Real English: Speaking on the phone

1,349,272 views ・ 2017-05-23

Learn English with Gill


Please double-click on the English subtitles below to play the video.

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Well... Oo, actually I've got to go now because you know I'm at work. Yeah.
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I've just got to teach a lesson. Okay. Yeah, I'm teaching a lesson right now. Uh-huh.
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Okay, so I'll see ya later. Yeah? All right. See ya later, then. Bye. Bye.
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Sorry about that.
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Hi. Oo. Pen. Hi. I'm Gill from engVid, and today-sorry-we have a lesson on the phone.
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Not on the phone. I was just on the phone. I apologize about that. Unexpected phone call.
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We're looking today at: "Phone Vocabulary". Okay? So words and phrases to use to do with
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making phone calls, being on the phone, calling people. Okay. Maybe just with your friends,
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phoning your friends, but also in your job if you have to use the phone at work - this
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is all useful stuff for that. Okay. Right. So, phone vocabulary.
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First of all, if the phone rings you "answer the phone". Okay? Answer the phone. You say:
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"Oh, the phone is ringing. I'll have to answer the phone."
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Okay. Now, if you're making the
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call, you're phoning, you're making... Making a phone call. Okay? And somebody answers at
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the other end, you have to say something. So you might say:
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"Hello, is that Anne? Is that Anne?"
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So: "Hello, is that", and the name of the person that you want to speak
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to. That's more maybe informal if you're phoning somebody's home. If you're phoning an office,
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a business, you might say: "Hello. Could I speak to...?" This is a little bit more...
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More formal. "Could I speak to Mr. Jones?" Something like that. Okay.
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Sometimes when you make a phone call and somebody answers, and you're not quite sure if it's
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the person you want or not, you don't quite recognize the voice, so you sometimes want
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to ask them their name to see if that is the person you were phoning to speak to. So you
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can say: "Who am I speaking to, please?" It's always a good idea to use "please" when you're
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asking a question on the phone. "Who am I speaking to, please?" And then they will say
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who they are and if they are the person you want to speak to, you can continue with your
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call; if they are not the person you want to speak to, you would use this:
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"Could I speak to Mr. Jones, please?"
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Okay, right.
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Now, sometimes if you phone and the person at the other end, they want you to wait probably
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because they need to find the person you want to speak to, so they say:
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"Could you hang on?" or "Could you hold on?" That's the same thing. It just means to wait. "Hang on" or
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"Hold on". Or if they're being very polite or if this is you in an office taking a phone
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call, and it might be a customer, an important person, so you might say very politely:
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"Would you mind holding?" Instead of just saying: "Hang on", which is a little bit casual and
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informal, or even: "Hold on" which is a little... Not very... It's okay, but it's not very polite.
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This is much more polite: "Would you mind holding?" It's a much nicer way.
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"Would you mind holding, please?" is even better. Okay, so that's a good one to use.
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And then say this is you going to try to find somebody in the office to take this phone
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call, you come back. If you have to go back to the same person after they've been holding
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on or hanging on, or holding, you come and say: "Sorry to keep you waiting. Sorry to
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keep you waiting." Especially if they're a customer. And, again: "Sorry", if there is
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other bad news like the person they want to speak to is not there: "Sorry, she's not here."
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You might say: "She's not here at the moment." At the moment. Or if that person is already
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on the phone talking to somebody else, you can say: "Sorry, he's on the other line",
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meaning the telephone line. "Sorry, he's on the other line."
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So, when that situation happens and say it's you in an office taking the call, you don't
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want to just say: "Oh, sorry, he's on the other line" and then wait for the person to
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say something, like: "Oh well, okay then, good bye." You have to be helpful. You've
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got to then continue being helpful because this could be a customer or it could be the
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boss, it could be anybody. So you need to be helpful and say: "Sorry, he's on the other
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line. Can I take a message?" Okay? Take a message, to write down a message to say this
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person called, and either they will call again or can you call them back. So:
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"Can I take a message?" or "Can I give her a message?" Okay? And if it's you that's calling, you
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have phoned somewhere and the person is not available-okay?-you can say, politely:
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"Could I leave a message?" Okay? So that the person who has answered the phone will write a message
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down and give it to the person that you want to speak to. "Could I", that's the polite
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way of asking. Not: "Can I", but: "Could I", it's much more polite. "Could I leave a message, please?"
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You could put "please" again. "Could I leave a message for him, please? Could I
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leave a message for her, please?" Okay.
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Now, this one, this is if the person who has answered is the person you want to speak to,
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but they are busy doing something else at that moment. It's not convenient for them
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to speak to you, but they are being helpful and they say: "Can I call you back?" Maybe:
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"Can I call you back in 10 minutes? Can you...? Can I call you back this afternoon?",
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"Can I call you back before 4 o'clock?" So this is all being helpful and ensuring that you
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do eventually speak to that person and have time to talk about something.
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"Can I call you back?"
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Now, this one, this is if someone has phoned you and you weren't there, so somebody else
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had to take a message for you, and apologize, and be polite and helpful, and you come home
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and you get this message: "Mr. Jones called. Can you call him?" So you phone the number
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and you tell the person who answers: "I'm returning..." "Could I speak to Mr. Jones?
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I'm returning his call." That means he called me, he wants to speak to me.
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"I'm returning his call" so that we can have the conversation. He wants to speak to me. I'm returning his
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call. I'm calling him back. Okay.
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And then finally in this section, sometimes people's names are difficult to spell or place
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names, and so on, so if you need to get a name clear, if you want to make sure you've
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got the right spelling, you can say: "Could I", the polite form: "Could I ask you to spell that, please?"
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Okay? If it's a difficult name: "Could I ask you to spell that, please?" Okay?
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So that's most of the main ways of speaking on the phone, and we just have a few more
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items which are to do... We've had a few problems here with not being able to speak to people,
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but we have a few more problem situations and a few more words and phrases connected
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to that, so we'll do that next.
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Okay, so a few more telephone problems and the words to use. So, if you try to ring a
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number and you just can't... Well, this is it: "I can't get through. I can't get through"
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meaning there's something wrong. You're tapping out the number, but nothing is happening for
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some reason, nobody is answering. You can't even hear the line ringing. You know the ringing,
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ringing tone isn't... It's not even ringing. Okay. "I can't get through" meaning I can't
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make the connection. Okay.
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And some of the reasons why you can't get through: "The line is busy".
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If the person is already on the phone the line is busy. Or in the UK we say: "It's engaged". "Engaged"
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means, you know, somebody is already speaking on the phone to somebody else, which is why
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you can't get through. Okay. It's busy or engaged, so those... Those are the same thing.
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Sometimes "unobtainable". In the UK we get a sort of continuous "[makes beep noise]"
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sound when you dial a number that doesn't exist basically. Maybe it's an old number,
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you're trying to contact a friend, maybe that friend has moved away and they didn't take
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their phone number with them. So that line, that number doesn't exist anymore. So we call
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it this fancy word: "unobtainable", meaning you can't obtain it, you can't get through
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because it doesn't exist. Okay. So...
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Okay, so say you do get through, you can get through and you can hear a voice at the other
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end, but you can't hear them very well, they're very quiet, so you can say:
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"Could you speak up, please?" Again, "please" is good. "Could you" is good, a polite way of asking.
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"Could you speak up? Could you speak up, please? I can't hear you." Okay. "It's a bad line."
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Rather than blame that person for having a quiet voice:
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"Oh, your voice is really quiet. I can't hear you." That's not very nice to say that,
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and it may not be their fault anyway.
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It may be the technology that is... Has something wrong and you can't hear them very well, so
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you can ask them: "Could you speak up, please? It's a bad line." Always blame the technology.
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Don't blame the person for having a quiet voice because they won't be your friend for
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much longer if you do that. Okay. So: "Could you speak up, please? It's a bad line." Okay?
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The line is the connection, the technology the cable, whatever.
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Or if you're on a mobile phone: "Sorry, you're breaking up." It doesn't mean they're falling
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apart physically. It's their voice, the voice is breaking up. Oops, sorry, wrong way around.
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Meaning your voice is breaking up. The sound is... Has got little broken pieces in it.
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Instead of continuous sound it's: "Unh-unh-unh-unh-unh-unh", and you're losing part of what they're saying.
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"You're breaking up", that's usually with a mobile phone. So, again, blame the technology,
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not the person for having a funny voice that goes: "Unh-unh-unh-unh-unh" because it's probably
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not their fault. Okay. "Sorry, you're breaking up. Bad signal." Right. That can happen. Sometimes
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if you're on a train and you go under a bridge, you lose the signal and you even get cut off sometimes.
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That's the next one, yeah. "I think we got cut off." Okay. You don't say:
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"You hung up on me!" meaning the other person just put the phone down because they didn't want to
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talk to you anymore. Don't blame them for hanging up on you. Hanging up on someone isn't
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a very nice thing to do, but sometimes if two people are having an argument over the
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phone and one person has just had enough, they just put the phone down. They don't want
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to talk anymore. They're too fed up with it. So just if the connection is lost, don't blame
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them. Phone again if you want to and say: "I think we got cut off." Yeah, right. So,
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don't blame them for... Don't suggest that they hung up on you because it won't... It
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won't help your relationship probably. So: "I think we got cut off." Right.
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The last two examples are when you just phone and... Or somebody phones you and you don't
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know them, they're total strangers. So if they say: "Hello, is Gladys there?" and your
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name isn't Gladys and nobody called Gladys lives in the same building as you, you say...
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You don't sort of... Don't be rude. Even if it's a stranger, you don't say:
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"Don't be stupid. There's no one here called Gladys." No. Not a good idea.
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Try to be polite again
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and say: "Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number." Okay? They've tapped the numbers
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wrong, in the wrong order or something's gone wrong with the technology again.
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"Sorry, I think you've got the wrong number."
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And if they have asked for somebody by name and there is no one with that name where you
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live or where you work, you say... You could say: "Sorry, there's no one of that name here."
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Okay? "Sorry, there's no one of that name here. Are you sure you dialed the right number?"
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You can ask them: "What number? What number did you dial?" You can ask them to read the
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number back to you, and sometimes they read you a number and it's not your number, and
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you can say: "Oh, sorry, that's not this number. Something has gone wrong."
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So these are all some of the lovely scenarios that can happen with the telephone or the
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phone. We don't use the word "telephone" so much now. It's a very formal word, "telephone".
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You might use it in an essay, but in speaking you say "phone". So, okay. So I hope that's
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been helpful, something you can use in your daily life and in your job.
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If you'd like to answer a quiz on this, which I highly recommend, please go to the website, www.engvid.com,
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and answer the questions there. And come back and see us again soon.
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Okay. Bye.
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