Expressions to use with your Coworkers

Lesson Transcript

Hi, everybody! My name is Alisha.

In this lesson, I'm going to talk about expressions you can use with your co-workers. Your co-workers are the people you work with.

Let's get started!

First, I want to talk about some common greetings you can use with your co-workers.

A very common way to greet your co-worker when you arrive at the office is “Mornin’!”

“Mornin’!”

So you can use “Good morning!” if you like, or just “Morning” with that clear -ING sound at the end, but it's also very common and very friendly to just say “Mornin’!” “Mornin’!” in that quick, like, kind of upbeat way.

To respond, you just say the same thing in response , “Mornin’!” or “Good morning!” or some people draw out the sound and they say “Goooood morning!” something like that. You might also hear people make this “good” sound very short. So, it sounds like “Good morning, good morning. So there are a few different ways you can respond to this. Of course, if you meet your co-worker in the afternoon, you can say “Good afternoon” or “Afternoon” as well.

Okay, let's move on to a couple more greetings:

“How are you today?”

So “How are you today?” is asking, like this day specifically. So, if you see this person every day of the week or every weekday, you want to know on this particular day, on this specific day, how are you?

So, to respond, you can say:

“Good!”

Or “Great!”

Or “A little tired.”

Or “I'm all right.”

So, however you're feeling, you can respond with, good, great, whatever, whatever suits your situation.

“How are you today?”

“Good.”

“How are you today?”

“I'm all right.”

So this is basically the same response as you would use with “How are you?” or just “How are you today?”

Another very common one is this past tense question. This is a very common one on Mondays, so after the weekend.

“How was your weekend?”

At native speed, it sounds like “How's your weekend?”

“How’s your weekend?”

So this “was” gets very short. It becomes like /was, was/.

“How was your weekend?”

So, I know it may sound a little like, “How is your weekend?” but that doesn't make any sense. “How is your weekend?” is a present tense question, like “How is your weekend now?” But if it's monday and the weekend has finished, we've just finished the weekend, this is definitely a past tense question, “How was your weekend?” So, the weekend we just experienced, how was it?

To answer, you can use some of these- some of these responses to, “How are you today?”

“How was your weekend?”

“Good!”

“How was your weekend?”

“Great!”

And, usually, you should follow up with something specific, like “I went to a movie” or “I went to a baseball game” or “I saw my favorite TV show” or “I ate a really good dish.” So, give some information in past tense; “I went, I saw, I ate, I heard,” whatever.

You could say:

”Fine. Nothing special. It was fine. I didn't do anything big.”

So, just to show that it was normal for you.

You could also say:

“It was relaxing.”

Or maybe if your weekend had lots of stuff, you could say:

“It was busy.”

So, whatever, just make a short expression for your response and give a little bit of detail. It’s kind of natural to do. If you just say, “Good, you?” it sounds like maybe you don't wanna talk about it or you're kind of, like hiding something. So, it's generally good to share a little bit, so that you can make relationships with people.

Okay, this one, the next expression:

“How was your activity?”

So, again, this is using past tense “was” here and this is something that we use when we know our co-worker has something planned. So, for example if you talk to your co-worker on Tuesday afternoon and they say I have a special dinner tonight, on Wednesday, you can say, “How was your dinner?” How was your dinner? So, the dinner you told me about the day before. So, that's why we use “your” here. How was your dinner?

You can use other activities here like:

“How was your party last weekend?”

Or “How was your conference?”

Or “How was your trip?”

So, depending on what kind of information your co-worker shared, you can use a different noun phrase in this pattern to ask about that specific thing.

“How was your (activity)?”

So, again, to respond to this, you can use the same kinds of answers as we've practiced here.

“It was good!”

“It was great!”

“It was relaxing!”

“It was busy!”

Or “It was okay!”

“It was not bad!”

So, just giving a little bit of information, just to share your experience or, you know, make, like those relationships make- having a chance to bond with your co-worker a little bit.

Okay. So, these are kind of greetings and kind of everyday, like chat topics, but now, I want to move on to talking about some work-specific expressions that you can use.

So, these two have kind of similar grammar. They both use this, “Have you” [past participle expression].

Let's look at this first one.

“Have you talked to (or with) [person]?”

“Have you talked to our boss?”

“Have you talked with our boss?”

In this case, there's really not a difference. You can use “talked to” or “talked with.”

For me, the difference here is just that “with” tends to sound a tiny, tiny bit more like there are two people talking. It's like a two-way conversation. Maybe, sometimes, using “to” sounds more like a one-way conversation, but this is not a rule by any means. You can use either here.

So, “Have you talked to our manager?”

Or “Have you talked to our team member?”

This means, because we have this present perfect pattern here, “Have you talked…” it means since, like you came to the office this morning, until this conversation, did you have the experience of talking to this person?

So, maybe, there's some important information you need to know, so you might ask your co-worker:

“Have you talked to this person?”

Or “Have you talked to our boss today?”

“Have you talked to (so and so)?”

So, this means, like there's probably something you need to know.

To answer this question:

“Yes.”

You could say:

“Yes, I have.”

Or “Yes.”

You can use a simple past tense answer in your reply too like:

“Yes, I spoke to her this morning.”

So, I used “spoke” in my reply, that's fine. You can use “spoke” in your reply, even though “talked to” was used here. Or you could say “talked” as well. They're both fine like…

“Yes, I talked to her this morning.”

“Yes, I spoke with her this morning.”

All great!

So, you can say, “Yes, I have” as well. Either response is fine.

For a no response, you could say:

“No, I haven't.

“No, I haven't spoken to her.”

“No, I haven't talked with her.”

Or, maybe, if you expect to, like you have a meeting scheduled, you can say:

“No, not yet.

“No, not yet, but I'm going to talk to her this afternoon.

So, you can use a couple of these different patterns to share, like when you spoke to someone, if it's complete, or when you're going to speak to someone, if it's not complete yet.

So, “Have you talked to that person?”

“Yeah, I have. I spoke to her this morning.

Or, “Have you talked to her?”

“No, not yet. I'm going to talk to her in this morning's meeting.”

So, there are lots of different ways to answer this quick and short question.

Similarly then, I mentioned that these have similar grammar structures, “Have you heard about (topic)?”

“Have you heard about (topic)?”

So, again, we're using this present perfect, “have you heard,” past participle here, meaning from some point in the past, maybe this morning until our conversation now, did you have the experience of hearing, did you get this new information about this topic?

For example:

“Have you heard about this afternoon's meeting?”

So maybe, there's some kind of an update.

Or, “Have you heard about the schedule changes?”

So, this co-worker, the person asking the question is using this pattern to, like kind of ask their colleague, to ask their co-worker, did you receive this information, like did you hear about this news?”

So, I've just used the expression:

“Did you hear about (something)?”

You may also hear that just as a simple past tense expression.

You may also hear:

“Have you heard about…?”

Both are fine to use and they communicate the same idea here.

So, again, to answer this kind of question, we can use this pattern:

“Yes, I have.”

Or, “No, not yet.

Or, if you want to use “no” in this case, like:

“No, I haven't! What's up?”

Or, “No I haven't. What's the information?”

So, you might ask a question in response to this, if you don't have the information about the topic.

Okay. So, with that, let's continue on to this part of the lesson. This is used, I made these three sections or these three examples to help you with request patterns. So, when you need to ask your co-worker for something for help, you need them to send something, whatever, how do you do that in a polite way, but that's also kind of friendly, ‘cause you're close, a bit close?

So, what I like to do and what many people I have worked with like to do is we begin our requests with something like this…

“Sorry to bother you, but…”

Or you might see some people just say:

“Sorry to bother you” and then they make their request.

“So, sorry to bother you” means like I'm really sorry to interrupt your work or I know you're busy and so, I'm really sorry to contact you, but I need some help or I need something.

So, “Sorry to bother you, but could you please send me (item)?”

So, this item could be anything and this is usually used for email, like please send me something digitally, but of course, we can use this for physical items as well, like to send something in the mail.

Some examples here:

“Could you please send me the report?”

“Could you please send me our data?”

“Could you please send me those files?”

“Could you please send me any updates?”

So, there are many different ways we can use this. We can use the indefinite article, the definite article, no article. It really depends on what you're asking for.

So, for example here:

“Please send me those files.”

So “those files,” the speaker would use “those files” in this case if the listener, if the person reading or hearing this message already knows which files the speaker means. So, for example, you're in a meeting and you're discussing some important files, the speaker might say, “Could you please send me those files?” like in an email later.

So, “Could you please send me those files?”

Another request pattern you can use is:

“Could you please help me (task)?”

Or, “Could you please help me with (task)?”

So, I have “with” here because there are a couple of different ways that we can use this.

“Please help me (verb)” as part of the task, but sometimes, we don't have a specific verb. We just want “help” with a noun phrase.

So, let's look at some examples:

“Could you please help me prepare the meeting room?”

“Prepare the meeting room”

So here, “prepare” is my verb. I don't need to use “with” here, because we use “with” before a noun phrase.

“Could you please help me prepare the meeting room?”

So, this one is okay without “with.” This is my task here, my whole task is included in this expression.

This one, however, uses “with.”

“Could you please help me with this month's data analysis?”

“With this month's data analysis”

So, “with” before a noun phrase, in this case, this month's data analysis.

So, why would we use this pattern?

In this case, perhaps, the speaker or the person writing this email doesn't have a specific task that they want the listener or the reader to do. They just want to get some general support for something.

“Could you please help me with this task?”

So, you don't have a specific direction, you don't have, like, a specific guide just yet, but you want to get someone's support. You can use this.

Another example with a verb then:

“Could you please help me review the contract?”

“Review the contract”

So, you can see this example and this example, these are very specific things that we are requesting. If you just kind of wanna make a more general request, you can use “with” plus a noun phrase.

Okay, one more example pattern for asking for help is:

“Could I ask for your advice about (topic)?”

So, this is used when you want to get someone's feedback about something or you have a question about something you're not sure how to do it or how to approach it, but you think your coworker does have some information or they have some knowledge, some special skills that can help you with something.

So, for example:

“Could I ask for your advice about this letter I'm writing?”

So, you're writing a letter and maybe you need someone to check it for grammar or you need someone to give you some feedback about the content of your letter. You could use this pattern, “Could I ask for your advice about this letter I'm writing?”

Another example:

“Could I ask for your advice about the design of this graphic?”

So maybe, you don't have great design skills, but your coworker does like:

“Could I ask for your help?”

Or “Could I ask for your advice about the design of this graphic?”

So, you can use a lot of different things here and using this pattern sounds kind of like you really would appreciate their expertise, their specialization here.

So, we can connect all of these patterns to this one I talked about before.

“Sorry to bother you, but could you please send me that thing?”

Or “Sorry to bother you, but could you please help me with this task?”

Or “Sorry to bother you, but could I ask for your advice about this topic?”

And then I like to end my requests with this, “whenever you have a moment.”

“Whenever you have a moment”

So, this means at any time, at any point in which you have a free moment or a free minute, whenever you have a moment. So, of course, we have many moments, but this expression means whenever at any time that you are free, it's kind of a soft way to say like I know you're busy, again, but if you have a moment, if you have just a minute, I would really appreciate your help.

So, “Can I ask for your advice about this topic, whenever you have a moment?”

So, that just sounds like it's no rush, like I just want to ask for your help, if you have time.

So, this is how I like to use these expressions to make soft, but kind of friendly requests. Okay, the last expression I want to talk about is one that you can use when you just want to share information.

Let's look at the example:

“I just wanted to send along [information]?”

Here, I'm using past tense “wanted,” wanted. You could use present tense, like I just wanna send along some information, but we often use, like, past tense in these kinds of expressions to soften our statement.

“I just wanted to send along some information.”

So, again, there's not a request here. You're just providing some information that you think would be useful for the other person or maybe it's important for your work somehow. For example, I just wanted to send along some recent news related to our work. So, “some recent news related to our work,” this could be an article you read or some news about a competitor, like a competitor means another company or another organization doing the same or similar work as your company. So, this can be anything that's related to your job, to your company, whatever.

So, “I wanted to send along some recent news related to our work.”

Another example:

“I just wanted to send along an update about our project's progress.”

So, this is a very common one, you're providing an update. Maybe there's no need to, like, share feedback or there's no, like request but you just want to share an update about your progress, you can use this pattern to do it.

Finally:

“I just wanted to send along a few photos from the company trip.”

So maybe, this is a situation you have in your company or your organization, sharing some photos or sharing some kind of friendly social information from time to time too.

So, this is a great pattern to use if there's not a request, but you just want to provide some information.

Okay, so these are some expressions that you can use with your co-workers. I hope that you found a few things that were useful for you. Thanks very much for watching this lesson and I will see you again soon. Bye-bye!

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