字幕列表 影片播放
-
Hello. My name's Benjamin. I'm a teacher on this website, obviously, for engVid. And today
-
we're going to deal with talking on the phone and trying to understand what they are saying.
-
We're going to ask them to raise their voices, to slow down, we're going to ask them to repeat
-
themselves, and we're going to cover what to do when you just don't understand.
-
So, I'm hungry. I've been working all day. I need to call a pizza. That's it. Okay. Huh?
-
I can't hear them. They're being too quiet. They're quiet as a mouse. So I need to say:
-
"Could you speak a little louder please?" Okay? So: "Could", this is a polite way of
-
asking a question. Okay? "Yeah, hang on. I'm... Sorry. I'm just talking to my friends on the
-
internet. Okay? Hang on. I'll be a couple of minutes." So this is a polite way of speaking.
-
"Could you speak a little louder?" A little, a little louder. Okay? "Please? Could you
-
speak a little louder please?"
-
Or another way of saying this: "Sorry, what did you say?" I didn't hear what they said.
-
So this is interesting. Look at the word order, here. "What did you say?" I put my auxiliary
-
verb "did", "What did you say?" before the subject, here. "Sorry, what did you say?"
-
I'm asking them to repeat. Okay?
-
Or, last one: "Please speak up." Please. A little louder. I need to hear. "Please speak
-
up." Speak up. Okay? If you don't remember anything else: "speak up" is more volume.
-
Okay? "Please speak up. I can't hear you very well." "I can't", so this obviously short
-
for: "I cannot hear you very well." I'll just tell him. "Sorry, please speak up. I can't
-
hear you very well." Okay, he's speaking nice and loudly now, I can hear him.
-
But now he's talking too fast, he's saying: "Blablablablablablablablablablablablabla."
-
That's no good. "Yeah. No, hang on. I need to talk to them again. Sorry." So, if I need
-
to tell them to calm down, to slow down-okay?-I could say: "I'm struggling to understand.
-
Please could you speak slower?" Okay? I've written... This is optional, this bit: "I'm
-
struggling". So struggling, that fight, I'm fighting to understand. You're just talking
-
too fast. But if you want to keep it nice and simple, just say: "Please could you speak
-
slower?" Slower. Slow, a little bit more slow. Okay? Got it? "I'm sorry. I'm struggling to
-
understand. Please could you speak slower?"
-
Great, so now they're talking nice and loudly and they're talking slowly, which is what
-
we want. I can understand now. "Huh? What? Huh?" They said something. I... I didn't...
-
I didn't... I didn't understand, so I say... "Yeah. One minute." "Sorry, would you mind
-
repeating that?" Okay? This is another polite way of phrasing: "Would you mind? Do you mind?"
-
It's a nice way of asking someone to do something. Repeating, "repeat" with "ing" that, what
-
they just said. Okay? We'll try this. "Sorry. Would you mind repeating that please?" Busy,
-
oh they're very busy at the moment. Okay, that's fine.
-
This pizza company, I don't understand what they're saying again. What's going on? So...
-
"Yeah, yeah, yeah. One sec. One sec." So I need to say: "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch
-
that." Okay? So: "I'm sorry", so short for: "I am sorry, I didn't"-didn't - did not-"quite"
-
not quite, just a little bit... "I didn't quite catch", catch, if I catch something,
-
I understand, I get it. "I'm sorry, I didn't... I didn't quite catch that." Okay? "Catch"
-
means to understand, to hear. "I'm sorry, I didn't quite catch that."
-
"Did you say that you...? Did you say that you only do vegetarian pizzas?" Okay? "Did
-
you say that...?" So I am... I am now repeating what they said. "Did you say...?" okay? Past
-
simple. You did. "Did you say...?" But with... This is the auxiliary again. "Did you say
-
that you only do vegetarian peache-, pizzas?" Or I could say: "Let me just check that. You
-
said that you only do vegetarian pizzas. Is that right?" Okay? So I'm checking. "Is that
-
right?" Is that what you said? Okay? "Yes. Sorry, sir. We only do vegetarian pizzas."
-
Okay? And then I can choose vegetarian and I say: "Yes", or I say: "No", and I choose
-
someone else. Okay?
-
So I hope that gives you a better idea of how to really understand your telephone conversations.
-
Okay? Just to recap: we got ways of asking them to raise the volume a little, to slow
-
down, to repeat themselves, and what to do if you think they'd said something but you're
-
not quite sure.
-
Okay, if this is in a business context and you know the person, you could just write
-
them an email to say: "Hello, Mr. Toogood. We had a conversation yesterday. Did you say
-
that you will come and see me tomorrow?" So you could write an email to check the meaning
-
of the conversation.
-
Great. Thank you so much for watching today. There is a quiz on the engVid website, so
-
do have a go at that. And feel free to subscribe to my YouTube channel; going to have lots
-
of great videos on there. If you really want to take your English to the next level, you
-
might want to take some private tutoring with me, so get involved with my Facebook website.
-
It's Exquisite English. Should be a link here below.
-
Thanks so much. Have a good rest of your day.
