350 Business English Phrases

"Send me the report today." There is nothing wrong with that sentence. Every word is correct - and the person who reads it will be slightly annoyed, and will never tell you why.

That gap, between English that is correct and English that works, is what this book is about. It is not a vocabulary problem. It is tone, and almost nobody is ever taught it.

350 ready-made phrases in 25 units of fourteen, arranged around the working day: email (opening, asking, attaching, replying, apologising, closing), meetings and calls (starting, interrupting, agreeing, disagreeing, clarifying, summarising), getting things done (deadlines, delegating, progress, problems, saying no, negotiating), people (giving and taking feedback, thanks, difficult conversations), and your own career (cover letters and interviews).

Every phrase carries a tone label - formal, neutral, spoken or informal - because a phrase used in the wrong register does more damage than a grammatical mistake.

And every entry ends with a tone repair: a crossed sentence and a ticked one. The crossed sentence is not an error. It is correct English that lands badly, and it is what capable speakers actually write.

The essay at the front explains the system underneath it all: English builds politeness out of distance - questions instead of statements, past tense instead of present, longer instead of shorter - and the commonest tone error at work is the bare imperative.

Each unit ends with a fourteen-question test, 350 in all, with a full answer key and an A-Z index at the back.

For learners at B1-C1, and for anyone who works in English and would like to stop guessing at tone.