This is the business English podcast episode three 98 phrasal verbs that will help you speak up at work.
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Hey there, Aubrey. How are you today?
I'm great. How are you, Lindsey?
Good. Welcome to Business English, glad to be over here.
Aubrey, is there anything that's holding you up at work at the moment?
Yeah, I had to send an email to the software, the company that creates our courses, you know a little sort of snafu we're seeing and it is kind of holding me up a little bit because I need to figure out the fix on that before I can know exactly how to do feedback for students.
So yeah, I think it'll be a pretty quick fix.
That is frustrating when something is holding you up from getting done what you need.
That can be frustrating.
You know, by the time this episode comes out, it will definitely be resolved.
But in the moment when you have a workflow and you have a number of tasks that you need to complete in a week, it can be frustrating, right, Aubrey, to be held up.
Yes, absolutely. This is part two of a series for easel verbs that have up that we use both in work and in conversations.
So part one was over on Allers English.
Stay to the end and we'll share the episode.
You can definitely listen to these out of order.
Today's are more that we use all the time at work but of course also in everyday conversations.
I love it. So you already used the first one, Aubrey, which is hold up.
I asked you, is there anything holding you up at work?
Right, exactly. And this is interesting.
It can mean these two different things.
Either something that's keeping you from progressing or we also use it to mean weight, right?
Will often interrupt when something's surprising and say, hold up, did you say they haven't signed the contract yet?
Yeah. And that's a couple different meanings.
Yeah. That's a casual way of asking someone to wait, you know, hold up, hold up.
It's very casual. It's very human, but we can use it at work.
Um, depending on how casual that scenario is.
Right? Let's do a little mini roleplay where we might see how that would look.
All right, so we won't know about that until Q2 but we can… Oh, hold up.
Why won't we know about that until Q2?
Okay, yeah. So you cut me off here, right?
Yeah. So there's like needing more information, right?
It is tricky. This is the type of thing where you do have to think about the relationship, the scenario, how casual is the meeting because when it comes to interrupting a presentation or a meeting.
Like that is tricky to think about.
You would only want to do that if it's absolutely imminent.
If there's no way that that could be handled later.
If someone's going to waste time sharing information, we don't need to know something like that, right?
And it's tricky to know how to express that.
Yeah. Who's around?
Who's at this presentation?
How formal does it feel?
This all determines our word choice, right?
Absolutely, right. And then we have that second way that we used at the top of the episode that something is holding us up at work, a bottleneck.
We've talked about this recently on the podcast. I remember sharing bottleneck.
We use that a lot, but there are things that can hold us up that just impede our progress.
Yes. Bottlenecks are the worst. Um, next one is keep up.
Now this one's good.
Keep up, pay attention, follow along, maintain the same speed when I ski you know I can only try to keep up with everyone else.
Keep up with my father -in -law, for example.
And then we might say at work we're going to go through the next agenda items quickly so please try to keep up right especially if you're wanting to warn someone that the speed is going to increase like okay keep up everyone.
Mm -hmm yeah very common, very common and then staying up to date on something right that's also a form of keeping up.
Now for example, you know, do you keep up with the news, right?
Right, staying up -to -date.
Would you keep up with the news?
Are you able to keep up with your tasks at work, right?
It means you're able to complete everything and stay on track.
Yeah, exactly. Or do you keep up with politics?
Are you up -to -date on what's, you know, right now things are moving so fast it's not easy to keep up, right?
We have to check the news all the time.
So this just means staying in line with what's current, okay?
Exactly. And then our third phrase over here is bring up.
We use this a lot at work.
It means to raise a matter for discussion or consideration.
I might say I need to bring up our concerns at the next meeting.
It means I'm going to raise them as a topic of discussion.
Exactly. Exactly or sorry to bring this up again, but we still need to resolve the HR issue.
Yeah. Yeah. So, you're feeling like I've brought this up a few times.
It still hasn't been fixed.
I'm trying to politely bring it up again.
yes to raise the issue right?
love it and then speak up right?
we talk about this a lot in our professional English course right to speak up when can we speak up in meetings right?
Yeah it means to express one's opinions openly and frankly you know I might say I've witnessed some disturbing behavior and it's time I speak up right and this does often imply that whatever you're going to say might not be well received like someone you're telling might not be really thrilled to hear it if you say, I need to speak up.
I'm going to speak up.
Yes. Or you need to speak up if you want your boss to know how hard you've been working, right?
Love that, right? You have to advocate for yourself, right?
If there are a lot of things you're doing behind the scenes, you might need to speak up so that that's recognized exactly.
And then there is a second nuanced meaning of speak up and how is it different operate.
Yeah, that means to speak more loudly.
So for example, if someone's giving a presentation and you say, can you speak up?
We can't hear you very well.
This means, can you speak more loudly?
Yeah. And in the first meeting that we discussed, meaning expressing your opinions, frankly bringing up a topic, it doesn't necessarily mean speaking louder.
I guess it could, but not necessarily, these are two different things.
Yeah, it usually means more like advocating for yourself.
Right. Saying something that, yeah, so these are two different meaning.
It might be both. You need to speak up for yourself and also speak up.
I can't hear you. Yeah.
And often, you know, especially if you work in a workplace where, you know, people, maybe if people are from a different part of the world and it's more normal to speak up, we need to make sure that we're representing ourselves well, that people are hearing us.
So speaking up in both senses of the word. Yes.
Good point. That can be very cultural.
So you will need to pay attention, is this difficult for you, and maybe even practice.
Practice speaking up, you know, at home with speaking partner before you do so at work.
For sure. All right.
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There's another one.
Oh my gosh. Yes. This is a good one.
It has a few meanings.
So first it means to establish and develop an organization or situation over a period of time.
So maybe staff, right?
We've been building up our staff and now we're in a good possession position to expand.
So building, developing, but there are more meanings.
What's the second meaning?
Well this is kind of more of an emotional thing, right?
When something increases gradually, right?
So typically something negative, like a feeling, um, which could lead to a problem or a crisis, right?
So, um, yeah, it can be emotional or yeah, like forms, right?
Forms right? Forms that need to be processed are building up.
We may need to hire another person to help with this workload.
Yeah, it could be bureaucracy stuff, right?
Right. Your to -do list could be building up.
The emails and your inbox are building up, just means increasing.
Yes. But we use this phrasal verb build up a lot at work.
Like, oh, things are building up.
Totally. Exactly. And then there's a third way.
Wow. We really make use of these phrasal verbs.
Don't we, Aubrey? We really do.
And this there's a little grammar note here because previously, we were using phrasal verbs.
This third way is it's actually a noun.
It's written. We squish the two words together, build up.
We write it as one word and use it as a noun.
Yes. A gradual accumulation or increase typically of something negative and typically leading to a problem or a crisis, right?
We have quite a buildup of forms that need to be processed.
Now this sounds different for our listeners guys try to listen for the difference.
We have a build up of forms versus those forms tend to build up sounds right because it's one word we do squeeze it together when we're speaking right we would never have any kind of breath or pause between the two words build and up we write that it has one word as a noun and we say it that way as well it's interesting you got it all right let's see how this looks in a role -play so here we are in a stand -up marketing department meeting and in our course We talk a lot about stand -up meetings.
They're super common, especially if you work in technology.
Right. Absolutely. I'll start us out.
Ready. I'll be tackling logo selection today.
We have a buildup of options since I've been having a hard time keeping up with submissions.
Sounds good. I know those had been building up for a while.
That's good though.
I'm glad so many were sent in.
Yes, I was going to bring that up at the meeting this Friday.
That was a great idea to ask for submissions from all departments.
Hold up. Uh, was that Ann's idea?
I'm glad she spoke up.
Nice. Awesome. And I can imagine you, like you need to take a note of that.
Like, okay, hold up.
I need to make a note of whose idea that is before we move on.
Right. Yes. Totally.
Totally. This, this style of coming together on a daily basis or a weekly basis to talk about what you're working on that week.
What are your blockers?
Very common scenario here.
Right? Absolutely. Let's go help through with how we use these first was that noun or you would write it as one word. I said we have a buildup of options so that build up here is a noun, right, options have been building up.
We have a buildup of options, a build -up.
Exactly. And as you said, Aubrey, no gap, no extra breath between build and up when it's a noun, right?
Exactly. And then I said, I'm having a hard time keeping up with submissions, which means I'm getting overwhelmed, right?
I can't stay up to date.
I can't keep everything done when I would like to.
Yes. And then I said, sounds good.
I know those had been building up for a while now I'm using the phrasal verb, right?
I know those, those had been building up for a while.
Accumulating. Exactly.
You had seen a lot of them being sent in, you're seeing the pile, maybe or the stack, or maybe I've been venting my frustrations about it for some reason.
You know, that's been building up.
Yeah, for sure. And then I said, You said yes, I was going to bring that up at the meeting this Friday, meaning I was going to raise the issue.
Exactly for discussion, right?
Bring that up means I'm going to say what's happening so that we can discuss it and come to some kind of decision together.
Mm hmm. Perfect. And then what did I say, Aubrey for the last one?
And then you said, Oh, hold up.
Was that Ann's idea?
So you're interrupting here in a way that means the same as like, Wait, wait just a second.
Yeah. For some reason, I'm imagining you taking a note and then you say, I'm glad she spoke up.
Yeah. So we have that phrasal verb speak up, right.
Maybe. And it has more of a tendency to be quiet, to not speak up a lot.
So you're glad to see this.
Yes, and this is not the one where she's raising her voice necessarily.
Right. This would mean you're glad she shared this amazing idea.
Exactly. Exactly. All right, Aubrey.
So where was part one again for this series?
Yeah, can scroll up.
It was 2386 weight up English phrasal verbs for softening imperatives.
This was a great episode.
Do not miss it. Love it.
And where should we leave our listeners?
Yeah. Well, we use so many phrasal verbs with up in business English.
So we want you to be able to use today's tips to speak in a very native natural way.
Often there is a different verb, maybe multiple verbs that you could use.
That will feel a little more formal, little more stiff, but even in business English, we often will opt for the phrasal verb instead.
Yeah, phrasal verbs are everywhere, right?
We can't avoid them.
We can't ignore them.
So listen again. Start using one or two of these out in your workplace and let us know how it goes.
Right? Aubrey. Yes, absolutely.
Awesome. Thanks for joining me today, Lindsay.
All right. See you soon, Aubrey.
Have a good one. You too.
Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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