steer (a conversation)

"Steering" something means controlling which direction it moves in. For example, you steer a car when you drive.

We also use the word "steer" to talk about controlling a conversation. You steer a conversation when there's something that you want to talk about, or something that you want to avoid talking about.

For example:

When people bring up politics, I usually try to steer the conversation back to something a little less controversial.

If you'd like to return to a topic that you were talking about earlier, you "steer the conversation back" to that topic.

We need to (do something)

If you're in charge of a group, or if you feel really confident in your opinion, you can tell people "We need to ___":

For example:

We need to get to work. We don't have a lot of time left.

We need to do the best that we can with our current budget.

(the/this) specific (thing)

In English, we care about whether something is general or specific. That's why we use articles like "a" and "the":

I saw a dog.

I saw the dog.

The first sentence is general. It's about a dog which the listener doesn't know about. The second sentence is specific. It's about a certain dog that the listener has seen or heard about.

But sometimes "the" isn't strong enough by itself. One way to make it stronger is with the word "specific":

I've seen a dog that looks like the one you described. I don't know if it was the specific dog you were referring to, though.