Useful phrases and vocabulary
INTRODUCTION
Welcoming
the audience
Good morning/afternoon, ladies and
gentlemen.
Hello/Hi everyone.
First of all, let me thank you all
for coming here today
It's a pleasure to welcome you
today
I'm happy/delighted that so many of
you could make It today
It's good to see you all here.
Introducing yourself
Let me Introduce myself I'm Ann
Brown from ...
For those of you who don't know me, my name Is ...
Let me just start
by introducing myself My name is ...
Giving
your position, function, department, company
As some of you know, I'm the
purchasing manager.
I'm the key account manager here and am responsible for...
I'm here In my function as the head
of...
I'm the project manager in charge of...
Introducing
your topic
What I'd like to present to you
today is ...
I'm here today to present... Today's topic is...
The
subject/topic of my presentation is ...
In my presentation I would like to
report on ...
In my talk I'll tell you about... Today I'm going to talk about...
I'll be talking about...
Saying
why your topic is relevant for your audience
Today's
topic is of particular interest to those of you/ us who ...
My
talk Is particularly relevant to those of us who ...
My topic is/will be very
important for you because ...
By the end of this talk you will be familiar with
...
Stating
your purpose
The purpose/objective/aim of this
presentation is to ...
Our goal is to determine how/the best way to ...
What I
want to show you is ...
My objective is to ...
Today I'd like to give you an
overview of...
Today I'll be showing you/reporting on ...
I'd like to update
you on/inform you about...
During the next few hours we'll be ...
Structuring
I've divided my presentation Into
three (main) parts.
In my presentation I'll focus on three major issues.
Sequencing
Point one deals with ..., point two
..., and point three...
First, I'll be looking at..., second ..., and third ...
I'll begin/start off by .... Then I'll move on to ...
Then/Next/After that...
I'll end
with ...
Timing
My presentation will take about 30 minutes.
It will take about 20 minutes to cover these issues.
This won't take more than ...
Handouts
Does everybody have a
handout/brochure/copy of the report? Please take one and pass
them on.
Don't worry about taking notes. I've put all the important statistics on a handout
for you.
I'll be handing out copies of the slides at the end of my talk.
I can email the PowerPoint
presentation to anybody who wants it.
Questions
There will be time for questions
after my presentation.
We will have about 10 minutes for questions in the question and answer period.
If you
have any questions, feel free to interrupt me at any time.
Feel free to ask questions at any
time during my talk.
EFFECTIVE OPENINGS
Rhetorical
questions
Is market research important for
brand development?
Do we really need quality assurance?
Interesting
facts
According to an article I read
recently,...
Did you know that... ?
I'd like to share an amazing
fact/figure with you.
Stories
and anecdotes
I remember when I attended a
meeting in Paris,...
At a conference in Madrid, I was once asked the following question:...
Let me tell
you what happened to me ...
Problem
to think about
Suppose you wanted to .... How
would you go about it?
Imagine you had to .... What
would be your first step?
THE MIDDLE/MAIN PART
Saying
what is coming
In
this part of my presentation, I'd like to talk about ...
So,
let me first give you a brief overview.
Indicating
the end of a section
This
brings me to the end of my first point.
So
much for point two.
So,
that's the background on ...
That's
all I wanted to say about...
Summarizing
a point
Before
I move on, I'd like to recap the main points.
Let
me briefly summarize the main issues.
I'd
like to summarize what I've said so far...
Moving
to the next point
This
leads directly to my next point.
This
brings us to the next question.
Let's
now move on/turn to ...
After
examining this point, let's turn to ...
Let's
now take a look at...
Going
back
As
I said/mentioned earlier,...
Let
me come back to what I said before ...
Let's
go back to what we were discussing earlier.
As
I've already explained,...
As
I pointed out in the first section,...
Referring
to other points
I
have a question in connection with/concerning payment.
There
are a few problems regarding the quality.
With
respect/regard to planning, we need more background information. According to
the survey, our customer service needs reviewing.
Adding
ideas
In
addition to this, I'd like to say that our IT business is going very well.
Moreover/Furthermore, there are other interesting facts we should take a look
at.
Apart
from being too expensive, this model is too big.
Talking
about (difficult) issues
I
think we first need to identify the problem.
Of
course we'll have to clarify a few points before we start.
We
will have to deal with the problem of increasing prices.
How
shall we cope with unfair business practices?
The
question is: why don't we tackle the distribution problems?
If
we don't solve this problem now, we'll get/run into serious trouble soon.
We
will have to take care of this problem now.
We
are currently having difficulties with ...
Rhetorical
questions
What
conclusion can we draw from this?
So,
what does this mean?
So,
just how good are the results?
So,
how are we going to deal with this increase?
So, where do we go from here?
Why do I say that? Because ...
Do we really want to miss this
opportunity to ...?
DESCRIBING VISUALS
Introducing a visual
Let's now look at the next
slide which shows ...
To illustrate this, let's
have a closer look at...
The chart on the following
slide shows ...
I have a slide here that
shows ...
The problem is illustrated
in the next bar chart...
According to this graph,
our net profit has doubled.
You can see the test
results in this table.
As you can see here,...
Explaining a visual
First, let me quickly
explain the graph.
You can see that different
colours have been used to indicate...
The new models are listed across the
bottom.
The biggest segment indicates ...
The key in the bottom left-hand
corner...
Highlighting information
I'd like to
stress/highlight/emphasize the following point(s).
I'd like to start by drawing your
attention to ...
Let me point out that...
I think you'll be surprised to see
that...
I'd like you to focus your attention
on ...
What's really important here is ...
What I'd like to point out here is ...
Let's look more closely at...
Describing trends
Sales increased slightly
in summer.
Consumer spending
fell/declined sharply.
Interest rates have risen
steadily.
Food prices went up
significantly.
There was a sudden
increase in prices.
In August, we saw a
moderate fall.
This was followed by a
gradual decline.
There was a sharp slump in
sales.
Ticket sales have started
picking up.
Explaining purpose
We introduced this method
to increase flexibility.
The purpose of this step is to expand to
foreign markets.
Our aim was to ...
Explaining cause and
effect
What's the reason for this
drastic decrease?
The unexpected drop was
caused by ...
This was because of...
As a consequence/Consequently, sales
went up significantly
As a result...
The venture resulted in a
sharp fall in share prices.
Our new strategy has led to
an increase of 10%.