Reporting Progress, Saying You're Stuck, and Asking for Help: Ten Sentences for Work

🌏 中文版

The "work" scenario in my English speaking practice area only had two sentences. This post adds ten, covering four things a software engineer keeps doing in stand-ups and day-to-day collaboration. These sentences were not adapted from one real conversation. I listed what I wanted to say in Chinese first, then looked for dictionary support one sentence at a time.

What I was trying to say

I was talking to a colleague or a manager, in a stand-up, over chat, or at someone's desk. I was doing four things:

• Reporting progress: what I finished yesterday, what I am still waiting for, when it will be done
• Saying where I am stuck: which step, or that I cannot reproduce a problem
• Asking for help: a look at a PR, or an explanation of how something works
• Disagreeing and estimating: doubts about an approach, how many days, what I need to confirm first

Atlassian's introduction to stand-ups lists three questions that match the first two: What did I work on yesterday? What am I working on today? What issues are blocking me? (Stand-ups for agile teams). That source describes what a stand-up covers, not how to phrase it in English.

What you can say in this situation

Every sentence below is adapted from a dictionary pattern. None of them is a dictionary example.

1. Reporting progress

fix: Oxford defines it as repairing or correcting something, with the examples I've fixed the problem and find and fix the bug (fix). The sentence has yesterday, so it uses the past simple fixed.

still waiting for: Oxford's entry for wait has I'm still waiting for the results of my blood test (wait). Swap in the backend API and you have the second sentence.

by: Oxford defines it as "not later than the time mentioned", with Can you finish the work by five o'clock? and I'll have it done by tomorrow (by). For "before I leave work" I use by the end of the day. The point is that the work is done before that moment.

2. Saying where you are stuck

stuck on: Oxford lists stuck (on something), meaning unable to answer or understand something, with I got stuck on the first question (stuck).

reproduce: Oxford's entry for reproduce only covers the "copy" senses, not software problems. Support for this use comes from Mozilla's bug reporting guide, which says steps to reproduce a bug and If you can't reproduce the problem (Bug Writing Guidelines). Locally means on your own machine, and a GitHub documentation page is titled Checking out pull requests locally (GitHub Docs). These are technical documents. They support the terms, not how common the sentence is in speech.

3. Asking for help

Could you: Oxford says it is used to politely ask somebody to do something for you, with Could you babysit for us on Friday? (could).

take a look at: Oxford's noun entry for look has Take a look at these figures! (look).

when you have a moment: Oxford's entry for moment has a request that is almost the same: Could you look through this report when you have a spare moment? (moment). Of the ten sentences, this one is the closest to a dictionary example.

walk someone through: Cambridge defines it as slowly and carefully explaining something to someone or showing someone how to do something, with He'll walk you through the procedure (walk someone through something). I only read an excerpt of this entry, not the whole page.

4. Disagreeing and estimating

not sure about: Oxford lists sure about something, with Are you sure about that? and I'm not so sure about that one (sure). Saying you are unsure first and then suggesting something is softer than telling the other person they are wrong. That is my judgment about tone. The dictionary only supports the pattern.

Could we… on a smaller scale: Oxford's entry for could has Could we stop by next week?, and scale has on a small scale (scale).

take + time: Oxford says take is used for the amount of time you need to do something and must come with an expression of time, as in That should only take you ten minutes (take). Probably means something is likely, as in It'll probably be OK (probably).

an estimate: Oxford's noun example is I can give you a rough estimate of the amount of wood you will need (estimate). As a conjunction, before takes a clause, as in Do it before you forget (before). Requirements is usually plural, as in a software solution to meet your requirements (requirement).

Can I also say it this way?

Say it again with different content

Read the Chinese, say it yourself, then check the reference.

1. 我上週把付款流程修好了。
   • I fixed the payment flow last week.
2. 我還在等測試結果。
   • I'm still waiting for the test results.
3. 這個明天之前可以完成。
   • I can finish this by tomorrow.
4. 我卡在部署這一步。
   • I'm stuck on the deployment step.
5. 你有空可以幫我看一下這份文件嗎？
   • Could you take a look at this doc when you have a moment?
6. 這個大概需要一週左右。
   • This will probably take about a week.

A short dialogue

This is a practice example I wrote, not a real conversation.

A: Any updates?

B: I fixed the login flow yesterday. Today I'm working on the permissions, but I'm stuck on the permission settings.

A: What's blocking you?

B: I can't reproduce the issue locally. Could you walk me through how this part works?

A: Sure, after this meeting. How long will the rest take?

B: It will probably take two to three days. I need to confirm the requirements before I give you an estimate.

Without looking at the English, how would you say it?

Rate yourself on whether you got the meaning across, not on matching the words exactly.

Still to verify

I have not found a suitable source for these, so they are not in the practice set:

• I'm blocked on …: the Atlassian page has blocking me and where they're blocked, but not blocked on
• Whether "before I leave work" is by the end of the day, by end of day, or by EOD: I did not check a source on workplace usage
• Which version is more common: that needs a corpus query, which I did not run

Overall

Of the ten, by for deadlines, stuck on, and take + time are worth practicing first, because they come up every day and a word-for-word translation from Chinese tends to go wrong. Almost all the sources are learner's dictionaries, which support meaning and sentence patterns. Only the Atlassian page describes what a stand-up covers. There was no native-speaker testing and no frequency comparison, so this post only says "works in this situation".

References

• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: fix: examples of fixing a problem
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: wait: still waiting for
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: by: not later than a time
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: stuck: stuck (on something)
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: could: polite requests and Could we
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: look: take a look at
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: moment: when you have a spare moment
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: sure: sure about something
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: scale: on a small scale
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: take: take + time
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: probably: likelihood
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: estimate: give someone an estimate
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: before: before + clause
• Oxford Learner's Dictionaries: requirement: examples with requirements
• Cambridge Dictionary: walk someone through something: definition and examples
• Atlassian: Stand-ups for agile teams: the three stand-up questions
• Mozilla: Bug Writing Guidelines: reproduce for software problems
• GitHub Docs: Checking out pull requests locally: the technical sense of locally