workplace.

Hi Tim here with another nine to five english lesson. Today we're going to

learn some expressions for answering the phone in english.

using the telephone is an important part of business

but the way we communicate is a little different from

in-person conversations. We have some special expressions

we use to answer the phone ask for clarification

and get a call back. At the start of a phone call

it's a good idea to make sure the other person knows

who you are. You can identify yourself in a few different ways. Besides saying

my name is, we often use the expression this is before our name.

But don't try to use this expression in person.

i only say this is Tim when i'm talking on the phone. Let's practice

identifying ourselves at the start of a phone call.

Listen to each example then repeat it for yourself. Ready? Let's get started!

Hi there this is jason locke calling

from Milton Enterprises.

Oh hello my name's Wendy chambers with BMA Bank.

Good morning Dirk here. How can i help?

Hello Francine speaking.

As you can hear we identify ourselves not only when we call someone else

but also when we answer the phone to do that we just say something simple

like Tim here or tim speaking now because we only have a person's

voice on the phone there's a higher chance we don't

understand something it might be a single word or a whole

sentence that isn't clear in this situation you need to ask

for clarification you might ask could you repeat that or what was that

or you might simply say that you didn't catch something which means you didn't

hear correctly let's try some examples of

asking for clarification remember to repeat the examples after you hear

them sorry what was that

could you repeat that last part again sorry did you say 14 or 40.

i'm sorry i didn't catch that

one very important word you heard several times in those examples is

sorry that word helps make our requests more polite

you also heard an example of asking for clarification

between two similar words in this case you just ask

did you say x or y another common situation is when you

need to talk about calling someone back maybe you called a

business to talk to someone who's not there or

maybe someone called your business to talk to someone who's not in

in any case we need to arrange a callback polite ways to arrange a

callback often use the expressions could you

or would you for example you might say could you ask john to call

me back or would you like tom to call you back

later and sometimes it's you who has to call someone back

because you're busy or have a poor signal in that case you might

ask would you mind if i called you back let's try some practice with asking for

a callback using these expressions once again repeat the examples after you

hear them could you have dave call me back at this

number

would you like me to ask mary to return your call

please have charlie call me when he's

available

would you mind if i called you back in 15 minutes

one useful expression that we just heard is to have someone do something

that is you can say i will have greg call you back tomorrow that just means

you are asking greg to call the person back

okay so we've practiced some useful expressions

but how do these sound in a conversation let's listen to a short dialogue between

carly and bob bob is calling carly's office

to talk with ginny schwartz but jenny isn't there let's listen

hello ace business machines hi this is bob turner may i speak with

jenny schwartz sorry but jenny's not in the office

right now okay could you have her call me back

please

does that make sense bob identifies himself

and asks to speak with ginny schwartz when carly tells him ginny's out of the

office bob asks her to have jenny call him back

now it's your turn to practice we'll repeat the dialogue

but this time we're going to beep out the second speaker's words

you will have to say those parts yourself

remember to identify yourself as bob turner and ask to speak with ginny

schwartz then you'll politely ask carly to have

ginny call you back ready here we go

hello ace business machines sorry but jenny's not in the office

right now

all right that's all for this lesson we've learned some great ways to

identify yourself on the phone ask for clarification

and talk about calling someone back we'll be back soon with some more useful

english expressions until then so long and happy learning