The awards dinner: congratulations, farewells, and a toast
Ceremony English celebrates in formulas: please join me in congratulating, on behalf of, we wish him well. Names and achievements arrive mid-sentence at full speed — hold the person, the reason, and what happens next, right through the final toast.
Read the sentences below, then practice the whole lesson with audio.
- 1Good evening, and welcome to our annual employee awards dinner.
- 2Tonight we celebrate the people behind a truly remarkable year.
- 3Our first award honors the salesperson with the strongest customer reviews.
- 4The winner joined us only two years ago as a part-time assistant.
- 5Please join me in congratulating Maria Santos from the western branch.
- 6Maria, would you like to say a few words to the team?
- 7I am honored, and I share this award with my amazing colleagues.
- 8Next, we say goodbye to a manager who is retiring after thirty years.
- 9He opened our very first overseas office and trained half of this room.
- 10His door was always open, no matter how busy the season.
- 11We wish him long, restful mornings and plenty of fishing trips.
- 12To close the evening, a short video will look back at the year.
- 13Dinner will be served as soon as the lights come back up.
- 14Thank you all for your hard work and your loyalty.
- 15Here is to another successful year together, cheers everyone.
FAQ
- How does this dictation practice work?
- Play a sentence, type exactly what you hear, then press check — Dictation Trainer shows word-level feedback: which words you misheard, misspelled, confused for a homophone, or missed.
- Do I need an account, and is it free?
- No account needed to start: you can practice 3 full lessons free — audio, typing, and word-by-word feedback — without signing up. Create a free account to keep going: 100 Echoes (about 10 more lessons), plus saved progress, streaks, and a mistakes notebook.
- What level is this lesson?
- This lesson is graded B2 on the CEFR scale and has 15 sentences. Dictation Trainer lessons start at A1 and climb as the library grows.