English Listening Practice: How to Receive and Leave Voicemail Messages

Welcome back! Lesson 3 deals with receiving and leaving messages. First, we'll listen to some examples of messages left in voicemail and think about what makes them effective or not. Next, you'll look at the language involved in leaving messages, especially numbers and letters in case you need to give phone numbers, addresses, or websites. And last, you'll practice leaving some messages yourself and understand, name, phone number, times, and email addresses from a telephone call. By the end of this lesson, you'll be able to use appropriate language to leave a message or ask someone to return a call, state details such as phone numbers, addresses, and time and date comprehensively, and deduce a name, phone number, times, and email address from a telephone call. So, what makes a good message? Just as in a person-to-person conversation, the person listening to voicemail should be able to understand who you are and why you're calling. In addition, that person needs to be able to call you back or do whatever other action is required.

Listen to the messages. Would you be able to fill in this message form? To listen to your unread voice messages, press one. Hello, this is Joe. I thought you had email last week. Thanks. To listen to your unread voice messages, press one. Hi, Pat Wilson. How are you doing? I'm thinking about coming away in the next couple of weeks and I thought maybe I'd stop by and see if we could work out some kind of agreement to, uh, well, let's just talk about it when I see you. Um, let's see. Oh, my phone number is 206-5003. Talk to you later. To listen to your unread voice messages, press one. Hello, this is Phil Sampar. That's F-I-L-S-O-N as in Nancy. Par P. That's P-S-N people. A-R-R. I'm with SQL Electronics and I'm calling to find out if I can come in to show you our new product line next week. My number is 212-480-2376. Thank you. Okay, so which one had all the information you needed? The third one, right? Let's look at the others.

Leaving a message. Hello, this is Joe. I sent you an email last week. Thanks. Here's the script for the first voicemail. This caller gave only his first name and no phone number. He doesn't explain what he would like you to do. Hi, it's Pat Wilson. How are you doing? I'm thinking about coming away in the next couple of weeks and I thought maybe I'd stop by and see if we could work out some kind of agreement to, uh, well, let's just talk about it when I see you. Um, let's see. Oh, my phone number is 206-500-003. Talk to you later. This caller clearly didn't plan what to say in his message and in the end, he never said why he was calling. He didn't sound very professional, did he? And he gave his phone number very quickly just at the end. You would need to listen several times to write it down. Really, this is worse than no message at all. Hello, this is Phil Simplor. That's F-I-L-S-O-N as in Nancy. Par P. That's P-S-N people. A-R-R. I'm with SQL electronics and I'm calling to find out if I can come in to show you our new product line next week. My number is 212-480-2376. Thank you. So why was this last message so much better? Well, first, the caller gave his name and his company's name. He also spelled his name. And then he explained why he was calling and he gave his number clearly. This makes it easy for the person who gets this message.

So the three important things to remember are to give your name, your company, the purpose of your call, and your phone number or other contact information. As you saw in Filsen Par's message above, much of the language you use in leaving a message is similar to what you study in lesson one of this module. However, there are a few differences. Let's take a look at some of them. In most messages, you request some action, for example, for the person to call you. How formal you are depends on your relationship with the person you're asking and on what you're asking. If you're making a cold call, that is, a call to someone who doesn't know you at all, you have no idea if he or she will call you back, so you might need more indirect language. If you know the person, or if it's a routine call, and you expect that they'll call you back, you can be more direct.

Here is some language that you might also need. I'm returning your call. Sorry I missed your call earlier. Sometimes you have to leave the message with another person, for example, an assistant or a receptionist. As you listen to this example, think about how this form will get filled out. Hello. Hi, is Ms. Peterson in. Oh, Ms. Peterson isn't in right now. Could I take a message? Yes, this is Nancy Freason. Could you ask her to give me a call? It's about our meeting tomorrow. Of course. It's Nancy F-R-E-E? No, I-E-F-R-I-E-S-E-N. Oh yes, thank you. And your number. 429-6029-438. Okay, I'll give her the message. Thanks. Thank you. So let's take a look at ways to leave a message with a receptionist or assistant. Here are some examples. I'm returning her call. Would you give her a message? Could you ask him to call me? Please ask him to call me. Please tell her I'm going to be late.

Before we go on, let's take a short quiz. What's the best way to complete these sentences? When you leave a message, you often need to give numbers and you may need to spell something. Let's look first at numbers. Listen to how the speaker says these phone numbers. 602-369-4281-730-801-6500. We often say oh instead of zero, 602. And then we read the numbers one by one. I mean instead of saying 369, we say 3-6-9. We also take a little break after groups of numbers. In the United States, numbers are broken up like this. 602-369-4281. Your turn. Try saying the next one. 730-801-6500. Some people say the last four numbers in a different way. So you may hear people say, for example, 42-81 or for the last one, 6500 or 65 hundred. But the most important thing is to be clear and easy to understand. So saying single numbers is the best idea. And in this case, with the two zeros together, we might say 6500 because 6500 is easier to understand than 6500. Say each phone number. Then listen.

Begin now. Area code 206-623-4875. Next, listen to some telephone numbers. You may want to write them down on a piece of paper and then check your answers. Number one. 579-204-1068. Number two. 207-799-1500. Number three. My number is 650-818-1492. And I'm an extension 1002. Number four. So here's my number. It's Area Code 502-893-2409. Number five. The country code is 353. And then the Area Code 051. And then my number is 1437-0969. So let me give it to you again. 353-051-1437-0969.

How about times and dates? Sometimes saying and understanding these can be tricky. Let's look at the way we say times first. We only say o'clock on the hour. That is at one o'clock, two o'clock, etc. We usually use the number 30 for the half hour. That is we say 1:30. Some people say half past one instead. In addition to just saying the number, it's 3:10. You can also say it's 10 after 3 or 10 past 3. For the quarter hour, we can say 3:15 or we can say a quarter after 3 or a quarter past 3. And for times leading up to the hour, you can of course say the number time 3:40, but you can also say 20 to 4. 20 of 4. For 3:45, you can also say a quarter to 4 or a quarter of 4. Okay, your turn. Practice saying these times. Then listen to the possibilities. 4 o'clock. 4:30, half past 4. 5:15, a quarter past 5, a quarter after 5. 5:40, 20 to 6. 5:45, a quarter to 6, a quarter of 6. Now listen, what time do you hear? You may want to write down the times on a piece of paper and then check your answers.

Number one, 9:40. Number two, our meeting's at 2:30. Number three, sorry, I'm running a bit late. I probably won't be there until 10 after 3. Number four, that restaurant gets pretty busy. So let's meet outside at a quarter of 12. Number five, do you mind if we change our meeting to 1:15? Sometimes in a message or when you're talking to someone, you have to give your email or a website name spelling out the letters. So first, let's talk about the symbols that are often part of these. The end of my email address and the University of Washington website is at udub.edu. Other common symbols are slash, backslash, hyphen, and underscore. Try saying these parts of email addresses and websites. Then listen. d.mac at udub.edu. Dale underscore cocks at gmail.com.

If an email or a website has a word, we say the word first before we spell it. Let's practice. First, see if you can catch these. You may want to write them down on a piece of paper and then check. Here's my email. It's t underscore chin. That's t as in Tom underscore c-h-e-n as in Nancy at gmail.com. And our website is citydata.com. That's city hyphen data.com. Notice that the speaker said t is in Tom. That's because it's hard to hear the difference between some letters, especially on the phone. Here are the ones that you might need to help people understand. You can use a common name, a common noun, or the name of a city. These are just examples. And it's always a good idea to repeat these. You can say, again, that's underscore chin. Or let me repeat that for you. Okay, it's your turn now. Practice spelling your name, giving your phone number, saying your email, and giving your company's website address. If you don't have a website, use one of the examples here.

So now you know what to say in a message. And you understand how to state the symbols that we use in email and in websites. Your final task in this module is to record a voicemail message yourself. Give your name, and then spell it. Explain why you're calling. Ask for a call back. Then leave your phone number. And don't forget to say thanks at the end of the call.