Weekly Review — Top Words & Phrases from This Week
Good Sunday morning! Before the new week begins, let’s lock in everything you learned this week. This session is your consolidation checkpoint — review, drill, and finish strong.
1. This Week at a Glance
| Word | Category | Vietnamese | Usefulness |
|---|---|---|---|
| facilitate | Professional Communication | tạo điều kiện / hỗ trợ | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| actionable | Communication Phrases | có thể thực hiện được | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| articulate | Communication Role-Play | diễn đạt rõ ràng | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| leverage | Career Vocabulary | tận dụng / khai thác | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| negotiate | Career Interview Practice | đàm phán | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| initiative | Career Growth | sáng kiến / chủ động | ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| mingle | Social English | giao lưu / hòa nhập | ⭐⭐⭐ |
| catch up | Social Phrases | cập nhật / gặp gỡ lại | ⭐⭐⭐⭐ |
| vibe | Casual Conversation | không khí / cảm giác | ⭐⭐⭐ |
2. Top 5 Words of the Week
These five words will show up in your job, your meetings, and your professional writing — learn them cold.
1. Actionable
IPA: /ˈækʃənəbl/ Vietnamese: có thể thực hiện được — mang tính hành động cụ thể
Best example sentence:
“Instead of vague feedback, give me actionable suggestions I can apply this sprint.”
When to use it: Use actionable when something is concrete and ready to be acted on — not just an idea, but a clear next step. It’s the difference between “improve the code” (not actionable) and “add error handling to the login function” (actionable). You’ll hear this constantly in standups, retrospectives, and Slack threads.
2. Facilitate
IPA: /fəˈsɪlɪteɪt/ Vietnamese: tạo điều kiện, hỗ trợ cho quá trình diễn ra
Best example sentence:
“My role in this meeting is to facilitate the discussion, not to make the final call.”
When to use it: Use facilitate when you help something happen smoothly — a meeting, a process, a decision. It signals a collaborative leadership style, which sounds more professional than “I ran the meeting.” Great for resumes: “Facilitated cross-team alignment for the Q2 launch.”
3. Leverage
IPA: /ˈlevərɪdʒ/ Vietnamese: tận dụng tối đa, khai thác hiệu quả
Best example sentence:
“We can leverage the existing infrastructure instead of building from scratch.”
When to use it: Use leverage when you’re making smart use of an existing resource — a tool, a skill, a relationship, data. It implies efficiency and strategic thinking. Common in tech: “leverage the API,” “leverage your network,” “leverage our CI/CD pipeline.”
4. Initiative
IPA: /ɪˈnɪʃətɪv/ Vietnamese: sáng kiến, tinh thần chủ động
Best example sentence:
“She took the initiative to document the onboarding process before anyone asked her to.”
When to use it: Two common uses: (1) as a personality trait — “He shows great initiative” means he acts without being told. (2) as a project — “This is a company-wide security initiative.” Both are high-value in tech workplaces. In interviews, say: “I took the initiative to…” to show ownership.
5. Articulate
IPA: /ɑːrˈtɪkjuleɪt/ (verb) / /ɑːrˈtɪkjələt/ (adjective) Vietnamese: diễn đạt rõ ràng, mạch lạc
Best example sentence:
“Can you articulate exactly what the blocker is so we can escalate it properly?”
When to use it: Use the verb articulate when you want someone to express something clearly and precisely — not just say it, but explain it well. The adjective form: “She’s very articulate” means she communicates exceptionally well. High praise in any professional setting.
3. Pronunciation Quick Drill
Read each sentence aloud twice — once slowly, once at normal speed. Focus on word stress.
Drill 1 — stress the bold syllables:
“Let’s fa-cil-i-tate a meeting to ar-tic-u-late our ac-tion-a-ble next steps.”
Drill 2 — two-syllable contrast:
“We should le-ver-age our in-i-tia-tive to ne-go-tiate a better timeline.”
Drill 3 — casual register shift:
“The vibe was great when we got to catch up and min-gle after the sprint review.”
4. Mini Story — The Friday Afternoon Sync
Maya opened the meeting with a calm voice. “Okay team, I’ll facilitate this retrospective — let’s keep it focused and come out with actionable items we can commit to.”
Kai leaned forward. “I want to leverage the monitoring data we already have. I took the initiative last week to set up alerts, and I think we can negotiate a longer deployment window with the ops team using that data.”
“Can you articulate exactly what you’re proposing?” Maya asked. “Like, the specific ask?”
“Sure. We push deploys at 2am instead of 6pm on Fridays. Less traffic, less risk.”
The room was quiet for a second. Then someone said, “Yeah, the vibe of a Friday 6pm deploy is never good anyway.”
Everyone laughed. Maya added it to the board. One actionable item, owned, deadlined, done.
5. Idiom Bonus
Two powerful idioms that didn’t come up this week — but you’ll need them.
”The ball is in your court”
Vietnamese: Đến lượt bạn quyết định rồi — bóng đang ở sân của bạn
Meaning: It’s your turn to act or decide. You’ve done your part; now the other person needs to move.
Example:
“I sent the proposal and followed up twice. At this point, the ball is in their court.”
When to use it: After you’ve done everything you can and you’re waiting on someone else — in negotiations, email follow-ups, or project handoffs. Very natural in professional English.
”Think outside the box”
Vietnamese: Suy nghĩ sáng tạo, không theo lối mòn
Meaning: Approach a problem creatively, beyond conventional solutions.
Example:
“The standard approach won’t work here. We need to think outside the box — maybe a completely different architecture.”
When to use it: When encouraging creative problem-solving. Be careful — it’s slightly overused in corporate English, so use it sparingly for emphasis. Alternatives: “think creatively,” “take a fresh angle,” “challenge the usual approach.”
6. Weekend Challenge
Your word for today: ACTIONABLE
Use it 3 times today in real contexts:
- Morning — Write one sentence in your notes or journal: “My actionable goal for today is…”
- Afternoon — In a message or conversation, say: “Do you have actionable feedback on…?”
- Evening — Reflect: “What’s one actionable thing I learned this week?”
The goal is not just to remember the word — it’s to make it feel natural so it comes out automatically in your next meeting.
7. Preview: Next Week — Technical English
Monday kicks off a new theme: Technical English for Developers.
We’ll cover the language of programming, architecture, and engineering culture — the words and phrases you need when reading docs, writing tickets, discussing code in English, or working on international teams.
Topics coming up:
- Monday morning — Core dev vocabulary: deploy, refactor, debug, iterate
- Monday noon — Writing clear bug reports and ticket descriptions
- Monday evening — Talking through code in a technical interview
Get ready to level up your engineering English. See you Monday.
Sunday morning is the best time to consolidate. You don’t need to learn anything new today — just let this week’s words settle in. Great work this week.