Stop Memorizing Words. Steal These 20 Chunks Instead.

You already know thousands of English words. You can read articles, follow documentation, and pass exams. Then someone asks you a simple question in a call, and your brain starts assembling a sentence the way you'd assemble furniture from loose screws — one word at a time, hunting for the right verb, the right preposition, the right order. By the time the sentence exists, the conversation has moved on.

The problem isn't your vocabulary. It's your unit size.

Native speakers don't build sentences word by word. They pull chunks off the shelf: ready-made multi-word units like it depends on…, get back to you, just in case. Linguists call this formulaic language, and by most estimates a huge share of everyday speech is made of it. Your brain stores these the same way it stores a single word — as one item. One slot of memory, one act of retrieval, and out comes a whole grammatically-correct phrase with the prepositions already welded in.

That's why chunks beat word lists three ways:

• Speed. One retrieval instead of five means you stop translating mid-sentence.
• Free grammar. Nobody says "depends from" or "make sure to locking the door" after drilling the chunk — the correct structure rides along inside it.
• Naturalness. Chunks are how natives actually phrase things. I'll get back to you sounds like a person. I will respond to you later sounds like a terms-of-service document.

There's a listening dividend, too. Once a chunk lives in your head as a single unit, you start hearing it as one. Fast native speech stops sounding like a blur of separate words and begins to separate into blocks you recognize — which is why chunk learners often notice their listening improving before their speaking does. You're no longer decoding; you're pattern-matching, exactly what your brain does in your first language.

So stop collecting words. Start stealing chunks. Here are 20 worth taking today — grouped by the moments you'll actually use them.

Making decisions

1. How about…? — the universal suggestion opener. "How about we ship the simple version first?"
2. make up your mind — decide, after deliberation. "Take your time — but I need you to make up your mind by Friday."
3. give it a try — attempt something without committing to success. "I've never used that framework, but I'll give it a try this weekend."
4. fair enough — "your point is reasonable; accepted." "You don't want to deploy on a Friday? Fair enough."
5. It depends on… — the honest answer to half of all questions. "It depends on how much traffic you're expecting."

Figuring things out and fixing problems

1. figure out — solve by thinking it through. "Give me twenty minutes and I'll figure out why the build is failing."
2. come up with — produce an idea or solution. "She came up with a workaround before the meeting even ended."
3. sort out — untangle a messy situation. "Let's sort out the access permissions before onboarding anyone else."
4. set up — get something ready to use. "I set up the staging environment so we can test safely."
5. end up — arrive somewhere you didn't plan to. "We skipped the tests and ended up debugging all night."

Everyday safety nets

1. just in case — as a precaution against a maybe. "Take an umbrella, just in case."
2. by accident — unintentionally; the opposite of on purpose. "I deleted the file by accident — good thing we had a backup."
3. make sure — verify; don't assume. "Make sure the database is backed up before you run the migration."
4. How come…? — a softer, more conversational why. "How come the deploy took so long yesterday?"
5. step by step — one stage at a time, in order. "Don't panic. Walk me through it step by step."

Work and staying connected

1. get back to you — reply later, once you know. "I don't have that number yet — I'll get back to you by noon."
2. keep in touch — stay in contact after things change. "Good luck with the new role. Let's keep in touch."
3. keep track of — monitor something over time so nothing slips. "I keep track of every invoice in one spreadsheet."
4. in advance — before the event, not at the last minute. "Book the train tickets in advance; they sell out on holidays."
5. You're on mute — the most-used sentence in remote work. "We can see you talking, but you're on mute."

How to actually learn them

Don't read this list ten times. Pick five chunks, say each one out loud in a sentence about your life — your project, your team, your weekend — and use them for real within 24 hours: in a standup, a message, a comment. A chunk you've said once in a real conversation is worth more than fifty you've highlighted. Five a day for four days and this whole list is yours — not memorized, available.

One more habit that pays off: when you catch a chunk in the wild — a podcast, a series, a colleague's message — write down their whole sentence, not just the chunk. Context is what later tells you when fair enough is friendly agreement and when it's a polite way to end an argument. Your notebook should be a collection of other people's real sentences, waiting for you to swap yourself into them.

These 20 are one shelf of the pantry. I keep a free sample of a different set — 20 more chunks with example sentences and printable cards — here (PDF), and the full collection of 100 everyday chunks, with Anki cards for spaced repetition, lives at Tobywater Digital. Steal the free ones first. That's the entire method.