Interrupting politely
Excuse me,
Pardon me,
Sorry to interrupt,
May I interrupt (for a minute)?
Can I add something here?
I don't mean to intrude, but . . .
Could I inject something here?
Do you mind if I jump in here?
Getting back to the topic
Anyway,
Now, where was I?
Where were we?
What were you saying?
You were saying . . .
To get back to . . .
Clarifying your own ideas
In other words,
What I mean is . . .
What I'm trying to say is . . .
What I wanted to say was . . .
To clarify,
Asking for Clarification
What do you mean (by that)?
What are you trying to say?
What was that again?
Could you clarify that?
Clarifying another's ideas
You mean . . .
What you mean is . . .
What you're saying is . . .
(I think) what she means is . . .
What he's trying to say is . . .
If I understand you, (you're saying that . . . )
If I'm hearing you correctly,
So, you think (that) . . .
So, your idea is . .
Asking for Elaboration
Could you elaborate (on that)?
Could you tell me a little more about it?
Could you give (me) some details?
Could you fill me in on that?
Could you expound on that?
What else can you tell us (about that)?
Is there anything else you can tell us?
Is there more to it?
Elaborating
To elaborate,
To give you more information,
Let me explain.
Let me elaborate.
Let me tell you a little more (about it).
Let me give you some details.
What's more,
Opening a discussion
To begin with,
We need to discuss . . .
determine
find out
Let's start by (V ing)
We'll start by (V ing)
The problem here is . . .
issue
question
The important thing (here) is . . .
The main thing we need to discuss is . . .
Let's look at . . .
It looks like . . .
It appears that . . .
Asking for input
What do you think?
How about you?
How do you feel about that?
Any ideas on that?
Responding
(That sounds like a) good idea.
Sounds good.
The problem with that is . . .
That raises the issue of . . .
brings up
Contrasting
On the other hand,
However,
Yes, but . . .
You may be right, but . . .
I may be wrong, but . . .
Correct me if I'm wrong, but . . .
On the contrary,
Classifying
There are five kinds of . . .
There are two types of . . .
There are three categories of . . .
We can divide (this) into three parts:
This can be broken down into four sections.
They are:
