hey michelle do you sometimes have to miss meetings because life happens
oh of course it happens it's natural it happens to everybody but we have to think about what to say
to get caught up right lindsay exactly so guys in today's episode we're gonna show you some
phrases that are super useful especially for the business world if you miss a meeting
because you have some kind of an emergency what can you say to your colleague to find
out exactly what you missed today you're gonna get four phrases to do exactly this michelle what
should our listeners do before we get started make sure that you hit subscribe on youtube so that you
don't miss any of our videos because we are on youtube a lot all right let's get into it here we
go hey michelle how's everything going today hey lindsay i'm good i'm good how are you good i'm
excited to be here are we talking about that essential skill of english conversation right
we have to be able to make a conversation with people around us isn't that right oh absolutely
and some conversations are like big conversations and some conversations i mean i think i think most
everything counts as a conversation everything counts as a conversation okay what do you mean
in a way i mean i don't think that like when we think about english conversation
sometimes we think about just like the deeper stuff but i think also just like the things
like the functions also count as conversation right just like different kinds of conversation
so today we're going to be talking about like a very specific kind of conversation that you need
to serve a certain function so lindsay i have a question have you have you missed anything
recently maybe there's been like a meeting or a class or then something yeah this happens all
the time you can't be everywhere at every time right you can't be present for every single thing
so i would need to know what can i say when i re-enter that group
to find out what i missed right michelle is that what we're honing in on today yeah exactly this is
a very specific conversation skill so you know we have to make the approach appropriate arrangements
to be sure that you can ask someone what you missed right i mean lizzy why is this important
oh my gosh because now the conversation is going to change it's going to advance and people are
going to start talking about that missing piece of information that you don't have so you need that
relevant in the conversation now otherwise you're going to sound irrelevant
so yeah how to be relevant it also shows i feel like that you care about what you missed right
like it like that's like the number one thing that you have to do to show you care if i just like
start missing things and i'm like it's like it just you know it doesn't show that i care to take
the time right i agree so it serves both purposes it's building relationships and accountability and
also staying up to date for the actual information you need right to be able to be relevant in those
conversations later that are going to come out so good stuff that's exactly right yeah
so today guys we are going to be sharing with you a three-step process about how to do that
before we do that we want to remind yourself that we have remind you self that's an interesting
construction we want to remind you that we have an amazing all year's english app right lindsay
yeah the app is fantastic our team selects the keywords the words that are going to be those
vocab words that are gonna make you fluent so you can tap on words right inside the transcript
choose which ones to put in your personal power list and then go back and study them every day
and add to them with every new episode guys go over to all ears english dot com slash app to get
that app we have it for android and ios now michelle so we are we are doing it we're doing
it we did it we did it yep all right awesome okay so we're going to focus mostly on step
number two but there are three steps okay step number two is kind of the meat of it right so
but step one uh is you know acknowledging what happened i mean it's the introduction okay
so i mean it's pretty direct lindsay what could you say yeah so hey or hi michelle i missed our
team meeting last week okay so just presenting kind of in a way you're presenting the problem
the problem is that you missed it what did you miss the team meeting okay
right and there are different ways to say that you missed something we could do a follow-up on
you know specific for that but i really wanted to focus on step two today i mean
just for an example you could say something like i wasn't able to attend something right yeah um that
sounds a little more formal right now that's very formal i wasn't able to or i wasn't able to make
something right to make it mm-hmm yeah um so you know being direct explaining
acknowledging what happened introduction okay okay and the second part is really getting into
asking what you missed um yes and if if you need we're gonna uh talk about like how to
make this more formal in a second um but what are some things that you can say to ask someone
somebody what you missed okay so guys in this part of the episode you're going to want to break out a
piece of paper if you if you're using the app many of these will be highlighted so you'll be able to
save them to your personal power list but break out a piece of paper and a pencil if not and write
these down here's the first one michelle can you catch me up this is interesting right it's very
it's very casual right can you catch me up yeah yes exactly exactly and the next one is can you
fill me in i love it guys we're getting phrasal verbs here okay so be ready um don't get confused
just write them down and remember them as chunks as entire questions in themselves so next one
can you brief me and and usually after that would come brief me on right michelle as the preposition
yeah yeah you could they brief me on or you could even just say like oh yeah i missed something can
you breathe i mean i like that yeah you could do that and that's kind of fun sounding like i don't
know i like that one i don't say that enough but i shut i like it it sounds like you work at the
pentagon or something it's very fancy i feel very important can you brief me on that right briefly
yeah yeah corner office type deal so would you say can you brief me or do you think you only say on
something i think you can say i think you can say can you brief me yeah independently yeah yeah and
i think it sounds like i said very executive like it has executive undertones so for a listener in
the business world it's great yeah exactly or you could say this is more direct just what did i miss
so these are good i mean lindsay to dress these up we can add a couple words okay um and then we and
then we make the verb an ing so lindsay could you give an example so what words can we add
yeah so let's go back should we go back to catch me up and we'll let's go back to catch me up i'm
gonna go back now guys and show you how to present it in a whole sentence so here it is
would you mind catching me up so when we add would you mind and we make that an ing
what are we doing here michelle i think we're making it a little bit more polite a little
bit more formal right like so i might say uh can you catch me up to like my friend or my
close colleague or something but if i'm maybe if i'm writing it right i might say would you mind
catching me up on what i missed or something like that yes that's an interesting one and maybe we
could do a whole other episode on catch me up get caught up these are weird ways to use sometimes a
phrasal verb sometimes not guys so stay tuned for another episode on that one in the future
what's next michelle uh can you fill me in so this one same idea would you mind filling me in
and we got to always remember to add that ing guys for our listeners when you know you have would you
mind you have to meet the ing you have to you have to we say because you say we because we're saying
it here you have to guys you have to what else michelle what's the next one can you expect me
yeah you could turn that into lindsay would you mind briefing me and again you
can see that ing gets added for the grammar sounds polite sounds nice to a call it does
it does um and then with what did i miss you can still make that sound polite you can just say
would you mind telling me what i missed right we need a special verb there right telling me would
you mind doing something telling right right right yes yes yes exactly we're gonna add telling me
um or you could say would you mind letting me know what i missed something like that letting me know
yeah there's a few things we could put in there but guys write these down put them in your drawer
at your desk at your office so you have them and you're ready okay and then what's the third
step lindsay easy peasy easy peasy we gotta thank them you can never say thank you too much i think
michelle people like to be thanked people like to be appreciated and know that you recognize what
you've done what they've done for you so thank them how do we do it michelle all right thank you
so much or i appreciate it or yeah easy any yeah any any way you think somebody yeah so what do you
think would actually break the connection here you know in this kind of scenario this setup michelle
what could be the where would it break well i that's a good question i think if you didn't thank
the person that would be a big one because like somebody might even get out some notes for you or
take the chance to you know depending on what it was um somebody might put effort into catching you
up that's okay somebody might actually put effort into that right um so you want to thank them um or
demanding someone helps you right language that's too direct like just like oh i need to know what
i missed right that's very intrusive michelle did you did you here's a question flash from the past
in college did you used to skip classes or not skip maybe you missed a class and you would ask
friends to catch you up or take notes for you copy their notes or something would you do that
of course yeah i mean i don't know about all the time but i certainly i mean i think anybody
misses things yeah you know but yeah or you have to miss a meeting you have to miss something
um but it's important to get caught up so what about you well yeah for sure once in a while i had
a tennis match or something to be honest i went to most of my classes in college i was i think
yeah oh yeah me too obviously you sound like a partier i was sleeping in from the night before
no oh my gosh no i went to most things but of course people miss things for for certain reasons
but uh if i if i was partying the night before it like consisted of me just like getting take
out super late at night with my friends and got it got it so guys this is useful i mean the reason i
asked michelle that these phrases would also really work for that kind of scenario if you're
a student on a college campus you're in graduate school and you missed the lecture you could go
to a classmate and ask for this i think a lot of these would also work for that scenario what
do you think michelle for that for even if it was just like a social lunch right i mean even if like
you went out like with a bunch of girlfriends and like somebody said oh like i didn't get to go like
can you like obviously then it's a little less formal you're not going to say it like i wouldn't
say to you like oh lindsay would you mind telling me what i missed at like our dinner at yeah
wendy's i mean wendy i don't know the first place that came into my um but like i would just say
like oh what did i miss like anything exciting or you know it would be you know we can even do
a follow-up on that more like even more casual but you can you know you want to be caught up
on anything like you can still show that you are interested yeah for sure michelle maybe we'll do
another one on the social side of this this is a little bit more leaning business and i think right
business and class yeah yeah but something on the social side okay fill me in on the gossip you know
can you fill me in on what on what you heard and what we talked about so we'll come back to that
another okay we're gonna come back to that yes yes yes all right let's do let's do a role play
so uh we're not gonna use every single example in all of these but uh yeah so we're gonna do uh
two or three yeah here we go so in this scenario michelle you and i are classmates and i miss the
class oh look at that it's a perfect scenario what we talked about earlier right exactly hey michelle
i missed class yesterday because i had a doctor's appointment can you fill me in on what i missed
oh yeah sure lindsay oh i hope everything's okay i can i can show you my notes later thank you so
much all right good that sounds pretty standard mm-hmm exactly and in this one i missed a work
meeting we're colleagues okay so all right so i say hi lindsay uh i missed the meeting yesterday
unfortunately can you brief me on what i missed sure michelle we went over the records and spoke
about new strategies i took some notes if you want to meet me at my desk later oh that would be great
thank you yeah so this doesn't have to be a drawn out thing guys don't be nervous don't be afraid
to ask for help i think that's the key right michelle i think so too well my question for you
is like if you are explaining that you missed something do you have to share your excuse and the
first one i did i said you did you said you had a doctor's appointment and the second one i didn't
do you have to share your excuse i definitely don't think you do yeah i don't think you do and
i think in many cases people don't want to know the details right especially in the business world
we're busy you know they don't they just want to help you and move on so they don't need to
know why you missed it right unless you're close to the person as kind of a friend and colleague
maybe you had a commentary i went to the doctor whatever right but just keep the details out as
much as possible i would say michelle do you agree with that it's kind of a personality thing too
yeah i think sometimes sometimes it can be helpful so like this is a deep i feel like
we could get deep conversations like like we could really think this through a lot but um i think you
know you have to really just think about whether this could information could help you in some way
uh hell i mean help explain the situation in some way like let's say like let's say you've missed
like this like the second thing you've missed yeah have you ever seen me yeah if you keep missing
things like you might have to like just you don't want to just like the first time say sorry i
missed it what did i miss and then like the second time say oh sorry i couldn't be there what did i
miss then it starts to sound like yeah that's a good point so at some point you're gonna have to
tune people in catch them up on what's going on in your life what is this thing that's happening
maybe a parent is sick or something right yeah and you have to take them to the hospital on
a regular basis that could be a good excuse and then they would have more empathy for you they'd
understand why you're not able to be there yeah so i do think that it can be helpful sometimes uh
lindsay do we have time for one more or no sure let's throw it in real quick let's throw it in
all right this one's a little bit more formal so here i missed a work conference and i'm
asking your co my co-worker and i don't know this co-worker very well lindsay you're the
co-worker here we go here we go okay oh hi lindsay hello lin sorry i'm gonna start again here we go
hello lindsay i hope you enjoyed the conference it was great yes oh yeah unfortunately i wasn't able
to be there because i had a family emergency would you mind filling me in on some of what i missed oh
sure michelle i'd have to get my notes i also have some of the information that was passed out at the
presentations oh thank you so much yeah so this is a little bit more uh formal because we don't know
each other it's unfamiliar right there's no like real warmth between us it's very neutral i would
say right right right yeah so here i did give the excuse i didn't have to but like certainly
let's make that person empathize with me a little bit like it might be easier to get the
information if you share something that's going on you know sure sure so just on a case-by-case
basis guys whether or not you're going to share more and how well you know the person
what your relationship is a lot of factors and our listeners know this in their native language
so guys it's the same idea right so should we go through any of these michelle should we go
back into any of these role plays what do you think uh should we go specifically back what do
you guys though do you want to review them or do we need what do you think uh we can uh oh getting
on time but let's let's quickly let's just say let's just say in the first one sure let's do it
okay in the first one you said hi that was the introduction then you said what you missed you
said i missed class yesterday because i had a doctor's appointment can you fill me in on what
i missed to ask because step three was you said thank you so much good yeah and guys again can
you fill me in on that's the construction that we we taught you earlier in the episode so write that
down if you haven't yet um and in the second role play just real quick for our listeners i said or
you said hi lindsay i missed the meeting yesterday unfortunately and we could talk in another episode
michelle about adding that that's a good one that's a good one to think about for our listeners
can you brief me on what i missed so can you brief me on guys okay so then i thanked you yes you yeah
perfect and the last one what did we say the last one i said hello lindsay as my introduction hello
was a little more formal but i could have said hi it's fine too uh and then i said unfortunately see
i wasn't able to be there because i had a family emergency all right so i stated the excuse in this
situation and then i said would you mind filling me in on some of what i missed and then you were
very nice and i thanked you thank you so much so good guys this is great what's the takeaway for
our listeners to come away from this episode with michelle guys this is uh very very useful
um you know there are things that you can do like if somebody doesn't offer the information you can
even say things like were there any notes like did we go over this should i check in with this person
we can do tons of follow-ups on this there's a lot but we can't be everywhere at once as
lindsay said but the key is to catch up on what we missed in order to succeed and show that we care
and be relevant exactly michelle at the same time maintain those business relationships right you
get the information you can be relevant when that topic comes up again at the next meeting
the week after and you still have that tight relationship with your colleague or a respectful
relationship so good all right michelle remember guys go over to alliersenglish.com
app app to be able to get your personal power list of these words right so you can have them right on
your phones you have to scribble them down and write them down and lose the paper yeah yeah
exactly that's awesome lindsay this was so much fun
have a great day and i'll see you soon all right talk soon michelle take care bye you