For many people, creating and holding a presentation involves a great deal of effort. It even leads to buck fever. To make matters worse, if the presentation has to be given in English, it often entails double the effort for native German speakers. We want to make your next presentation a bit more effortless by introducing the most useful phrases and expressions for an English-language performance.
Presentations have the advantage that many standard phrases can be used at various points. Perhaps you wish to welcome the audience, introduce the speaker and the topic, outline the structure, offer a summary, or deal with questions. In all these situations, you can apply a number of useful expressions that will make your presentation a linguistic success.
Welcome
At the beginning of each presentation, you should welcome your audience. Depending on who you are addressing, you should extend a more or less formal welcome.
Good morning/afternoon/evening, ladies and gentlemen/everyone.
On behalf of “Company X”, allow me to extend a warm welcome to you.
Hi, everyone. Welcome to “Name of the event”.
Introducing the speaker
The level of formality of your welcome address will also apply to how you introduce yourself. Customize it to match your audience.
Let me briefly introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am delighted to be here today to talk to you about…
First, let me introduce myself. My name is “John Miller” and I am the “Position” of “Company X”.
I’m “John” from “Company Y” and today I’d like to talk to you about…
Introducing the topic
After the welcome address and the introduction of the speaker comes the presentation of the topic. Here are some useful introductory phrases.
Today I am here to talk to you about…
What I am going to talk about today is…
I would like to take this opportunity to talk to you about…
I am delighted to be here today to tell you about…
I want to make you a short presentation about…
I’d like to give you a brief breakdown of…
Explanation of goals
It is always recommended to present the goals of your presentation at the beginning. This will help the audience to understand your objectives.
The purpose of this presentation is…
My objective today is…
Structure
After presenting the topic and your objectives, give your listeners an overview of the presentation’s structure. Your audience will then know what to expect in detail.
My talk/presentation is divided into “x” parts.
I’ll start with…/First, I will talk about…/I’ll begin with…
…then I will look at…
…next…
and finally…
Starting point
After all this preparation, you can finally get started with the main part of the presentation. The following phrases will help you with that.
Let me start with some general information on…
Let me begin by explaining why/how…
I’d like to give you some background information about…
Before I start, does anyone know…
As you are all aware…
I think everybody has heard about…, but hardly anyone knows a lot about it.
End of a section
If you have completed a chapter or section of your presentation, inform your audience, so that they do not lose their train of thought.
That’s all I have to say about…
We’ve looked at…
So much for…
Interim conclusion
Drawing interim conclusions is of utmost importance in a presentation, particularly at the end of a chapter or section. Without interim conclusions, your audience will quickly forget everything you may have said earlier.
To sum up…
Let’s summarize briefly what we have looked at.
Here is a quick recap of the main points of this section.
I’d like to recap the main points.
Well, that’s about it for this part. We’ve covered…
Transition
Use one of the following phrases to move on from one chapter to the next.
I’d now like to move on to the next part…
This leads me to my next point, which is…
Turning our attention now to…
Let’s now turn to…
Examples
Frequently, you have to give examples in a presentation. The following phrases are useful in that respect.
For example,…
A good example of this is…
As an illustration,…
To give you an example,…
To illustrate this point…
Details
In a presentation, you may often need to provide more details regarding a certain issue. These expressions will help you to do so.
I’d like to expand on this aspect/problem/point.
Let me elaborate further on…
Links
If you want to link to another point in your presentation, the following phrases may come in handy.
As I said at the beginning,…
This relates to what I was saying earlier…
Let me go back to what I said earlier about…
This ties in with…
Reference to the starting point
In longer presentations, you run the risk that after a while the audience may forget your original topic and objective. Therefore, it makes sense to refer to the starting point from time to time.
I hope that you are a little clearer on how we can…
To return to the original question, we can…
Just to round the talk off, I want to go back to the beginning when I…
I hope that my presentation today will help with what I said at the beginning…
Reference to sources
In a presentation, you frequently have to refer to external sources, such as studies and surveys. Here are some useful phrases for marking these references.
Based on our findings,…
According to our study,…
Our data shows/indicates…
Graphs and images
Presentations are usually full of graphs and images. Use the following phrases to give your audience an understanding of your visuals.
Let me use a graphic to explain this.
I’d like to illustrate this point by showing you…
Let the pictures speak for themselves.
I think the graph perfectly shows how/that…
If you look at this table/bar chart/flow chart/line chart/graph, you can see that…
Emphasis
To ensure that your presentation does not sound monotonous, from time to time you should emphasize certain points. Here are some suggestions.
It should be emphasized that…
I would like to draw your attention to this point…
Another significant point is that…
The significance of this is…
This is important because…
We have to remember that…
Paraphrase
At times it might happen that you expressed yourself unclearly and your audience did not understand your point. In such a case, you should paraphrase your argument using simpler language.
In other words,…
To put it more simply,…
What I mean to say is…
So, what I’m saying is….
To put it in another way….
Questions during the presentation
Questions are an integral part of a presentation. These phrases allow you to respond to questions during a presentation.
Does anyone have any questions or comments?
I am happy to answer your questions now.
Please feel free to interrupt me if you have questions.
If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to ask.
Please stop me if you have any questions.
Do you have any questions before I move on?
If there are no further questions at this point, I’d like to…
Questions at the end of a presentation
To ensure that a presentation is not disrupted by questions, it is advisable to answer questions at the very end. Inform your audience about this by using these phrases.
There will be time for questions at the end of the presentation.
I’ll gladly answer any of your questions at the end.
I’d be grateful if you could ask your questions after the presentation.
Inquiries
After answering a question from the audience, check that the addressee has understood your answer and is satisfied with it.
Does this answer your question?
Did I make myself clear?
I hope this explains the situation for you.
Unknown answer
Occasionally, it may happen that you do not have an answer to a question. That is not necessarily a bad thing. Simply use one of the following phrases to address the fact.
That’s an interesting question. I don’t actually know off the top of my head, but I’ll try to get back to you later with an answer.
I’m afraid I’m unable to answer that at the moment. Perhaps, I can get back to you later.
Good question. I really don’t know! What do you think?
That’s a very good question. However, I don’t have any figures on that, so I can’t give you an accurate answer.
Unfortunately, I’m not the best person to answer that.
Summary and conclusion
At the end of the presentation, you should summarize the important facts once again.
I’d like to conclude by…
In conclusion, let me sum up my main points.
Weighing the pros and cons, I come to the conclusion that…
That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thank you for listening/your attention.
Thank you all for listening. It was a pleasure being here today.
Well, that’s it from me. Thanks very much.
That brings me to the end of my presentation. Thanks for your attention.
Handing over
If you are not the only speaker, you can hand over to somebody else by using one of these phrases.
Now I will pass you over to my colleague ‘Jerry’.
‘Jerry’, the floor is yours.
Conclusion
We hope that our article will help you in preparing and holding your next presentation. It goes without saying that our list is just a small extract from the huge world of expressions and phrases. As always, the Internet is an inexhaustible source of further information. Here are the links to two websites that we would recommend to you in this context.
