Professional English • Meetings
Clarifying Questions for English Meetings
Prevent misunderstandings with specific, neutral, and professional questions.
Why clarification matters
Clarifying questions prevent misunderstandings and show active participation. They are especially useful when deadlines, responsibilities, or technical details are unclear.
Four useful purposes
Check meaning: When you say flexible, what does that include?
Confirm responsibility: Am I right in thinking that Maya will lead this?
Confirm timing: Could you clarify which deadline is final?
Check agreement: So, have we agreed to test this first?
Professional tone
Use neutral phrases such as Could you clarify…, Just to confirm…, and Do you mean…?. Avoid wording that blames the speaker.
Practice
Rewrite this question professionally: “What are you talking about?”
Could you clarify what you mean by the revised process?
Choose the best option
You are unsure who will contact the client.
- Who is doing it?
- Just to confirm, who will contact the client after the meeting?
- Nobody explained this.
Answer
Sentence 2. It is specific, neutral, and easy to answer.
Production task
Write four clarification questions for a project meeting: one about scope, one about timing, one about responsibility, and one about the next step.