English Lesson — Thursday Morning: Reiterate & Closing the Loop in Meetings

Today’s focus: closing out a meeting or email thread cleanly — recapping decisions, assigning action items, and making sure nothing falls through the cracks. About 20 minutes, start to finish.

Word of the Day: Reiterate

Reiterate (verb) — /riːˈɪt.ər.eɪt/ — nhắc lại, lặp lại (để nhấn mạnh một điều đã nói). You use it when you want to repeat a point on purpose, usually because it’s important enough that it shouldn’t get lost in the conversation.

• Let me reiterate: the deadline is Friday, not next Monday.
• She reiterated her concerns about the budget during the call.
• To reiterate, everyone needs to submit their report by 5 PM today.

Listen to real pronunciation: Cambridge Dictionary — reiterate and YouGlish — reiterate in real videos.

Vocabulary Table: Wrapping Up a Meeting

Phrase	Tiếng Việt	Example
recap	tóm tắt lại	Let’s recap what we agreed on before we wrap up.
action item	việc cần làm sau họp	The action item for Minh is to send the proposal by Wednesday.
key takeaway	điều quan trọng rút ra được	The key takeaway from today’s meeting is that we need more testing time.
follow up on	theo dõi, làm tiếp	I’ll follow up on this with the design team tomorrow.
for the record	để ghi nhận, làm rõ	For the record, I raised this risk two weeks ago.

Pronunciation Guide

Reiterate has four syllables: re-IT-er-ate. The stress lands on the second syllable, “IT” — say it like the word “it” with extra punch, not like “REE-it-er-ate.” Common mistake: Vietnamese speakers often flatten the stress and say every syllable at the same weight, which makes it hard for listeners to catch the word.

Practice sentence (read aloud 3 times, slightly louder on the stressed syllable):

“Let me re-IT-erate the three action items before we close this meeting.”

Exercise 1: Fill in the Blank

1. Before the call ended, the manager _______ that the launch date was fixed. (reiterate)
2. Can you _______ what we decided in the last ten minutes? I got distracted. (recap)
3. The main _______ from this quarter is that onboarding takes too long. (key takeaway)
4. I’ll _______ with finance once I have the updated numbers. (follow up on)

Show answers

1. reiterated   2. recap   3. key takeaway   4. follow up

Exercise 2: Translate

1. Mình muốn nhắc lại một lần nữa là deadline không đổi.
2. Để ghi nhận lại, team đã đồng ý dời launch sang tuần sau.
3. Ai sẽ theo dõi việc này với bên vendor?

Show answers

1. I want to reiterate that the deadline hasn’t changed.
2. For the record, the team agreed to push the launch to next week.
3. Who’s going to follow up on this with the vendor?

Idiom of the Day: Close the Loop

Close the loop — hoàn tất một trao đổi, phản hồi đầy đủ để không còn việc gì bỏ ngỏ. You hear this constantly in meeting culture — it means finishing a conversation or task so nobody is left wondering what happened next.

• Can you close the loop with the client once the invoice is sent?
• I just want to close the loop on yesterday’s bug — it’s fixed now.

Recommended Watching

• BBC Learning English — look for the “English at Work” series, built entirely around office and meeting scenarios.
• EnglishClass101 — search their channel for “Business English meeting phrases” for short, practical drills.
• Speak English With Vanessa — strong on natural phrasing for professional conversations.

Today’s Challenge

In your next meeting or call today, end with one sentence that starts with “Just to reiterate…” and state the single most important point. Bonus: use “close the loop” in a follow-up email before the day ends.