Lesson Transcript

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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