How to Give a Presentation in English: Phrases and Tips

A good presentation in English is less about fancy words and more about clear structure. If your audience always knows where you are and where you are going, small grammar mistakes stop mattering. Below are the phrases to use at each stage, from the first sentence to the last question.

Opening: the first 60 seconds

The opening is the part you can fully prepare. Learn it almost word for word. It gets you past the most nervous moment and makes a calm first impression.

Greeting and introducing yourself

• "Good morning, everyone. Thanks for joining."
• "For those who don't know me, I'm Priya, and I lead the data team."
• "Thanks for having me. It's great to be here."

Saying what the talk is about

• "Today I'm going to talk about our results for the third quarter."
• "The aim of this presentation is to show you why we want to change suppliers."
• "By the end, you'll have a clear picture of the timeline and the budget."

Giving the outline

• "I've divided my talk into three parts."
• "First, I'll look at where we are now. Then I'll explain the problem. Finally, I'll suggest a way forward."
• "It should take about fifteen minutes."

Setting the rules for questions

• "Feel free to stop me if anything isn't clear."
• "I'll leave ten minutes at the end for questions."
• "If you have questions, please drop them in the chat and I'll answer them at the end." (useful for online presentations)

Choose one option from each group and you have a complete opening of about five sentences.

Signposting: moving from one point to the next

Signposting means short phrases that tell the audience where you are in the talk. Native speakers use them all the time. They also give you a second to breathe and look at your notes.

Starting a new section

• "Let's start with the background."
• "Now let's move on to the costs."
• "That brings me to my second point."
• "Let's turn to the question of timing."

Adding, contrasting and giving examples

• "On top of that, ..." / "What's more, ..."
• "On the other hand, ..." / "Having said that, ..."
• "To give you an example, ..." / "Take our Berlin office, for instance."

Highlighting what matters

• "The key point here is ..."
• "What I really want you to remember is ..."
• "This is important, because ..."

Going back and summarising a section

• "As I mentioned earlier, ..."
• "So, to sum up this part: costs are down, but delivery times are up."
• "Before I move on, are there any quick questions on this?"

Explaining charts and data

Many presenters lose their audience when the chart appears. The fix is simple: say what the chart shows, point to the key detail, then say what it means. Do not read every number.

Introducing the visual

• "This chart shows our monthly sales over the last year."
• "On the left you can see last year, and on the right, this year."
• "The blue line is revenue, and the grey bars are costs."

Describing movement

Watch the small words: "Sales rose by 10%" (the change) is different from "Sales rose to 10%" (the end point).

Saying what it means

• "What this tells us is that customers are buying less often, but spending more."
• "The main takeaway here is that the new process is working."
• "If we look closer, most of the drop came in March."

Handling questions

Questions feel scary because you cannot prepare the exact words. But you can prepare your reactions. A few set phrases cover almost every situation.

Buying a few seconds

• "That's a good question."
• "Let me think about that for a second."
• "So you're asking whether we can launch earlier. Is that right?"

Repeating the question in your own words is the most useful trick here. It gives you thinking time, it checks you heard it right, and it helps people in the room who did not hear it.

When you don't understand the question

This happens to everyone, including native speakers. Asking again is professional. Guessing and answering the wrong question is not.

• "Sorry, could you say that again?"
• "I'm not sure I followed. Could you put that another way?"
• "Sorry, the line isn't great. Could you repeat the last part?"
• "Just to check: are you asking about the cost or the timeline?"

The last phrase is the strongest. Offering two options shows you understood most of the question and only need one detail.

When you don't know the answer

• "I don't have that number with me, but I'll send it to you after the meeting."
• "That's outside my area. Mark is the best person to answer that."
• "I'd rather check than give you the wrong figure. Can I get back to you?"

Keeping control

• "I'll come to that in a minute, if that's OK."
• "That's a bigger discussion. Shall we take it offline?" ("offline" means after the meeting, separately)
• "Does that answer your question?"

Closing strongly

Many people end with "So... that's it." Instead, summarise, give one clear message or request, and thank the audience.

• "So, to wrap up: we have the budget, we have the team, and we can start in January."
• "If you remember one thing from today, let it be this: ..."
• "What I'd like from you today is a decision on option B."
• "Thanks for your time. I'm happy to take any questions."
• "I'll share the slides after the meeting."

Managing nerves when presenting in a second language

Nerves are normal. You cannot remove them, but you can make them smaller.

• Rehearse out loud, not in your head. Reading your slides silently is not practice. Saying the words out loud shows you where you get stuck, which you only discover when you speak.
• Script the opening and the closing. Keep the middle as bullet notes. This gives you a safe start and a safe finish.
• Use short sentences. Long sentences are where grammar breaks down under pressure. Short ones are clearer for the audience too.
• Slow down. Nervous speakers rush. Pause after each section. A pause feels long to you, but sounds confident to others.
• Practise the hard words. Find the two or three words you always trip over, like "statistically" or a product name, and say them ten times.
• Prepare for the three most likely questions. Write short answers and say them aloud once.

If nerves are the main thing holding you back, our guide to the best apps for nervous English speakers covers tools that let you practise without an audience first.

Common mistakes to avoid

• Reading the slides word for word. The audience can read. Tell them what the slide means instead.
• Apologising for your English. Starting with "Sorry for my bad English" makes people listen for mistakes. Just begin.
• Too much text on slides. If you need to read it, it is too long.
• No signposting. Without "Now let's move on to ...", the audience gets lost even when your English is perfect.
• "I will present you ..." Say "I'm going to present ..." or "I'll show you ...". "Present" does not take "you" directly in this way.

For meetings that are more back-and-forth than a set talk, see our English phrases for meetings. And if the presentation is to a client over video, our guide to client and video call phrases covers the tech side.

Practise this with Katie AI

Katie lets you rehearse your presentation out loud and then answer follow-up questions, like a real audience would. It corrects your grammar, word choice and pronunciation on every sentence and explains why. You can run the same talk again until the opening feels easy. See how it compares in our list of the best apps for business English.