Business English

Business Email Phrases - Part 2

medium

Practise diplomatic email language: declining requests, delivering bad news, and adjusting register.

20 questions • ~15 min

Business Collocations: Multiple Choice

Multiple choicemedium

Choose the verb that goes with each business noun: 20 workplace sentences

20 questions • 10 min

Business Collocations - Part 1

easy

Learn which verbs go with which business nouns — make a decision, hold a meeting, meet a deadline.

20 questions • ~15 min

Present Perfect in Business Reporting

easy

Practise using the present perfect tense for reporting results, achievements, and progress.

20 questions • ~15 min

Modal Verbs for Professional Requests

medium

Practise using modal verbs to make polite, professional requests in business situations.

20 questions • ~15 min

Business English Common Errors

medium

Proofread common workplace email, collocation, tense, and register mistakes.

20 questions • ~12 min

Polite Workplace Requests

Dictationmedium

Practise courteous requests used in everyday workplace communication.

10 sentences • 7 min

Arranging Meetings

Dictationmedium

Practise proposing, confirming and changing workplace meetings.

10 sentences • 7 min

Deadlines and Progress

Dictationmedium

Report progress, delays and next steps clearly at work.

10 sentences • 7 min

Presenting Trends

Dictationhard

Describe increases, falls, stability and changing patterns in business data.

10 sentences • 7 min

Negotiating Solutions

Dictationhard

Practise proposing compromises, setting conditions and reaching agreement.

10 sentences • 7 min

What is Business English and who needs it?

Business English is the language of the workplace: emails, meetings, presentations, negotiations, and reports. Anyone who uses English professionally needs it — not just businesspeople. It differs from everyday English by focusing on clarity, politeness, and getting things done efficiently. The core skills are writing professional emails, understanding formal vocabulary, and using the right level of formality for your audience.

Professional Emails

Fixed phrases for opening, requesting, and closing

"I am writing to enquire about..."

Meetings and Presentations

Phrases for turn-taking, agreeing, and presenting

"Could I just add something here?"

Negotiations

Diplomatic language for compromise and requests

"Would there be any flexibility on...?"

Reports and Updates

Tenses and vocabulary for reporting results

"Sales have increased by 12% this quarter."

Key insight: Business English is not about using long or complicated words. It is about using the right words in the right context. Clarity and appropriate formality matter far more than impressive vocabulary.

What are the most important business email phrases?

Professional emails follow predictable patterns and rely on fixed phrases. Learning these phrases — rather than trying to construct every sentence from scratch — is the fastest way to improve your business writing. The key areas are openings, requests, closings, and follow-ups, each with its own set of standard expressions.

Function	Formal	Informal
Opening	I am writing to enquire about...	Just a quick note about...
Requesting	I would be grateful if you could...	Could you...? / Can you...?
Closing	I look forward to hearing from you.	Let me know what you think!
Following up	I wanted to follow up on my previous email...	Just checking in on this...
Declining	I regret to inform you that...	Unfortunately, I won't be able to...

Study tip: 'Further to our conversation' is a very high-frequency opener in British business English. It signals that you are continuing a previous discussion. Learn this phrase — it immediately sounds professional.

Why do professionals freeze when speaking English at work?

Many learners can write a professional email but freeze in a live meeting. This is the knowing-speaking gap. It is neurobiological: knowing a phrase (declarative knowledge) does not automatically transfer to producing it under time pressure (procedural knowledge). The brain shops these separately. Bridging the gap requires practising phrases in realistic scenarios, not just reading them in lists.

Declarative knowledge (knowing)

You know that 'I would be grateful if...' is a polite request. You could recognise it in a text. You could translate it. This knowledge lives in your explicit memory.

Procedural knowledge (using)

You can produce 'I would be grateful if...' spontaneously in a stressful meeting without having to think about it. This requires separate, repeated practice — like learning to drive a car.

The solution

Practise phrases in realistic scenarios with a time limit. Role-play meetings. Write emails from memory. Read aloud and record yourself. Repetition in context — not passive reading — builds procedural fluency.

Why this matters for learners: If you often think 'I knew the right phrase but I said the wrong thing', you are experiencing the knowing-speaking gap. The exercises on this page are designed to build the procedural knowledge needed for real workplace use.

What are business collocations and why do they matter?

Collocations are words that naturally go together. In business English, using wrong collocations marks you as a non-native speaker more noticeably than grammar errors. Native speakers choose collocations automatically — they simply "sound right". Learning to say "make a decision" rather than "do a decision" is one of the highest-return investments in professional English.

Verb	Correct collocation	Common error
make	make a decision / make a profit / make progress	do a decision / do a profit
do	do business / do research / do your best	make business / make research
hold	hold a meeting / hold a conference / hold talks	do a meeting / make a meeting
meet	meet a deadline / meet a target / meet expectations	catch a deadline / hit a deadline
reach	reach an agreement / reach a conclusion / reach a target	arrive to an agreement
take	take notes / take responsibility / take action	write notes / do notes

Learning strategy: Do not try to memorise all collocations at once. Focus on the verbs you use most often at work — make, do, have, take, hold, reach — and learn all their business collocations together. This verb-based approach builds a reliable mental map.

How can modal verbs make you sound more professional?

Modal verbs — can, could, will, would, might — control your politeness level. In business English, choosing the right modal for your audience is as important as the content of your message. The same request can sound rude, neutral, or extremely polite depending on the modal verb you use.

The Politeness Scale

Direct

"Send me the report."

Imperative — only appropriate for very close colleagues or urgent situations

Neutral

"Can you send me the report?"

Appropriate for colleagues you work with regularly

Polite

"Could you send me the report?"

Safe for most professional situations — use when unsure

Formal

"Would you be able to send me the report?"

Suitable for managers, clients, or first-time contacts

Very formal

"I was wondering if you might be able to send me the report."

Maximally tentative — used for sensitive requests or senior contacts

Modal	Use for	Example
can	Close colleagues, informal requests	Can you check this?
could	Most professional situations	Could you review this by Friday?
would	Managers, clients, formal requests	Would you be able to join the call?
might	Very tentative, senior contacts	I was wondering if you might consider...

Golden rule: When in doubt, use 'could'. It is polite enough for almost any professional situation and does not risk sounding either rude or sycophantic.

How is the present perfect used in business reporting?

The present perfect (have + past participle) is the tense of choice for business reporting because it connects a past action to its current relevance. When you say "Sales have increased by 15% this quarter", you are signalling that this result matters now. Past simple ("Sales increased by 15%") treats the event as finished history. The distinction is subtle but it affects how your reports are perceived.

Reporting results

"Revenue has grown by 8% compared to last year." / "We have exceeded our Q3 targets."

Reporting achievements

"The team has completed phase one of the project." / "We have successfully onboarded three new clients."

Reporting ongoing situations

"The situation has improved significantly since March." / "Costs have remained stable throughout the year."

Common time markers for business reporting

Time marker	Use with	Example
so far / to date	Present perfect	We have signed 12 contracts so far.
since + date	Present perfect	Costs have fallen since January.
this quarter / this year	Present perfect	Profit has increased this year.
recently / lately	Present perfect	The market has shifted recently.
last year / in 2023	Past simple	Revenue grew by 5% last year.

Key rule: Use the present perfect when the time period is still open ('this year', 'so far', 'since'). Use past simple when the time period is closed ('last year', 'in 2023', 'on Monday').

Frequently Asked Questions

Sources

Statistics and research cited on this page:

•
Anderson (1983) - The distinction between declarative and procedural knowledge underpins the ACT-R theory of skill acquisition, explaining why knowing a language rule does not automatically produce fluency in real-time communication.
•
Nattinger & DeCarrico (1992) - Research on lexical phrases and formulaic language in professional contexts, showing that fixed phrases (such as 'I look forward to hearing from you') are more frequent in professional writing than individually constructed sentences.
•
Hoey (2005) - Lexical priming theory: words become associated with other words through repeated exposure, explaining why collocations must be learned in context rather than as isolated pairs.
•
Cambridge Business English Dictionary - Reference for fixed professional expressions and their register classification (formal vs informal).Cambridge Dictionary
•
Leech (1983) - Principles of politeness in English communication, including the politeness scale of modal verbs (can < could < would < might) and their relationship to social distance and formality.

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