Parleo → Blog

Business English

Five work situations and the phrases that repeat in them

Working English consists of short, repeating conversations: a minute in a stand-up, a client call, presenting your work, asking for a raise, a five-line email. The list is finite, and within each item, the set of phrases is also finite.

We measured the frequency today, and it told us where to start. The query "business English" has 7,278 impressions per month, and in the long tail, "business letter in English" 912 and "business correspondence in English" 483 stand nearby. Text in this demand is no less important than speech, so a section on email is mandatory here.

We provide the phrases below in pairs: what you hear and what you say.

Stand-up

The morning stand-up is structured the same almost everywhere: everyone talks for a minute about yesterday, today, and impediments. A minute is three or four phrases, and they repeat every day.

What you'll hear. Let's do a quick round. Anything blocking you? Can you take this one? Let's park it and come back after the call. Who's picking this up?

What you'll say. Yesterday I finished the import. Today I'm on the report. I'm blocked by the access rights, I've asked Ivan. Nothing else from me.

Three phrases from this set are worth learning separately, because even confident speakers stumble over them.

• I'm blocked by…— work is stalled due to something external
• Let's park it— let's put the question aside and come back to it later
• I'll pick it up— I'll take care of it

And one thing that saves the entire stand-up: a pre-prepared "nothing to add." The phrase Nothing else from me ends your minute and avoids an awkward pause when there's nothing more to say.

Client call

This is where something almost absent in textbooks begins: you don't understand your interlocutor and must say so aloud. Silence here is more costly than any grammatical error, because the client will think you've agreed.

Request to repeat. Sorry, I didn't catch that. Could you say it again? Could you repeat the last part? You're breaking up a bit.

Checking for correct understanding. Just to confirm: you need it by Friday. Let me make sure I've got this right. So the priority is the export, not the design.

Pause and time to think. Let me check and come back to you in an hour. I'd like to look at the numbers first. Can I get back to you tomorrow morning?

The promise "I'll check and get back to you" sounds professional at any language level. But guessing aloud doesn't.

Showcasing your work

A project presentation differs from a team meeting in that you do most of the talking. The framework is short: what it's for, what's been done, what's next, questions at the end.

What you'll say. I'll walk you through three things. First, the problem. The main change is here. This part is still in progress. I'll leave time for questions at the end.

What you'll hear. Can you go back one slide? What's the impact on the deadline? How confident are you in that number? Let's take this offline.

This last phrase is more confusing than others.Let's take this offline does not mean "turn off the demo": the speaker suggests discussing the issue separately, without other participants.

Talking about money

Asking for a raise is structured as a short conversation with one clear request in the middle. The English here is simple; the difficulty lies elsewhere: stating the amount without starting to apologize.

What you'll say. I'd like to talk about my salary. Over the last year I've taken on the reporting and the new client. I'm asking for a review of my current level. What would need to happen for that to be possible?

The last question is more useful than the others. It shifts the conversation to a plan: instead of "no," you leave with a list of conditions.

Five-line email

A business email in English is shorter than an email in Russian. Five lines are considered a normal length, and everything fits into them.

• Salutation: Hi Anna, — in most companies, this is enough. Dear Ms Petrova, save for the first email to an unfamiliar person and for official inquiries.
• Reason for writing, first line: I'm writing about the invoice for August.
• Request, directly: Could you send the signed copy by Thursday?
• Attachment: I've attached the report. The phrase please find attached sounds like an email from 1998.
• Closing: Thanks in advance or Best regards and name.

Three more phrases cover half of all correspondence. Just a quick follow-up on my previous email — a polite reminder. Apologies for the delay — an apology for a late reply without explanation. Let me know if anything is unclear — an invitation to ask if anything is unclear.

What level is needed

Cambridge English has three business exams, and they show where the bar is set: B1 Business Preliminary, B2 Business Vantage, C1 Business Higher. Client work and meetings live in the B2 territory. Team meetings and correspondence on familiar topics live at the B1 level.

It's worth knowing your level before choosing a course: we discussed the scale in the article about English levels. The practical conclusion from it is simple: for work, a level higher than B2 is rarely needed; what's needed is fluency within your ten to twelve situations.

How this is trained in Parleo

The app has 36 scenes, and eleven of them are work-related. These are "Team Meeting," "Client Call," "Project Presentation," "Raise Discussion," and seven interviews — general plus separate ones for a developer, product manager, marketer, designer, sales, and analyst.

A scene works like a spoken dialogue: Parleo responds with a voice and stays in its role until the end of the conversation, and you say your part. It shows errors afterwards, with an analysis, so as not to interrupt mid-sentence. It's useful to run through the team meeting several times in a row: it's short, and after the third time, the phrase about a blocker comes out naturally.

We have a separate page about preparing for an interview, and you can start speaking for free — twenty requests without registration.

What to do today

Choose one of the five situations — the one closest to the current date. Write down four phrases from it: one of your own, one about misunderstanding, one about a pause, and one final phrase. Say them aloud three times and leave them open for tomorrow.

And check the letter line by line: is it clear from the first line why you are writing? If not, start over from there.