Speak Clearly at Work

"Let's park that and circle back once we've got a ballpark."

Every word in that sentence is simple. Together, they mean something none of them mean apart - and nobody has ever explained it to you.

Your English is good. Your grammar is fine. But workplaces run on a dialect that no course teaches: phrasal verbs, half-idioms, email phrases that mean the opposite of what they say, and the small signals that decide whether a message reads as friendly or furious.
This book teaches that dialect - and only that dialect.

WHY 150 PHRASAL VERBS, AND NOT 1,000

English has around nine thousand phrasal verbs. Most books try to teach you four hundred, a thousand, sometimes more. They are thorough, they are heavy, and almost nobody finishes them.

But researchers who counted which ones people actually use found something far more useful: a small group - around a hundred and fifty - accounts for the great majority of all phrasal verb use in real English. And most have just one or two dominant meanings.

So this book gives you those, grouped by the situation you'll need them in, with the workplace meaning only. We left things out on purpose. That is the method, not a shortcut.

INSIDE

• 150 phrasal verbs, organised by moment - meetings, email, projects, problems, deadlines, decisions, people, money, small talk and interviews
• The video call chapter no older textbook has - bad audio, interrupting on Zoom, and the phrase that gets you a repeat without apologising
• What people actually mean - "let's circle back," "per my last email," "there's been some slippage," "we're letting you go"
• The commitment ladder - how much you just promised, and why "I'll aim to" protects you better than a confident "yes"
• The softening dial - how to disagree in English without starting something
• The Danger Zone - the phrases that will get you into trouble at work
• Your first language - targeted sections for twelve language backgrounds, including Spanish, Portuguese, Turkish, Polish, Russian, French, Arabic, Hebrew, German and Mandarin
• A 30-day plan you do at work, in conversations you were having anyway

WHO IT'S FOR
Professionals who already speak English well and are tired of being asked to repeat themselves. If you can read this description comfortably, your English is not the problem - and this book will not waste your time on grammar you already know.

WHY IT'S DIFFERENT
Most business English books are long, dated and written for a classroom. This one is short, current and written for someone with a job to do. It also addresses the thing nobody else writes about: not the words you don't know, but the moments you go quiet.

Written by Evangeline Smith, a linguist and Business English instructor, and Miriam Smith, a TEFL-certified educator and Preply Super Tutor who has taught English on four continents. Mother and daughter, and the authors of Speak Clearly and A Piece of Cake.

You don't need more English. You need this English.