S1E1: Sound Like a Pro! Idioms to Use at Work

Update: 2022-01-12

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Hello everyone and welcome to Your English Update!

This is the first episode of Your English Update, and this a podcast where we share quick and easy expressions lessons to keep your English up to date while you’re out there living your busy life. I’m Sahara, your teacher, and this episode includes five idioms that you can use at work to help you sound like a professional. So, let’s just jump into it!

Let’s circle back to this later.

我们稍后再谈这件事。

To circle back means to return to a previous discussion topic in the future. For example, you could use this expression to end a meeting by saying you’d like to circle back to this topic at a later date. Instead of saying circle back, someone could also say, “Let’s revisit this later.”

We decided to put the project on the back burner.

我们决定暂时搁置这个计划。

To put a project on the back burner means to put something unfinished or undeveloped aside for a period of time. The idiom actually comes from cooking. When you are finished with a pot on the stove, you may place it on the back burner until you are ready to use it again. If you put a business project on the back burner, you may come back to finish and develop it later.

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What’s the turnaround time on that?

周转时间是多长？

The turnaround time is the length of time it will take to complete a task. You can use this expression to ask a coworker about the estimated deadline. If you ask for the turnaround time, then the person will respond with a time frame such as, “I will have to you by end of day.”

Before we finish up our lesson for today, we want to let you know you can study the transcript and translations for today’s episode on ezonlineenglish.com. We also have some study guides and also free videos for you on our YouTube as well. That is the letter E and Z Online English dot com.

Do you have time to jump on the phone?

你有空接个电话吗？

To jump on the phone or jump on a call means to have a quick conversation on the phone. So if you are asking someone to jump on the phone, then you are usually wanting to communicate faster. Sometimes typing out an issue over email or text could take too long, so you could ask for a quick phone call.

He usually joins meetings to put out fires.

他经常加入通话里来处理烂摊子。

To put out fires in business English means to take care of urgent concerns or to fix problems. For example, if he joins meetings to put out fires, then he is probably a higher level boss or manager the team usually calls on for help much like a firefighter. An example of a concern or problem they would fix may be a client canceling a contract or a main business system suddenly failing.

That was a lot of information today, so let’s take some time to review everything before we go.