Meetings are an important part of doing business. And if you're in a multinational company, many of those meetings will be conducted in English. Whether you're leading or just attending one, be prepared with these phrases for each stage of a business meeting:

Greeting/Opening

The structure of a meeting is usually the same, regardless of the language. And meetings always start with a greeting! In English, you'll use the more formal "Good morning" or "Good afternoon" rather than "hello." Then, if you're leading the meeting, you'll need to announce that the meeting is starting. Example: "Good morning. It looks like everyone's here, so let's get started."

State the Purpose

Next, you have to remind everyone what the purpose of the meeting is, what business needs to be addressed. If you're in charge, say: "We're here today to..." Other phrases you might hear are: "Our goal today is..." or "I've called this meeting to..." Then finish with a brief explanation. Example: "We're here today to discuss last quarter's sales figures."

Review Past Business

Since meetings often deal with ongoing business, you have to review old information before presenting new. This happens when someone reads the minutes from the previous meeting. Minutes are the official notes from a meeting. Before reading the minutes say, "To begin, let's quickly go over the minutes from our last meeting." "Go over" means to review something and is commonly used in business.

Introducing the Agenda and Discussion

Now it's time to discuss new business! Usually, you'll follow a list of discussion items called an "agenda." The meeting leader will start by drawing everyone's attention to the agenda. They'll say: "Please look at your copy of the agenda. There are xx items on the list today. Let's start with number xx."

Then, the key to a successful meeting is keeping it moving forward. When it's time to move onto the next topic, say, "Now that we've discussed..., let's move on to..." "Move on" is commonly used in business settings and means to leave one topic and start another.

Finishing the Meeting

Finishing a meeting requires a few phrases: summarizing everything that's been discussed, thanking everyone for coming, and then dismissing the meeting. It's not hard, though! To summarize, start with: "To sum up..." Example: "To sum up, we've determined the sales figures could be better and discussed solutions." Then, thank everyone for attending: "Thank you all for attending/coming." Let everyone know it's okay to leave with, "The meeting is finished." Finally, if there's a follow-up meeting say, "We'll see everyone next..."