phrases for presentations esl

60 Useful and Impactful Phrases for Presentations in English: A Quick Glimpse for Presenters

Introduction.

Are you up for a presentation in English but don’t know how to start yet? Preparing and making a persuasive presentation in English is quite challenging and taxing. You have to consider a lot of things before you can finalize it. A good presentation relies heavily on the words or phrases you use to clearly convey your message to your target audience.

Then, what kind of phrases for presentations in English should you use to persuade your audience and get them involved in your presentation?

In this article, we are going to talk about useful and impactful phrases for presentations in English that you can effectively use in your future presentations. Before that, let us discuss first the importance of these phrases in English presentations.

The Importance of Having Impactful Phrases for Presentations in English

In the business world, presentations play a significant role because they make reports easier to convey and understand. Presentations delivered in English are impactful and are often commended. Thus, having impactful phrases for presentations in English is an additional advantage to get your audience’s attention and be on track.

Say for example you are assigned to lead a new project and you are tasked to give a progress report to your boss. It would not be nice to give him just verbal updates about the progress of the project you handle. It would be better to show him the things that have been working well so far, and things that have been a worry. With just a verbal report, your boss might not be able to understand clearly.

With that, using a presentation is important for him to clearly visualize what is going on with the project. Presentations also give you the chance to be constructively corrected. It also serves as a formal report.

Using impactful phrases for presentations in English leaves a lasting impression on your audience. These phrases can greatly enhance the effectiveness of your report. The more you use persuading phrases or expressions in your presentations, the greater the chance you have to be recognized.

Do you want to be recognized and commended? This article is for you, so keep reading and we’re with you all throughout.

Useful and Impactful Phrases for Presentations in English

Aim for a long-lasting impression on your audience by using the following useful and impactful phrases in your next presentation in English.

• Setting a bright atmosphere

At the beginning of the presentation, you would want your audience to interact with you throughout so setting a warm and bright atmosphere before it is crucial. You can use the following expressions:

• “Good day, everyone! Who’s up for a game?”
• “It’s nice to see everyone with a smile today.”
• “I am glad you all came to attend this meeting.”
• “Before we start, let’s have an icebreaker first to keep everyone going!”
• “Have you ever…?”

Remember to get your audience engaged right at the beginning of your presentation.

• Setting your audience’s expectations

In some presentations, the audience expects more of what you can give, so it is good to give them a brief overview of what the presentation is about and what will happen.

• “This presentation will last about 30 minutes.”
• “All questions and concerns will be attended to after the presentation.”
• “We will allocate spare time for your questions and concerns.”
• “The first part of the presentation would be…”
• “There will be more slides in the presentation so please bear with me.”
• “This presentation will take longer than usual.”
• “If you have questions during the presentation, please write them on these pieces of paper so we can answer them later.”
• “Please take down notes for your reference.”
• “Handouts will be distributed to everyone.”
• “There will be more games and interaction in this presentation.”
• Starting your presentation

It is always nice to warmly welcome your audience before going deeply into your topic.

• “I would like to formally welcome everyone today.”
• “Please sit comfortably and relax.”
• “Let’s start this presentation by introducing myself. My name is _________.”
• “My name is ______ and I am from _______ department.”
• “I’d like to share a quote from …”
• “I have an anecdote to share and I’d love everyone to listen.”
• “What do you think about the quote shared by…?”

Sometimes, it is better to start your presentation with an anecdote or a quote related to your presentation.

• Introducing your topic

You may use the following phrases for presentations in English when introducing your topic.

• “Today, I will be talking about…”
• “The topic of my presentation today is about …”
• “My presentation is relevant to…”
• “I am glad to present to you the progress of …”
• “As you can see, I am here to report about…”
• “There are three major topics that I’m going to discuss today.”
• Discussing the content of your topic: showing images, graphs, and illustrations

When discussing the content of your presentation, it is good to use the following expressions.

• “As you can see in the graph…”
• “Here is an example illustration of…”
• “Look at the graphic on the screen.”
• “This illustration/graph shows the result of…”
• “Things don’t look good in this image so…”
• “I visualize this project as…”
• “You can see the graph showing the trends…”
• Engaging your audience

It’s okay to pause for a while and get your audience involved in your presentation.

• “What do you think about it?”
• “Do you have any additional insights?”
• “Please feel free to share your thoughts about it.”
• “Your opinion really matters.”
• “Kindly let me know if you have questions or clarifications.”
• “I’d love to hear your thoughts about this.”
• “Who would like to share their personal thoughts on this?”
• Emphasizing or highlighting important information
• “This is very important because…”
• “The good thing about this one is that…”
• “Our key takeaway for this matter is…”
• “The most important thing in this project is the…”
• “The decrease will not affect our sales target…”
• Entertaining questions and concerns

Some members of the audience inevitably ask you questions about your presentation so it is best to be prepared. If not, might as well be polite instead.

• “Thank you for your question, Mr./Ms. _____.”
• “That’s a very good question.”
• “Thank you for raising that concern.”
• “I’d love to answer your question, but let me finish this first.”
• “I will attend to all your questions after the presentation.”
• Ending your presentation and leaving a long-lasting impression

You may not impress all in the audience with your presentation but you must know how well you delivered your presentation. End it with a bang, and leave a lasting impression on your audience.

• “This is not easy, but I know we can do this.”
• “Thank you so much for sparing your precious time on this presentation.”
• “I really appreciate your presence in this meeting.”
• “We are all in this together, so let’s start making a difference.”
• “I’d like to commend our workers for…”
• “Good job to everyone for a job well done.”
• “Kudos! Let’s continue to be productive and excellent.”
• “You’re all amazing.”

You can also end your presentation with a quote or a personal anecdote for your audience to remember you.

These phrases for presentations in English are helpful ways to make your presentation easy to understand as well as impactful. These are just examples of phrases you can use when presenting in English. You can always experiment and create sounding phrases to persuade your audience.

By knowing these phrases, you enhance the effectiveness of your delivery as well as your communication skills. This is your way to overcome your fear of speaking English . Most importantly, the impression you will leave to your listeners will last for a long time.

What to consider when preparing a presentation?

Presentations can be simple depending on your target audience, the context, and the time frame. These are just a few of the things you have to consider when preparing a presentation. You can also ask yourself the following questions.

• Know your target audience. Who are the attendees? Your presentation must be appropriate for the listeners.
• Where is the presentation? Check the situation.
• How long will the meeting last? How much time is allocated for your presentation?
• What data should you present? Think about the most important highlight in your topic.
• Should you use a PowerPoint presentation? This is better than just speaking without material.
• Are games or activities suitable for the presentation? If not, never mind. You’ll just waste your time.
• What interactive activities should you include? This is nice to get your audience engaged.
• What if you cannot answer the questions? Anticipate and prepare a backup answer.

Presentations are always easy when you know how to consider things during your preparation. Things do not always go easy, especially when it is your first time. However, just be confident and relax. Your goal is to deliver a good and effective presentation, but most of all, to impress your audience.

Get ready for your next presentation…

You have just learned some useful and impactful phrases for presentations in English. Now you are ready for your next presentation. Focus and think about your primary goal: the impression.

• March 12, 2024

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37 Useful Phrases For Presentations In English

• Post author: Harry
• Post last modified: 07/02/2024
• Post category: Business English Vocabulary
• Reading time: 10 mins read

Here you will learn at least 37 useful phrases for presentations in English. Improve your business English skills and feel confident when making presentations in English.

Presentation phrases for setting the scene, recapping, ending a presentation in English and more. 

Listen to the podcast Speak Better English with Harry or watch it on YouTube at Learn English with Harry .

List of phrases for presentations in English

useful phrases for presentations in English

Hi there, this is teacher Harry, and welcome back to my English lessons where I try to help you to get a better understanding of the English language.

Okay, so what are we going to cover in the lesson today? Well, all of us, myself included, have to make presentations, from time to time to staff or to bosses, or to clients or customers, whoever it may be. And if you’re using English, not as your native language, then it can be a bit of a challenge. You might feel lacking in confidence. You might feel that you’re not up to the other guys.

But you can do it.

So I’m going to give you some useful phrases that you can use in relation to presentations.

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setting the scene

You might just simply say at the presentation particularly if it’s online,

• It’s good to see you all here.
• It’s great that you could join me.
• I’m very pleased to be here.
• I’m very pleased to be talking to you today.
• I’m very pleased to be presenting to you today.
• I’m glad you could all make it.
• Thank you all for coming.
• Thank you all for joining in.
• Thank you all for coming together on Zoom.

Whatever it might be, you can adjust the words to suit the media and the medium by which you’re presenting to your guests. Staff, colleagues, clients. 

common  phrases  for starting off  presentations

And then if we talk about other useful expressions and phrases.

It’s a good idea to spend 30 seconds introducing yourself.

So my name is Harry, I work in this department, I’d like to talk to you today about…

• The topic of my presentation today is….
• I’m planning to tell you about today….
• I’d like to introduce you to….

So in those sorts of expressions, you’re setting the scene again, you’re telling them exactly what you’re going to cover. And that’s a really good idea in a presentation because then everybody knows what’s going to be spoken about.

My name is Harry, I work in the marketing department. My presentation today is about a new product. The presentation is probably going to take about 20 minutes. And if you have any questions, then please ask them as we go through the presentation. 

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Introducing a talk.

Now, if you want to introduce the talk, you could say:

• What I’d like to do in this presentation is…
• First of all, I’ll give you a brief overview of…

A brief overview of the product, a brief overview of the background, a brief overview of our plans.

• Okay, then I’ll talk about….
• And after that, I’d like to show you some market research.
• After that, I’d like to show you our projections.
• After that, I’d like to show you this specific plan for the launching of this product.

So you go step by step by step. 

referring to visuals

So in any presentation, visuals are really important, and they can help you.

And they can also support you if you’re a little bit lacking in confidence about the presentation itself.

And you perhaps don’t want to be the focus of everything.

So the type of phrases you might use in that context would be something like:

• You will notice on this chart…
• If you look at this slide, we can see…
• Have a look at these figures…

As I said, it helps you, it supports you and enables you to just sort of hide a little bit behind those slides that focus on the screen, not specifically on you.

Useful Phrases For Presentations In English​

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Finishing off a section.

And when you want to finish off in relation to those sort of aspects, you might just summarise by saying,

• Well, that’s all I wanted to say on that particular topic.
• If you’ve got any questions, I’d be happy to take them now.
• To summarise what I said is…
• If you want to contact me offline, just send me an email.
• As I promised, I’ve now finished the presentation, it only took 20 minutes.
• I appreciate you watching and listening and your attention.
• If I have any questions, I’ll be happy to answer them now.
• Have you any questions?

So again, helpful information directly in them, how they can get in touch with you after your presentation.

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Checking and moving on.

So during the presentation, we want to make sure that the people are listening, but you also don’t want to spend too much time on each particular point.

So you check their understanding so far, and then you move on. So you might say to the people,

• Does that sound okay to you?
• Do you follow that?
• Is it clear?
• Can I clarify anything else?
• If not, let’s move on.
• Let’s look at the next slide.
• Now, let’s move on to the really important topic of…
• Let’s turn to the topic of budgets.

So you pinpoint exactly what you want to cover. When you’re going to cover it and then you move on. So you check that they understand it. 

I also find in these types of presentations, particularly if they’re a bit longer than a few short slides, that it’s a good idea to do some recapping.

To recap means to go over what you’ve done before. Not a huge amount of detail because you don’t want to bore them by going through everything, but you recap quite quickly.

• Before I move on…
• I’m going to recap quickly…
• Let me summarise briefly…
• Here’s a quick recap of what we’ve covered today.
• I’d like to recap the main points.
• Let me go over the main points for you once more.

All of those good, acceptable expressions and words that you can use. 

coming to an end

And then when you come to the end of the presentation, you want to sign off, you want to finish them. We can say,

• Well, this is my key point.
• This is the key point in all of this, so let me finish on this.
• This is what I want to say to sum up in a few words.
• I’d like to finish now by thanking you all for your kind attention. 
• I look forward to joining you again soon.
• I look forward to any questions.
• I look forward to receiving your emails.
• I’d be happy to take any questions now. 

All nice and polite ways of informing people that this is the end. 

So there’s somebody out there in the audience who’s asleep, they’ll probably wake up at that point when you say and finally or, in conclusion

Well, hopefully you’ve got something in particular that you can hold onto there. Something that can help you if you’re making presentations in English.

If you have any other queries, come to me, I’m very, very happy to help you. My contact details are www.englishlessonviaskype.com .

And indeed, if you want some help, how to make presentations, if you want some help, how to get through interviews, or you just want general help with your English well, why not try our one-to-one online English lessons . 

Thanks for listening. Join me again soon.

More information

For more information on English grammar rules, English collocations and English idioms, check out the links below:

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English idioms about holidays and travel

You can always study English advanced level at Learning English with the BBC  and British Council Learn English .

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Useful English phrases for a presentation

Presentations have the advantage that many standard phrases can be used at various points. Perhaps you wish to welcome the audience, introduce the speaker and the topic, outline the structure, offer a summary, or deal with questions. In all these situations, you can apply a number of useful expressions that will make your presentation a linguistic success.

At the beginning of each presentation, you should welcome your audience. Depending on who you are addressing, you should extend a more or less formal welcome.

Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen/everyone.

On behalf of “Company X”, allow me to extend a warm welcome to you.

Hi, everyone. Welcome to “Name of the event”.

Introducing the speaker

The level of formality of your welcome address will also apply to how you introduce yourself. Customize it to match your audience.

Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am delighted to be here today to talk to you about…

First, let me introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am the “Position” of “Company X”.

I’m “John” from “Company Y” and today I’d like to talk to you about…

Introducing the topic

After the welcome address and the introduction of the speaker comes the presentation of the topic. Here are some useful introductory phrases.

Today I am here to talk to you about…

What I am going to talk about today is…

I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about…

I am delighted to be here today to tell you about…

I want to make you a short presentation about…

I’d like to give you a brief breakdown of…

Explanation of goals

It is always recommended to present the goals of your presentation at the beginning. This will help the audience to understand your objectives.

The purpose of this presentation is…

My objective today is…

After presenting the topic and your objectives, give your listeners an overview of the presentation’s structure. Your audience will then know what to expect in detail.

My talk/presentation is divided into “x” parts.

I’ll start with…/First, I will talk about…/I’ll begin with…

…then I will look at…

and finally…

Starting point

After all this preparation, you can finally get started with the main part of the presentation. The following phrases will help you with that.

Let me start with some general information on…

Let me begin by explaining why/how…

I’d like to give you some background information about…

Before I start, does anyone know…

As you are all aware…

I think everybody has heard about…, but hardly anyone knows a lot about it.

End of a section

If you have completed a chapter or section of your presentation, inform your audience, so that they do not lose their train of thought.

That’s all I have to say about…

We’ve looked at…

So much for…

Interim conclusion

Drawing interim conclusions is of utmost importance in a presentation, particularly at the end of a chapter or section. Without interim conclusions, your audience will quickly forget everything you may have said earlier.

Let’s summarize briefly what we have looked at.

Here is a quick recap of the main points of this section.

I’d like to recap the main points.

Well, that’s about it for this part. We’ve covered…

Use one of the following phrases to move on from one chapter to the next.

I’d now like to move on to the next part…

This leads me to my next point, which is…

Turning our attention now to…

Let’s now turn to…

Frequently, you have to give examples in a presentation. The following phrases are useful in that respect.

For example,…

A good example of this is…

As an illustration,…

To give you an example,…

To illustrate this point…

In a presentation, you may often need to provide more details regarding a certain issue. These expressions will help you to do so.

I’d like to expand on this aspect/problem/point.

Let me elaborate further on…

If you want to link to another point in your presentation, the following phrases may come in handy.

As I said at the beginning,…

This relates to what I was saying earlier…

Let me go back to what I said earlier about…

This ties in with…

Reference to the starting point

In longer presentations, you run the risk that after a while the audience may forget your original topic and objective. Therefore, it makes sense to refer to the starting point from time to time.

I hope that you are a little clearer on how we can…

To return to the original question, we can…

Just to round the talk off, I want to go back to the beginning when I…

I hope that my presentation today will help with what I said at the beginning…

Reference to sources

In a presentation, you frequently have to refer to external sources, such as studies and surveys. Here are some useful phrases for marking these references.

Based on our findings,…

According to our study,…

Our data shows/indicates…

Graphs and images

Presentations are usually full of graphs and images. Use the following phrases to give your audience an understanding of your visuals.

Let me use a graphic to explain this.

I’d like to illustrate this point by showing you…

Let the pictures speak for themselves.

I think the graph perfectly shows how/that…

If you look at this table/bar chart/flow chart/line chart/graph, you can see that…

To ensure that your presentation does not sound monotonous, from time to time you should emphasize certain points. Here are some suggestions.

It should be emphasized that…

I would like to draw your attention to this point…

Another significant point is that…

The significance of this is…

This is important because…

We have to remember that…

At times it might happen that you expressed yourself unclearly and your audience did not understand your point. In such a case, you should paraphrase your argument using simpler language.

In other words,…

To put it more simply,…

What I mean to say is…

So, what I’m saying is….

To put it in another way….

Questions during the presentation

Questions are an integral part of a presentation. These phrases allow you to respond to questions during a presentation.

Does anyone have any questions or comments?

I am happy to answer your questions now.

Please feel free to interrupt me if you have questions.

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.

Please stop me if you have any questions.

Do you have any questions before I move on?

If there are no further questions at this point, I’d like to…

Questions at the end of a presentation

To ensure that a presentation is not disrupted by questions, it is advisable to answer questions at the very end. Inform your audience about this by using these phrases.

There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.

I’ll gladly answer any of your questions at the end.

I’d be grateful if you could ask your questions after the presentation.

After answering a question from the audience, check that the addressee has understood your answer and is satisfied with it.

Does this answer your question?

Did I make myself clear?

I hope this explains the situation for you.

Unknown answer

Occasionally, it may happen that you do not have an answer to a question. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Simply use one of the following phrases to address the fact.

That’s an interesting question. I don’t actually know off the top of my head, but I’ll try to get back to you later with an answer.

I’m afraid I’m unable to answer that at the moment. Perhaps, I can get back to you later.

Good question. I really don’t know! What do you think?

That’s a very good question. However, I don’t have any figures on that, so I can’t give you an accurate answer.

Unfortunately, I’m not the best person to answer that.

Summary and conclusion

At the end of the presentation, you should summarize the important facts once again.

I’d like to conclude by…

In conclusion, let me sum up my main points.

Weighing the pros and cons, I come to the conclusion that…

That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you for listening/your attention.

Thank you all for listening. It was a pleasure being here today.

Well, that’s it from me. Thanks very much.

That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thanks for your attention.

Handing over

If you are not the only speaker, you can hand over to somebody else by using one of these phrases.

Now I will pass you over to my colleague ‘Jerry’.

‘Jerry’, the floor is yours.

We hope that our article will help you in preparing and holding your next presentation. It goes without saying that our list is just a small extract from the huge world of expressions and phrases. As always, the Internet is an inexhaustible source of further information. Here are the links to two websites that we would recommend to you in this context.

usingenglish

• What is the difference between American English (AE) and British English (BE)?

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