about something or just
inquire about something. So, for example, "Hello,
I'm writing to inquire about your prices." Or,
"Hello, I'm writing to ask about your prices." So,
both of these are possible. Inquire is a nice formal word that you can
use if you want to sound more professional. Let's go. Next, we have
reply, respond, answer, get back to. All of these
are in the same family of words. You can use
all of them in an email or when talking with a
customer, client, or colleague. So, you reply to someone.
Okay? You reply to a message. So, don't say,
"Thank you for replying me." Say, "Thank you for replying to me." Don't
say, "Thank you for replying my message." "Thank you for replying to my message." So,
you always reply to someone. You respond to someone. Answer is different. You answer
someone or you answer a message. If you use answer to, this
means, like, you are in a subordinate position to
someone. So, if someone asks you, "Whom do you
answer to?" This means, like, "Who is your boss?
Who is your superior?" "Oh, I answer to David.
David is my boss. I answer to him." But you
can answer a question, answer a message,
answer a person. So, to get back to someone, this
is a more informal way to say, reply to, respond
to, answer someone. So, for example, very
common sentence, "I'll get back to you as soon as I can."
Or, "As soon as possible." Or, "ASAP." So, "I will respond to you. I will reply to
you. I will answer you as soon as I can." Did you respond to
her? Did you reply to her? Did you answer her?
Did you get back to her? So, all of these, as you can see, they talk
about returning a message to someone. Okay, how is it going so far?
Are you listening to this and saying, "Yeah,
this is great stuff. Okay, I got more great stuff.
So, let's keep going." Okay, next, we are
talking about updates or receiving the latest,
the newest information about something. So,
you can provide an update on something to someone.
You can give an update. Provide is a more formal
word. Give is a more neutral word. Give an
update on something, and again, to someone. You
can get an update. This to receive. Receive an
update on something from someone, and you can
update someone. You can use update as a verb as
well. So, you can update someone on something.
So, let's look at the example sentences.
"Feel free to use these in your emails. Could you
please send me an update on your availability?"
So, your availability means when you are
free, when you are available in your calendar. What's
your schedule like? Maybe I'm scheduling
a meeting with you. "I'll update you tomorrow."
Right? You can also say, "I will send you an
update tomorrow. I will provide you with an
update tomorrow." And next, "Did you get an update
on the status of the payment?" So, maybe your
accounting department is asking you this, or you
are asking your department, your accounting department this. "Did
you get an update from the customer on the status of the
payment? Have they paid us yet?" So, again, you can
provide or give an update. You can get an update
to receive one, and you can just update someone,
give them the latest information. Next, another
common word, "send". So, you can send something
to someone, or you can just send something. I
put parentheses, which means it's optional. This
is absolutely necessary. So, you send something.
You can't just send, you have to send
something. Send something, or send something to
someone. Or you can send someone something. So,
you can send me the details, send me your availability.
Here we go. "Thanks for sending me the file.
I'll send the attachment this afternoon." And
here you could say, like, "I'll send you the
attachment this afternoon. I'll send the attachment
to you this afternoon." It's also possible.
And finally, "to forward something to someone"
or "to forward someone something". So, when
you forward something, it can be a synonym
for the word "send", but typically, if you have
an email, you know there is a forward button, which
means someone sent you an email, and you
want to send that email to someone else. So,
you just want to forward that email to a different
person. But you can also just forward someone,
meaning send someone something. So, for example,
"Could you forward me the details?" Like,
send the details to me. I know you have them.
Send them forward to me. Okay, so we have "send",
"forward", "update", a lot of useful language.
And it's funny how we have, like, the word "update",
but you can give an update. You can get an
update. You can provide an update. You can just
update someone. So, as you can see, they're
simple words, but they have so many different uses.
And I hope by watching this video, you are
getting that sense, and you're feeling
more informed and more empowered with your
language. So, we're almost done. We have a few more
phrases. These are great. They're very essential.
Let's take a look at them. So, next we have
"according to". So, this means based on the information
we have, or as stated in, or as stated by someone,
or in some documents. So, "According to our
records, the delivery date is September 7th." So,
based on our records, our records say this,
as stated in our records, according to our
records. According to your previous email, you are
not available to do this until September 7th, for example. Why are
you saying that you can do it earlier now, like we weren't ready
for you until September 7th? So, next, "in
regard to". This is like with attention to, when you
are trying to focus the topic of conversation.
So, with attention to something. So, I am
writing in regard to your late payments. I am
writing to you about your late payments with attention
to, with focus on this conversation piece,
this topic that we are discussing. So, I'm
writing in regard to your late payments. Some people
write with "in regards to". The correct form is "in
regard to", but "in regards to" is being used so
much that it's probably just going to become an
accepted part of English speech. My old boss
used to write "in regards to" all the time, but they say
that some bosses don't have actually really good
grammar because they don't need to. They're
the boss. Bosses. Okay. "Apologize for" and
"my apologies for". So, if you'd like to be a little
more formal, you can send your apologies
for something. So, here, "apologies" is being
used as a noun. Here, it's a verb. I apologize. Now,
I'm in Canada, so we spell it with a Z, and the U.S.
also spells it with a Z. If you are in England,
and depending on, actually, Z or Zed, however you want to say it.
In England, you will see this with an S, "apologize". So, we
apologize for the delay. My apologies for the
delay. Our apologies for the inconvenience,
for example. So, this one sounds a little more
formal, a little more polite if your company made
an error, if you made a mistake and you upset
your clients. You can say, "my apologies for the confusion", "my
apologies for the delay", "my apologies for my previous email". Maybe you
send incorrect information or something. Okay, next, "let me".
This is a cheat. "Let me" is not technically a
phrase. It is a sentence, like, "let me", "let me do something". So,
"let me know if you have any questions", "let me know if you
require more details", "let me know the best time
to call", "let me know", whatever it is, right? So, "let me see
what I can do", "let me see if I can help", "let me check my
records". So, this is like saying, "allow me", "give
me a chance to do this". And finally, "look forward to", which means
to anticipate something in the future, to be excited about
something that is to come. So, "I'm looking forward
to hearing from you". Very common ending for an email. Or
simply, "looking forward to your response". In writing, this is
totally fine. In English, technically, you need a
subject. We don't have, like, implied subjects
in most constructions. However, in certain
phrases, certain writing constructions, you can
just leave out the subject and just say, "looking
forward to your response". "I'm looking forward to
your comments", "to your likes", "to your shares".
"I'm looking forward to hearing from you", and
to see if you enjoyed this video. If you did, let me
know in the comments. What could I have done
better? Could I have done something better? What
am I missing? What are some other useful phrases?
Tell me. Or, if you just want to review everything
we have learned here, go to www.engvid.com.
Check out the link in the description of the video.
Maybe here, maybe here, here, here. Who knows
how YouTube or mmmTube - could be a different name
when you see this - is going to make videos
in the future. So, yeah, check out the quiz on
www.engvid.com to test your understanding of
this material. I hope you found it useful. Until
next time, thanks for clicking, and good
luck with your work, with school, with everything.
Use this stuff because it's good, and I hope you're
good. So, this is too long. Take care. Bye. Looking
forward to your comments. Bye.
