Useful Phrases for Business Meetings in English: 5 Common Mistakes

Most English learners have sat through a business meeting feeling perfectly fine until they had to speak. Then something went wrong. Not with their ideas. With the phrases they used to deliver them.

The problem is that meeting language is a very specific register. Too casual, and you sound unprepared. Too formal, and you sound like you swallowed a legal document. The phrases you need sit right in the middle, and they follow patterns that are easy to learn once someone shows you what is actually going wrong.

Here are five mistakes that come up constantly in business meetings, with corrections and explanations that will actually stick.

The Mistakes (and What to Say Instead)

Mistake 1: “I want to say something about this point.”

Wrong: “I want to say something about this point.”

Correct: “Can I come in here?” or “If I could just add something here…”

Why: “I want to say something” sounds like a child asking permission to speak in class. In meetings, professionals use softened interruption phrases. “Can I come in here?” is natural, confident, and widely used by native speakers. It signals you want the floor without sounding blunt or aggressive.

Mistake 2: “I don’t agree.”

Wrong: “I don’t agree.”

Correct: “I see it slightly differently.” or “I take your point, but I think we also need to consider…”

Why: A flat “I don’t agree” lands like a door slamming. It creates friction without offering anything. Professional disagreement in English almost always involves acknowledging the other person’s view first, then redirecting. This is not politeness for its own sake.  It keeps the conversation moving.

Mistake 3: “Let’s go to the next point.”

Wrong: “Let’s go to the next point.”

Correct: “Shall we move on?” or “I think we’ve covered that. Shall we go to the next item?”

Why: “Go to” works for locations and websites. For meeting agenda items, the standard verb is move on (to). It is one of those small word choices that signals fluency. Using the right collocation here costs you nothing but a few minutes of learning. Worth it.

Phrases like this one are exactly what we work on in the daily coaching programme at richardg.xyz. If you want to build this kind of fluency systematically, click here to see how it works.

Mistake 4: “What is your opinion about this?”

Wrong: “What is your opinion about this?”

Correct: “What’s your take on this?” or “How do you feel about this proposal?”

Why: “What is your opinion about this?” is textbook English from about 1987. It is grammatically correct but sounds wooden and unnatural in a real meeting room. Native speakers rarely say it. “What’s your take on this?” is the modern, professional alternative. It is warmer and signals you actually want a conversation, not a formal statement.

Mistake 5: “I think we should finish the meeting now.”

Wrong: “I think we should finish the meeting now.”

Correct: “I think that’s everything for today.” or “Let’s wrap up there.” or “Shall we call it there?”

Why: “Finish the meeting” is clunky. Meetings in English are wrapped up, closed, or simply called (as in “let’s call it there”). These phrases also tend to come with a brief summary or next steps, which is why learning them as part of a closing sequence makes more sense than learning them in isolation.

The Pattern Behind All Five Mistakes

Look at those five corrections again. Notice anything?

Every correction is less literal and more idiomatic than the original. The mistakes all follow the same logic: take a concept, translate it word-for-word, and produce something that is technically understandable but socially a little off.

Meeting English runs on collocations and fixed phrases. Move on to the next item. Take your point. Wrap up. Come in. These chunks of language travel together. When you break them apart and rebuild them from scratch using translation logic, the result sounds stilted — even if every individual word is correct.

The fix is not to memorize random phrases from a list. It is to start noticing which verbs, prepositions, and structures cluster around meeting situations, and then to practise them in context until they feel natural. That takes time, but it takes a lot less time than you might think if you are working on it regularly.

Quick-Reference Summary

• Use “Can I come in here?” to interrupt professionally — not “I want to say something.”
• Acknowledge before you disagree: “I take your point, but…”
• Agenda items are moved on to, not “gone to.”
• Ask for opinions with “What’s your take on this?” — not “What is your opinion about this?”
• Close a meeting with “Let’s wrap up” or “Shall we call it there?”
• The underlying rule: meeting English relies on collocations. Learn the chunks, not just the words.

Vocabulary to Know

• come in /kʌm ɪn/ – Level: B1 – to join a conversation or add a point, especially in a meeting context – Example: She waited for a pause and then came in with a strong counterargument.
• take your point /teɪk jɔː pɔɪnt/ – Level: B2 – to acknowledge that someone has made a valid or understandable argument – Example: I take your point about the timeline, but we need to consider the budget too.
• move on (to) /muːv ɒn tuː/ – Level: B1 – to progress to the next topic or agenda item – Example: If no one has anything to add, shall we move on to item three?
• take /teɪk/ – Level: B2 – a person’s view or interpretation of a situation (used in “what’s your take?”) – Example: What’s your take on the new restructuring plan?
• wrap up /ræp ʌp/ – Level: B1 – to bring something, especially a meeting or project, to a close – Example: We’re running low on time, so let’s wrap up and agree on the action points.
• collocation /ˌkɒləˈkeɪʃən/ – Level: C1 – a pair or group of words that naturally and frequently appear together in a language – Example: “Make a decision” is a collocation; “do a decision” is not.
• agenda item /əˈdʒendə ˈaɪtəm/ – Level: B2 – a specific topic or task listed on the formal plan for a meeting – Example: The budget review is the third agenda item, so we’ll get to it shortly.
• redirect /ˌriːdɪˈrɛkt/ – Level: C1 – to steer a conversation or focus toward a different point or outcome – Example: The chairperson redirected the discussion when it started going off-topic.
• register /ˈrɛdʒɪstə/ – Level: C1 – the level of formality in language, adjusted depending on context and audience – Example: The register in a board meeting is very different from the one in a team lunch.
• stilted /ˈstɪltɪd/ – Level: C2 – (of speech or writing) formal and unnatural in a way that feels awkward or overly careful – Example: His presentation was accurate but stilted, which made it hard to engage with.

Frequently Asked Questions

Are these phrases suitable for formal board meetings or just everyday team meetings?

Most of them work in both contexts. “Can I come in here?” and “Shall we move on?” are standard across the board, from a Friday team catch-up to a quarterly review. The only one to use with a little more care is “Let’s call it there,” which sounds slightly more informal. In a very senior or formal meeting, “I think that brings us to the end of today’s agenda” is the safer option.

How do I sound natural using these phrases if I have never used them before?

Practise them out loud before you need them. This sounds obvious, but most people skip it. If you say “Can I come in here?” ten times before your next meeting, it will not feel awkward when you actually say it in the room. The stiffness comes from encountering a phrase for the first time under pressure. Remove that variable by rehearsing in advance. Even a two-minute run-through before a meeting makes a real difference.

What if I make a mistake mid-meeting — how do I recover?

Simply continue. Most colleagues in a professional setting will follow your meaning even if the phrasing is off. If you want to self-correct, a brief “sorry, what I mean is…” followed by the cleaner version is perfectly natural. Nobody is grading you. The goal is communication, and a small grammatical slip does not undermine a good idea.

Keep Practising

The phrases in this post are a solid starting point. But knowing them and using them fluently are two very different things, and the gap between the two closes fastest when you are getting regular, structured practice with feedback.

That is exactly what the daily coaching programme at richardg.xyz is built around — real language, real contexts, real feedback, every day. If that sounds like what you need, here is where to find out more.