Useful phrases

Starting a meeting

Well, ladies and gentlemen, I think we should begin.

Perhaps we’d better get started / get down to business.

Right then, I think it’s about time we got started / going.

Right then, I think we should begin.

Let’s begin / get going, shall we?

Shall we start?

Starting objectives

The purpose of this meeting is, first, to … and secondly to …

We are here today to consider firstly … secondly … thirdly …

The main objective of our meeting is …

I’ve called this meeting first to … secondly to …

Keeping the meeting moving

Would you like to begin / to open the discussion … ?

Perhaps you’d like to explain / tell us / give us …

What do you think … ?

Shall we continue then?

Let’s move on.

Would you like to comment here?

What about you?

Asking for opinions

To one person	To a group of people
What are your views on … ?	Any reaction to that?
What are your feelings about … ?	Has anybody any strong feeling about / views on that?
What do you think about … ?	What’s the general view on / feeling about that?
What’s your opinion about that?	Has anybody any comments to make?

Giving opinions

Strong	Neutral	Tentative
I’m sure that …	I think / I believe that …	It seems to me that …
I’m convinced that …	As I see it …	I’m inclined to think that …
I feel quite sure that …	From a financial point of view …	My inclination would be to…
It’s perfectly clear to me that…	The way I see it is that …	I tend to favour the view that…

Disagreeing and agreeing

Agreement

Strong	Neutral
I’m in complete agreement.	I agree.
I quite agree.	You’re right there.
I couldn’t agree more.	I think you’re right.
Yes, definitely.	Yes, and …
Exactly!	That’s true.
Precisely.	That’s right.

Disagreement

Strong	Neutral
I disagree completely.	I don’t agree.
That’s out of the question.	That’s not how I see it.
On the contrary.	I wouldn’t say that.
Of course not!	I think you are wrong.
That’s ridiculous.	I disagree.

Making suggestions and recommendations

Strong suggestions …

The only solution is to …

I see no other alternative but to …

There is no alternative but to …

We must …

Neutral suggestions

I recommend that we should …

I think we should …

My recommendation is that we should …

I would suggest that we …

We should / ought to …

If I were you I would …

Tentative suggestions

We could always …

It might be a good idea to …

Have you thought of __________ ing …

One solution would be to …

What about __________ ing …

Accepting proposals

Standard	Informal
I’m completely in favour of that	Great idea
I’ve absolutely no objections	Excellent
I’m sure that’s the best solution / idea	Terrific
I’d be / I’m in favour of that	Good idea
That’s a good idea	Sounds fine
That seems quite a good idea	Fine by me
I suppose that’s OK	OK by me

Dealing with interruptions and returning to the point

Well, I don’t think we should discuss it further today. As I said before …

I take your point but can we please stick to the main subject in hand.

I see what you mean but I think you’re losing sight of the main point.

That’s all very well but I don’t see what it’s got to do with the main point of the meeting.

To go back to what I was just saying, …

To return to the main point, …

Going back to what I said before …

Getting back to my original point, …

As I was saying, …

Going to a conclusion

So, if there are no more objections I suggest that you …

If everyone’s in favour I suggest that …

If everyone’s in agreement I propose that …

Then I recommend that …

Do you all agree that …?

Bringing a meeting to an end

Is there anything else we ought to consider now?

Right, if no one has anything else to add …

Does anyone have anything else to add … ? Right, then I think we can end the meeting at this point.

If nobody has anything to add then we can draw the meeting to a close.

So, if that’s everything then we can stop here.