Hello everyone and welcome back to ItalianPod101.com. |
My name is Desy. |
Mi chiamo Desy. |
And in this video, we're going to talk about phone call phrases. |
Frasi al telefono. |
Telefono is phone and when you call someone, you can use the verb chiamare, so literally |
to call, but that works on the phone as well, chiamare, or telefonare, to telephone, telefonare. |
Of course, when you talk on the phone, you have to say things depending on the situation |
and depending on what you want to know, what you want to convey. |
So it goes like a normal conversation, right? |
But in this video, we're going to check together the things that you can only hear on the phone. |
First of all, because it's the most important, but also because it's literally the first |
thing you say when you pick up the phone is pronto, pronto. |
It's in between an exclamation and a question, like pronto or pronto. |
It works both ways. |
The thing is pronto means ready. |
I think Italians are the only ones that have it. |
You basically say I'm ready. |
And if you think about it, it's really funny because it comes from the past when there |
was a switchboard, a contact center, you know, because it had to put you in contact, right? |
So when you called them, they called the person that you wanted to call and they asked them |
if they were ready. |
So the moment they said, the other part said I'm ready, they switched the line to you, |
right? |
So that's basically the first thing that you hear. |
The other person being like pronto, pronto, yes, I'm ready, ready. |
So that's that, like that. |
I think like most people don't even know that that's the reason, but I searched because |
I was really curious, like it's a really fun thing to say, right? |
Ready, ready. |
Yes, of course you're ready. |
You're picking up the phone already. |
But yeah, so pronto. |
And then the other person would say who they are or like ciao, sono Marco. |
And then you actually say hi, ah ciao, come stai? |
So pronto is really the first thing. |
And if you're not sure that the other person can hear you, you can repeat that even if |
you're the one who called. |
So you're calling me, I say pronto, pronto, pronto, like you can't really hear well, right? |
Another thing that you can say to make sure that the connection is stable is mi senti?, |
mi senti?, can you hear me? |
But this is informal. |
If you want to be more formal, like let's say you don't know the person you're calling, |
you say mi sente?, mi sente?, which is the third person and as you know, that makes |
it formal, mi senti?, mi sente?, sì, sì, ti sento or sì, sì, la sento. |
And then you can start the conversation. |
If you don't know who's calling and the other person didn't say the name, you can ask chi |
parla, scusi, chi parla?, sorry, who's speaking, chi parla?, talks, who is speaking, chi parla? |
or con chi sto parlando?, who am I speaking to, who am I talking with, scusi, con chi |
parlo? |
You can always add scusi to make it more formal anytime, scusi, mi sente, scusi, chi parla? |
but I'm not going to repeat that every time because it's a bit redundant but you know |
that you can use that if you want to be extra polite, okay. |
Let's assume that I ask who am I talking to and the other guy says, ah, it's me, Marco |
and I'm like, I don't know you or you are the one who calls and ends up finding out |
that that's not the person you are searching for, then you can say ho sbagliato numero, |
ho sbagliato numero, scusi, ho sbagliato numero, mi dispiace, ho sbagliato numero, sorry, |
I got the wrong number, excuse me, my mistake, ho sbagliato numero, it's the wrong number. |
If you want to suggest that the other person got the wrong number, you can say forse, maybe, |
ha sbagliato numero, lei or tu, hai sbagliato numero. |
Anyway, numero sbagliato means wrong number, it's something that can save you, so keep |
that in mind. |
Let's assume you got the right number but the wrong person, so you're talking to me |
but you wanted to talk to Maria, c'è Maria?, is Maria there, can I talk to Maria, posso |
parlare a Maria?, posso parlare con Maria? and then I'll just be polite and say, un attimo |
per favore, one moment please, resti in linea, resta in linea, stay on the line, wait a second, |
just wait and then probably I'll put you on hold and go look for Maria, right? |
Linea is the line that you're on, so if the line gets disconnected and you have to call |
back, then you can say, è caduta la linea, cadere means to fall, right, and we use that |
with the line, so basically the line dropped, the line fell, è caduta la linea, there |
was no connection anymore, I got cut off or somewhere where reception is not good, I can |
just say, non c'è linea, there's no line technically, non c'è linea, posso richiamarti |
later, dopo, can I call you back, posso richiamarti, can I call you back, richiamare, |
chiamare to call, call back, richiamare or something else that we say when we have to |
let's say, we agree on getting some pizzas for tonight and they say, okay, I'm going |
to get those, I'll give you a call to let you know when I'll be there, right, ti faccio |
uno squillo, I'll ring you, I'll give you a call, sometimes that means that you don't |
really have to pick up, it's just to let you know that I'm calling you, like you know, |
just to make the phone ring so you know that it's me, if we had a prior agreement on that, |
otherwise it also means that I'm going to call you, but for a really brief call, I'm |
just going to let you know this that we just talked about, ti faccio uno squillo, for example, |
ti faccio uno squillo quando esco di casa, assuming I'm coming at your place, I'm going |
to your place, I say, I'll ring you, I'll give you a call when I'm going out, so you |
know about the time that I'll take to get there, right, so yeah, this is basically what |
we say at the end of the call and that's only something that we say at the end, I mean, |
you can say that at the beginning too, but it's more common at the end to thank you for |
the call, grazie per la chiamata, thank you for calling me, grazie per la chiamata, thank |
you for the call, and yeah, for the rest, it depends on the conversation that you have |
to have, but something else, the last thing that I want you to remember is the word |
So literally, telefonica is something that has to do with the telephone, right, and segreteria |
is the reception, so in this case, segreteria telefonica, all together, means voicemail, |
answering machine. |
Chiamami quando hai tempo. Ciao! |
That would be a normal voicemail message. |
So yeah, this is basically it about phone phrases, let me know what you would leave |
in my voicemail and if there was something in particular that you liked, I really liked |
the pronto thing, and yeah, I hope you liked it, thank you for watching and remember that |
if you still haven't done it, you can sign up for your free lifetime account on ItalianPod101.com |
and download our PDF lessons in order to learn Italian in the easiest, fastest and most fun |
way possible. I'll see you soon, bye bye, ciao ciao! |
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