How do you talk about your slides in English?
You need three groups of fixed sentences: "On this slide you can see …" or "This slide shows …" for whatever is on screen, "Let’s move on to the next slide" and "Going back to the previous slide …" for changing slides, and place phrases such as "in the top left" or "at the bottom of the slide" for single details. One page is a slide, and what you show sits on the slide.
- Show the slide: On this slide you can see … / This slide shows … / As you can see here …
- Move between slides: Let’s move on to the next slide. / Going back to the previous slide … / Next slide, please.
- Point at details: in the top left / the blue line / the second bullet point / at the bottom of the slide
A2 · Presentations · 10 minTalking About Slides, taught brick by brick.
A structured ten-brick lesson for A2 learners. Hear a typical slide sentence in context, meet the three groups of phrases with a tutor, then practise them in interactive tasks before a final quiz. The whole arc takes under ten minutes and nothing requires a signup.
- CEFR levelA2 · Elementary
- Time to completeAbout 10 minutes
- SkillsSpeaking, Business English, Vocabulary, Writing
- Bricks10 blocks
01 / 06
Why slides come with their own small language
When you present in English, the real hurdle is rarely your expertise. You know exactly what is on your slide; what you are missing are the short sentences that carry a speaker from one slide to the next. That is good news, because those sentences are fixed, short and repeat themselves in every presentation you will ever give. You do not have to build them, you only have to know them. This lesson sorts them into three groups. First, the sentences that show what is on the screen right now. Second, the sentences that move you between slides — forward, backward, and sometimes as a request to the colleague who is clicking for you. Third, the phrases that point at one detail: a number, a line, a bullet point. All three groups get by on the present simple, a few imperatives and a handful of prepositions. That is A2 grammar doing a very grown-up job.
02 / 06
Group one: showing the slide on screen
Four phrases cover almost everything. "On this slide you can see …" is the neutral default and works for figures, charts and timelines alike: "On this slide you can see our sales figures for the last quarter." "This slide shows …" is the shorter version, where the slide itself becomes the subject: "This slide shows the project timeline." It sounds businesslike and is useful when you are moving through many slides quickly. "As you can see here …" directs the eye while you are already speaking: "As you can see here, the number went up in June." And "Let’s look at …" invites the room to look together: "Let’s look at the results for Berlin." All four are short, fixed phrases you can learn by heart. Rotate between them, or every slide starts with the same sentence — and an audience notices that quickly.
03 / 06
Group two: moving between slides
The change of slide is where many speakers stall, because they spend two silent seconds clicking. One sentence fills that gap. You go forward with "Let’s move on to the next slide." or with the more elegant "That brings me to …", which links your last thought to the new slide: "That brings me to our plan for next year." If you want to announce what is coming, say "On the next slide you can see …". Going backward, you need "Going back to the previous slide …" or "Let’s go back to the previous slide." Both are completely normal — nobody thinks you are unprepared because you show a figure a second time. And when someone else is driving the laptop, you simply say "Next slide, please." That is not a rude shortcut but the usual form; a "thank you" afterwards is plenty. Learn "next" and "previous" as a pair: the following slide and the one before.
04 / 06
Group three: pointing at one detail
A slide is rarely empty, and your audience does not automatically know where to look. That is what place phrases are for. For corners and edges: "in the top left", "in the top right", "on the right", "on the left" and "at the bottom of the slide". For example: "The total is in the top left." For lists you count the lines: "the first bullet point", "the second bullet point", "the last point on this slide". For charts you name the colour and the shape: "the blue line", "the red bar", "the figure on the right". Between them, these cover almost any detail without a single new word. Feel free to stack the parts into one sentence: "The blue line at the bottom of the slide is our costs." Point with your hand or your cursor at the same time — the words and the gesture together are clearer than either one alone.
05 / 06
Common German-speaker errors
The first error is a word. The German "Folie" is a slide in English — never a "foil", which is kitchen or metal foil, and not a "transparency" either, since that is the see-through sheet for an old overhead projector. Your PowerPoint page is a slide; the whole file is a presentation. The second error is a preposition: it is on the slide, not "in the slide". The third involves the German "wie Sie sehen können". It becomes "as you can see", not "how you can see": English keeps "how" and "as" apart, while German uses "wie" for both. The fourth is word order after "here". German inverts the subject and the verb, but English does not, so "hier sehen Sie" becomes "here you can see", and the literal "here see you" is not a sentence at all. And the fifth: the natural, brief way to ask for the next slide is the article-free "Next slide, please" — like a short stage direction.
06 / 06
In your team, on video calls and with clients
The phrases stay the same; the register changes with the room. Inside your own team you can be brief: "Next slide. So, sales figures." is plenty. With clients you take the slightly longer forms, because they sound more courteous: "Let’s look at the results together" rather than a bare "Look at this". Video calls add one complication: your audience cannot see your hand. So you have to say the place out loud — "in the top left", "the second bullet point" — or some of your audience will be searching the wrong side of the slide. Announce the change of slide out loud as well, because some connections lag: "Let’s move on to the next slide … there we are." The best practice is to say the sentences aloud over your own real slides. Pick three — "On this slide you can see …", "Let’s move on to the next slide" and "in the top left" — and run your next presentation through with them. After that they stay.