Useful English Phrases for Online Meetings

It is not easy for many to have a productive online meeting. If you also need to do this in English, and you are not confident in your abilities, the stress level can tend to infinity.

I teach English at EPAM, where in the English for Virtual Communication course, company employees learn to communicate effectively online. In this post, I want to share useful phrases that will come in handy at online meetings and will help you avoid embarrassing situations.

How to conduct an online meeting

"Let's start?"

The more participants, the more difficult it is to control who joined and who should wait. Before you start chatting, check if everyone is on the call. Suddenly someone important is missing?

Phrases to help you and those around you know when to start a meeting:

• Do we have [name] on the call? / Who else do we have on the call?

  
  
  
  
  

• Are we good to go?     

  
  
  
  
  

• Ok, let's get started, shall we?

  
  
  
  
  

• Ok, let's kick off.

  
  
  
  
  

"Who speaks?"

- – , . , .

, : «This is Nick», «It’s Ann here».

« ?»

, . . - . , :

• Can I cut in here for a second?

  
  
  
  
  

• If I can just jump in here for a moment...

  
  
  
  
  

• Just want to interject here...

  
  
  
  
  

• Sorry to interrupt, ...  / Sorry for interrupting...

  
  
  
  
  

« ?»

, , . : «Go ahead».

, , .  «Where was I?»

« »

, , - , . - , , .

• Please bear with me while I'm [doing something].

  
  
  
  
  

• I'm going to switch over to [the Chrome window] now.

  
  
  
  
  

« ?»

– , :

• Let me share my screen with you.

  
  
  
  
  

• I'm going to share my screen/desktop.

  
  
  
  
  

• I’m going to pull up my presentation.

  
  
  
  
  

, : «Can everybody see the first slide?»

« »

, , , :

• Sorry, I have a hard stop at [3 pm].

  
  
  
  
  

• Sorry, I have to jump to another call.

  
  
  
  
  

. , , – .

«- »

, , – , : «Sorry, I‘m having some technical difficulties here».

« »

, :

• Our internet connection seems to be slow. Please bear with me while the page is loading – it might take a few minutes.

  
  
  
  
  

• I think there’s a problem with the Internet connection at our end.

  
  
  
  
  

« »

, : «Hold on a minute»  «Hang on… Is that better?». , :

• Just a second, I’m going to turn the volume up.

  
  
  
  
  

• We’re looking into it.

  
  
  
  
  

• We're trying to fix it / sort it out.

  
  
  
  
  

• I'll try to sort the problem out.

  
  
  
  
  

• Let me just refresh the page and try again.

  
  
  
  
  

« »

, :

• Did we lose Alex again? Hello?

  
  
  
  
  

• Are you there, Jim?

  
  
  
  
  

• Sorry, guys, I got cut off.

  
  
  
  
  

, :

• Yes, you're back again now.

  
  
  
  
  

• Yes, it's fine now.

  
  
  
  
  

« »

, :

• There’s a delay on the video.

  
  
  
  
  

• The screen is blank.

  
  
  
  
  

• The screen is frozen / You're frozen.

  
  
  
  
  

• The image and sound are out of sync.

  
  
  
  
  

• You’re breaking up a little bit.

  
  
  
  
  

• There’s a bit of an echo on the line.

  
  
  
  
  

, mute, , . , ( ) :

• Sorry, I was on mute.

  
  
  
  
  

• Nick might be on mute.

  
  
  
  
  

• You appear to have been muted.

  
  
  
  
  

, :

• Could you speak up a bit, please?

  
  
  
  
  

• Could you say the last bit again?

  
  
  
  
  

• You're a little bit quiet. Could you speak closer to the microphone?

  
  
  
  
  

Buzzword Bingo, . – ! , - , .