Shadowing Practice: 50 PHRASES IN BUSINESS ENGLISH - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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Hey guys, welcome to my channel.
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Hey guys, welcome to my channel.
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As we agreed on Instagram, I'm doing this video about 50 common phrases in business English.
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And business English is something that I do every single day, writing emails, talking on the phone and meeting investors.
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So if you're interested in sounding like a pro when you write a business email or continue watching this video.
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Phrase number one.
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When I was traveling to the UK and staying with my local host family, I asked them what is the best way to reach out to a university in the UK when I am writing an email to info at something.co.uk.
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hey, like how do I greet a person on that end if I don't know their name and they told me to whom it may concern.
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And this is the phrase that you should use if you're writing a formal email to somebody you don't know and you don't know the name, you don't know who's supposed to get back to you, you just write to whom it may concern.
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When you're sending a file in an email, you can use a phrase, please find attached.
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Please find our series A tag attached to this email.
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you have been emailing somebody for a pretty long time like maybe a month or two when this is an established partner you can start using acronyms and i use a lot of them for example fyi for your information for your information for instance you have this email and you wanted to add something and you're like fyi i'll be in london the next week maybe we should meet for a coffee so this is like an addition to your email if there is something urgent i would encourage every single employee language of always to put ASAP in the subject of an email so that a person who's checking their emails would see that there is an urgent email that requires a very urgent answer ASAP as soon as possible so next very important there is actually a difference between the CV and resume CV is longer it's three to four pages it goes in depth about your success about your achievements about your work experience but a resume is normally a one-pager document actually when you apply for stanford's mba they tell that for every 10 years of work experience you should have only one page on your resume so it's very important to concentrate on your best achievements because you don't have a lot of space achieve greatness cv is a longer one resume is a shorter one when i just started reaching out to silicon valley investors i wrote my first email to an investor and then showed it to a guy who introduced us to 500 startups and he was like marina you don't know how it works it works in a completely different way so introductions are very common in silicon valley uh for example you meet a founder and then he introduces you to the investor and the first thing you should write in the email when somebody introduces you you thank the person who introduced thank you for the intro and then you move him to bcc so the phrase is moving you to BCC to save your inbox.
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This means he would no longer be part of this conversation because you want to save his time.
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Everybody's busy.
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Another phrase that you can use is I'm CCing somebody in this email.
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I'm copying somebody so he can join and discuss the subject.
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For example, I'm CCing Dmitry here because he does all of our financials and he's going to be able to help you with this question.
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Team building is...
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Team building is an activity or a game that is used to put everybody in the company together to build closer relationships.
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When you want to work with somebody, this is called collaboration.
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Do not mix it up with cooperation because when you cooperate with somebody, it's used in, when you talk to police, like when you're in some incident, they ask you to cooperate, means to answer the questions to provide all the necessary information but when you want to work with somebody it's collaborate let's collaborate on the subject let's collab let's shoot a video together start from scratch when somebody asks you for example to create a deck and a deck is like a powerpoint presentation about your company and you've never done that before you're starting from scratch you're starting from the very beginning another expression is nine to five job that means that you're working in the office you go there every day it can be from 10 to 7 it can be from 10 to 8 but the expression that everybody uses is from 9 to 5.
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I'm working every day from 9 to 5 means you're working in the office set deadlines and meet deadlines when you set a deadline you have a date when you have to finish the project deadline what are you talking about when you meet a deadline that means that you are on the schedule to give the green light means to give the approval to approve the project i was given a green light to carry out this this project i was allowed to do that to be behind the schedule is remember about the deadlines i've mentioned before uh to be behind the schedule is to actually not being able to meet the deadlines and be ahead of the schedule is actually to be faster than you've originally planned elevator Pitch, really important thing, you have to learn to do that.
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I've learned to do that and this is a tough thing.
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This is a pitch of your company that lasts for like 15 or 20 seconds.
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The elevator.
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If you're riding in an elevator with an investor, you only have the short period of time when you can present to your company and you have to explain what it does.
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Elevator, pitch.
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To catch up, imagine that you've been away from work and now you're back and you have to go through all of the tasks and make sure you're on your way to meet all the deadlines.
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Stay on budget means to spend as much money as you've originally planned.
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Go over budget means to spend a lot of money and you haven't planned to spend that much.
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Sign off on something.
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I need my boss to sign off on this project means I need my boss's approval.
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I need his signature or a verbal yes to continue doing something.
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To be ahead of the curve means to plan far in advance, far ahead, and to foresee the problems that might arise in the long term.
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To be ahead of the curve.
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Every entrepreneur should be ahead of the curve.
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A ballpark figure is a rough estimate.
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For example, you have a meeting with an investor about investing in your company and you have to come up with the valuation but because this is the first meeting you can only uh give a ballpark figure like from 30 to 50 million dollars and then you will go into details and more detailed valuation but right now it's just a ballpark figure to kick off means to start let's kick off this meeting let's start this meeting white collar white collar college grad white collar is an employee who works for a corporation wears white and has white collar, but he doesn't have to wear that.
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It's just an expression, meaning that you're working for a big corporation, big company, working from nine to five.
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To look at the big picture means to look at things in general without focusing on details.
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Sometimes you have problems in short term, like this is a bad day, this plan failed, but if you look at the big picture, you're on the track, you're doing the right thing, you're gonna reach your goal.
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To play by the book means to follow the exact rules written in a plan or written in an instruction.
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To play by the book.
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To call it a day means you've finished work and you're ready to go home.
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5 p.m., you stand up and you say, let's call it a day.
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I'm gonna call it a day.
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And go home.
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To corner the market means to dominate the market, means you're the biggest player, you've done everything, you're making a lot of money, you've cornered the market.
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Apple cornered the market.
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Get in on the ground floor means to invest in a company at a really early stage and then make a lot of money because you invested early.
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You know how rich are Apples and Facebook's investors who got in on the ground floor?
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They are very, very rich.
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By the way, guys, if you're writing an important email, if you are writing a business email, an email to a potential university, you have to make sure that you don't make any mistakes and that you're using the phrases that I've included in my list.
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Because I talk to a lot of people and they say they really judge by your English.
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Like if you're making too many mistakes, they doubt your professionalism.
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They might not say it straight away, but it's like the first impressions, like what you're wearing, your English.
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So please, please, please make sure you're writing good emails.
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If you need help, fluent.express is a service where you can upload your email and then a native speaker will correct your email in real time, because sometimes they make mistakes because we're translating everything from our own language to English and this just doesn't make sense.
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So, Fluent Road Express is your help and your friend in writing an email or writing an essay.
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To think outside the box means to think in non-traditional ways, and when you're just studying a company, when you don't have a lot of money, you need to think outside the box.
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And this is how I started my Russian channel.
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I was like, I need to get the word out about LinguaTrip.
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How do I do that?
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I started a YouTube channel.
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To touch base, get in touch with someone.
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For example, if I'm writing any military investors, I will be like, I'm touching base with you.
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I just wanted to update you on this, this and that.
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Word of mouth is an expression that I've learned when I was studying business English in a language school in the UK.
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And I think this has been my favorite course because during that course, we didn't just learn terms and definitions, we were actually studying topics like word of mouth.
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Word of mouth was a part of our marketing week.
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And during that marketing week, we learned a lot about marketing.
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We learned what product placement is, we learned about social media, we learned about word of mouth, and we learned everything through real case studies.
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We've studied Coca-Cola, Sony, Samsung.
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So, if you really enjoy this video, I think you would enjoy a Business English course.
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The link will be below.
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Do that, like travel to the UK.
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My favorite teacher teaches the course that is down below.
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You'll love it, I guarantee you.
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A yes man.
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It's actually a little negative.
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It's a person who says yes to everything, especially to the boss, agrees with the boss all the time.
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His boss.
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Red tape is a term that is used to describe a slow moving bureaucratic process when you have to register a company, get a bank account, get all the licenses.
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Red tape.
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To play hardball means to negotiate in a really aggressive manner and not give up easily.
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Downsizing is a term used to describe an activity when company is firing a lot of people and you know 50 employees were fired during the downsizing.
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This is an example.
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To let go means to fire.
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I was let go from my job means I was fired.
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You are fired.
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To set one's foot in the door.
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This is like make the first contact.
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For example, my Silicon Valley girl vlog, I want to interview Kevin who founded Instagram and they just opened an office right across my house, but I'm not sure he's gonna be interested in doing that right now.
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So to get my foot in the door, I would reach out to their PR department and let them know there's this girl, I exist, and I would be interested in interviewing your founder.
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So get my foot in the door to be on the same page means to agree we're on the same page about this marketing strategy means i agree with my colleague about the marketing strategy to drop the ball is a bad thing i dropped the ball i cannot continue this project it's too hard for me to be in the black is a good thing because on the books um when you're doing uh calculating your profit if you're in the black means all the numbers are black you're making money to be in the red is a bad thing because when you're in the red means you lose money and this is not a good thing my hands are tied my hands are tied you can use this expression when you have to deny something or if you something like somebody comes up with an offer you say my hands are tied because my boss doesn't allow that so this is not your decision this is something that comes from somebody who manages you my hands are tied i'm sorry staff shake up is a period in company's life when they fire a lot of people and and when they hire a lot of new ones, probably a new manager came in, he has a new strategy, staff shake up.
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Outsourcing means when you don't wanna hire somebody, but you want to make a contract with a company to do something particular, like outsourcing the design.
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You can hire a designing company that will help you with the design outsourcing.
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Target demographic are people who are gonna use your product, you have to think about it all the time, think about your end user, and this is another word, This is the actual guy who's gonna use the product or a girl, and you have to think about their problems.
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End user slash target demographic.
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Mission statement is a slide on your deck, actually, but it's actually what you created the company for, what is the goal of the company, and you would always include it in your investor meetings.
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They would always ask what is the mission or why have you started the company, what drives you.
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IROI is a common expression, returns on investment.
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what would investors get if they invest.
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From the ground up means from scratch.
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I built this company, I built LinguaTrip from the ground up means I built the company from the very beginning.
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Let's start from the ground up.
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All right guys, I hope you enjoyed this video.
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Business English is my passion.
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Business English is my everyday life.
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I can make hundreds of videos about business English.
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It's really important for me to know if you enjoyed this video.
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Please comment down below what do you use business English for whether it's communicating with your partners or reaching out to universities or maybe writing your own articles like what exactly do you need from business english i will use your comments to create a new video and if this content was useful for you please like it because i don't see you right now i only see my camera but i want to see your reaction i really really want to know if that's important if this topic is useful so like this video you haven't subscribed yet there is a red button below, click it and you'll see my new videos.
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Don't miss them.
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I'll see you next week.
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Thank you so much.
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Bye.
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About This Lesson

In this video, viewers are introduced to 50 common phrases in business English, specifically designed to enhance English speaking practice in professional contexts. The content covers essential vocabulary needed for writing formal emails, engaging in conversations, and understanding business interactions. By practicing the phrases and grammar patterns discussed, learners will improve their communication skills in various contexts, such as networking, interviews, and collaborative projects, all of which are crucial for success in the business world.

Key Vocabulary & Phrases

  • To Whom It May Concern: A formal greeting used in emails when the recipient's name is unknown. Ideal for business correspondence.
  • Please Find Attached: A phrase used when sending documents via email, indicating additional information is included with the email.
  • FYI (For Your Information): An abbreviation you can use to provide additional information in an email, keeping colleagues informed.
  • ASAP (As Soon As Possible): A term to highlight urgency in communications, encouraging prompt responses for time-sensitive matters.
  • Team Building: Activities designed to strengthen relationships among coworkers and enhance collaboration in a workplace.
  • Set Deadlines: The practice of establishing timelines for project completion to ensure tasks are completed on schedule.
  • Elevator Pitch: A brief and persuasive speech used to spark interest in what you or your organization does, ideally lasting under a minute.
  • To Call It a Day: An expression used to signal the end of a workday, indicating a break or conclusion of tasks.

Practice Tips for This Video

To effectively enhance your English fluency through this video, consider the following practice tips:

  • Shadowing Technique: Repeat the phrases immediately after the speaker to improve your pronunciation and intonation. This active listening technique is beneficial for mastering business English.
  • Focus on Speaking Speed: Take note of the speaking pace. Start by slowing it down if necessary, and gradually increase your speed to match the original when you feel comfortable.
  • Accent Awareness: Pay attention to the speaker’s accent and pronunciation. Practice mimicking their accent to better understand regional variations in business English.
  • Contextual Learning: Try to use the phrases in mock emails or conversations. This will reinforce your memory and allow you to practice the vocabulary in a relevant context.
  • Topic Difficulty: If you find certain phrases challenging, write them down and practice them separately. Gradually integrate them into your speaking practice to boost your confidence.

What is the Shadowing Technique?

Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.

How to Practice Effectively on ShadowingEnglish

  1. Choose your video: Pick a YouTube video with clear, natural English speech. TED Talks, BBC News, movie scenes, podcasts, or IELTS sample answers all work great. Paste the URL into the search bar. Start with shorter videos (under 5 minutes) and content you find genuinely interesting — motivation matters.
  2. Listen first, understand the context: On your first pass, keep the speed at 1x and just listen. Don't try to repeat yet. Focus on understanding the meaning, picking up new vocabulary, and noticing how the speaker stresses words, links sounds, and uses pauses.
  3. Set up Shadowing mode:
    • Wait Mode: Choose +3s or +5s — after each sentence plays, the video pauses automatically so you have time to repeat it out loud. Choose Manual if you want full control and press Next yourself after each repetition.
    • Sub Sync: YouTube subtitles sometimes appear slightly ahead or behind the audio. Use ±100ms to align them perfectly so you can follow along accurately.
  4. Shadow out loud (the core practice): This is where the real work happens. As soon as a sentence plays — or during the pause — repeat it out loud, clearly and confidently. Don't just mouth the words: mirror the speaker's exact rhythm, stress, pitch, and connected speech. Aim to sound like a shadow of the speaker, not just a word-by-word recitation. Use the Repeat feature to drill the same sentence multiple times until it feels natural.
  5. Scale up the challenge: Once a passage feels comfortable, push your limits. Increase speed to <code>1.25x</code> or even <code>1.5x</code> to train high-speed language reflexes. Or set Wait Mode to <code>Off</code> for continuous shadowing — the most advanced and rewarding mode. Consistent daily practice of 15–30 minutes will produce noticeable results within weeks.

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