Coffee Break Spanish - CBS 2.30 | Making a phone call in Spanish

Episode Date: December 30, 2010

In lesson 30 of Coffee Break Spanish we’re dealing with one of the trickiest things to do in a foreign language: make telephone calls. When you can’t see the person to whom you are speaking, it makes things that bit more difficult! In this episode you’ll learn the standard phrases used when making phone calls and get some practice by listening to Mark and Kara. Again, this lesson uses previously learned language structures to create phrases in the language. Please note that lesson 30 of Season 2 was originally known as lesson 230 of Coffee Break Spanish. We have renumbered the lessons of each season as lessons 1-40 to make things more simple for our listeners.This season of Coffee Break Spanish features a total of 40 lessons, all of which will be included in the podcast feed. Just stay subscribed to the podcast to enjoy each episode. If you’d like to benefit from video versions, lesson notes and bonus audio materials, you can access the premium version of Coffee Break Spanish in the Coffee Break Academy.Don’t forget to follow Coffee Break Spanish on Facebook where we post language activities, cultural points and review materials to help you practise your Spanish. Remember - a few minutes a day can help you build your confidence in the language. Access the Coffee Break Spanish Facebook page here.If you’d like to find out what goes on behind the scenes here at Coffee Break Languages, follow @coffeebreaklanguages on Instagram.You can also check out our Coffee Break Spanish Twitter page and the Coffee Break Languages YouTube channel. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Hello, here we're de'estamos. Biennino's a Coffee Break Spanish. Welcome back to Coffee Break Spanish. It's Lesson 70, and in Lesson 70, we're going to be looking at making phone calls in Spanish. Now, that's quite tricky, because you can't see the other person that you're talking to. So hopefully you'll find this lesson useful.

Let's start off with looking at some useful vocabulary for talking about phones. First of all, the word for phone or telephone itself. El telephono. El telephino Now Kara, what can you tell me about that word based on the pronunciation or stress of that word?

El telephono There's an accent on the second E Exactly, because what can you tell me about the standard pronunciation or the standard stress on Spanish words? Think of words like cantado, pedro esta

The stress is on the second last vowel. Exactly, the second last syllable I suppose. So if there was no accent on telephone, it would be telephone. But that's wrong. So it's telephone. Telephano. So your phone number or my phone number, let's just say the phone number to begin with,

el numero de telephone. El number de telephone. Can you tell me anything about the spelling of number? There's an accent on the you? Yeah, because otherwise it would be. Numero. Numero, which is wrong again. So, tu numero de telephone, your phone number.

Tu number de telephone. To number de telephone. Okay, now that's obviously your, when we're being informal, tu number de telephone. But if you want to be formal, then you would say su number de telephone.

Su number de telephone. And my phone number would be my number de telephone. My number de telephone. My number of telephone. My number of telephone. Okay, to say, what is your phone number? You would use the word,

qual. What is your number of telephone? What is your number of telephone? Okay. Or, using the polite form, the Usted form, what is your phone number would be? What is su number of telephone? What is your number of telephone?

Very well. Another word that's useful to know when we're talking about phones and we're looking at the vocabulary aspects of this, first of all, is mark. Markar. Okay, literally to mark, but when we're marking a phone number, we're dialing. Okay, markar. Markar. I suppose, does one still dial the phone? Do you still dial someone on the phone?

Oh, you dial the number. You dial a number, even though that you're not actually dialing the number on the phones. Yeah. Okay. Dial a number is markar a number. Markar a number. Okay. So let's imagine the situation that you have marked that number.

Okay. Has marked the number? And what happens? Well, the person on the other end of the phone will say hello. However, in Spanish, you don't say hello in the phone. You say, diga. Diga. Diga.

Okay, or you might say, digame. Digame. digame. And we're actually sitting here putting your hands to our mouth to our faces as if we're answering the phone. It probably looks rather silly, but I'm glad this is not a video podcast at the moment.

So, diga, it literally means say. It comes from the verb death here, and it's the polite command form. So when you say diga, it means say, as in say why you're phoning or say who you are or something like that. And digame means say to me. So you've got the option there.

You might hear diga, you might hear, Digame doesn't really matter. Both of them kind of mean hello on the phone, even though they literally mean say or say to me. Now, what's the first thing you're likely to say when you phone someone? It's Kara. Okay, so you would say it's Kara.

I would probably say it's Mark. But the strange thing is that in English we say it is, which kind of means it is Kara who is phoning, yeah? Yes. Now Spanish is much more logical about this because they say, Soi,

Cara, or Soi, Mark, which of course means I am. Yeah. So rather than saying, It is Kara, or It is Mark, they say,

I am, Kara, or I am Mark. So, Diga. Soi Kara. Hello, Kara. How is you? Very, thank you.

Very well. Okay, so you would say, Soi, I am, and then give your name. Soi, Señor Lope. So I'm Mr. Lopez. Yeah, so I am Mr. Lopez, for example.

Okay, if you want to ask is someone there, okay, you can do this very, very simply in Spanish by using this. So is Pedro there? Ista Pedro? Okay, so it's Pedro there, esta Pedro. So Kara, how would you say? It's Kara here. Is Marta there? So, Kara, is Marta?

Very good. I'm cara, ista martha. Okay, and remember raising your voice at the end, is ta martha? Or you might want to say can I speak to? But remember in Spanish, you don't say can I speak to someone or to speak to someone, you speak with people in Spanish. So how would you say can I speak to or with rather?

Marta. Puedo? Can't talk with Marta? Exactly, using puido from poder to be able to. Can I or I can, Puedo. Pueto I'll I'll be back with Marta.

then you'd like to get more out of your coffee break Spanish experience, then you can sign up for the full premium version of our course, and that includes video versions of our lessons, where you'll see the words and phrases on the screen of your device while you listen. There's also a set of lesson notes for every lesson with vocabulary and additional examples and bonus audio. All of our premium courses are available at the Coffee Break Academy. That's at Coffeebreakacademy.com. Okay, let's get on with the lesson. Okay, let's think of another situation on the phone. You might be phoning to speak to a particular person, and this might be a more formal phone call, so you might not start with,

Soi Cara or Soi Mark, or whatever. You might just want to go straight into it and say, Can I speak to Mrs. Garcia, for example? I'll have to speak with Senora Garcia, for favor? I'll talk with Senora Garcia, for favor? And if you were to say something like that,

then it's more than likely that the person you're speaking to would say who's speaking or who would like to speak to Mrs. Garcia. And there is a Spanish phrase that's used really only in phone situations and that's, De Parte de Kien.

De part of who? Okay, so literally on behind, half of whom shall I say, wants to speak to Mrs. Garcia or something like that. De parte de who? De parte de chien? And in that situation, you could say,

de part de marg, so I'm Mark, soy signor penterton, or whatever. So, de parte de or so on. When you're phoning people, it's not always the case that whoever you're phoning is there. So how would you say, Marta is not there or Marta's not here? Marta,

no esth here? Yeah. In actual fight, there's an easier way of saying it. You could just say, Marta no-sta. Marta no-sta. So that kind of conveys the meaning of she's not here, okay, she's not with us.

Not in any deeper sense or anything like that. Marta no-est-a. Marka-no-est-a. Okay, so you might hear something like, lo-siento, I'm sorry. Lo-siento, but Marta no-estan in this moment. Lo-siento, but not-a-in-est-est-est in this moment.

I'm sorry, but Marta no is that in this moment. Or if you're phoning an office or something like that and the receptionist or the telephonist tries to get hold of a particular person and the line is busy, then they would say, Ista communikando. Okay, literally he or she is communicating

or it's communicating if you're really referring to the line. If the person is not there, then you might want to. to say when will he or she come back? And this is another future tense. We're dropping in a few futures here with a view to doing the future in the lessons coming up between lessons 71 and 80.

But let's just look at the future tense of to come back. The verb to come back is Volver. And when will he or she come back is when will he or she come back is when will be a. Volvera.

Volvera. When do you willvera? Wheno volvera? Volvera at 8. She'll be back at 8. Yeah. Okay.

If the person's not there, you might want to leave a message. A message. Yeah. So how would you say, can I leave? I don't think we've done leave. To leave is

Dejar. Deja. This is a good sentence for practicing the G sound. We did our double hours last week. Now we need to practice our H. Pue. Can I leave a message for Jorge?

Can I leave a message for Jorge? Can I leave a message for Jorge? Can I leave a message for Jorge? Can I leave a message for Jorge? Okay, that's quite a tricky one. Um, your message might include your phone number, so how would you say my phone number is? My number of telephone is... Yeah, in Spain, phone numbers,

tend to be given in threes. In other countries, they tend to be given as double numbers, for example, 21, 35, 71 and so on. But in Spain, you would be given numbers in threes. So 6.5, 1, 3-3-9,

8, 2, 1. Something like that. So, if you want to ask someone to say that you've called, then you could use this construction here. It's quite a tricky one, so listen carefully. Pue de So that's can you tell to him or to her?

Pue decile that's that's called Mark. Pue decile like a called Mark. Try repeating that first of all. Pue decilely that has leonado Mark. Now before we get into breaking this phrase up completely,

let's think first of all what tense that is. A-l-l-l-l-mark or Mark has-llado. The perfect. Yeah, because it's a part of A-V-er plus a past participle. A-l-l-l-l-l-a-l-l-o. So, can you tell to him or say to him that has called Mark? Obviously, we would say that Mark has called. You can see both in Spanish.

You could say, Puede-de-de-de-de-le-c-a-l-l-l-mark. I would suggest that probably the second. one is slightly more Spanish. It just sounds a little more Spanish. Puede say that has called Mark. Puede say that has been called Mark. And just while

we're talking about the perfect tense, to say I have dialed a wrong number, you use quite an interesting word is equivocarse. It means to make a mistake. Equivocarse. Echibocarse.

Now putting this into the perfect tense, me e equivocado I 'm sorry, me he equivocado. So that on it soon, me eh equivocado

means I have made a mistake. But when you say me eh equivocado de number, then it means I've made a mistake of the number so I've dialed the wrong number. Lo siento, me eh equivocado de number.

Lo siento. Me e equivocado So if the person that you're calling says, what would that mean? I'm sorry, sea equivocado de number. What would that mean? I'm sorry, I've dealt the wrong number. In this case, the person is saying to you,

se ha equivocado, so you've dealt out of the number. And it's the polite form, the formal form. Usted, se a equivocado de number. Let's put all this to practice with a little conversation now. In this conversation, I'm going to be playing the part of Antonio's father. And Kara's going to be phoning to speak to her boyfriend. Okay, here goes.

I'm going to talk with Antonio, for favor. Are you, Kara? Yes, I am I. Antonio no is in this moment. I'm sorry. When will be back? No, I know. Has to have you been with her mother?

Can you say that he's called? Sure, that's, I, yeah. Thanks. Adia. Hopefully all that made sense and we'll be going through this in more detail in this week's bonus podcast.

And that's where we're going to leave it today for this edition of Coffee Break Spanish. Thanks for joining us and we hope it's been useful. You can join the Coffee Break Spanish community on Facebook at Facebook.com slash Coffee Break Spanish and follow at Learn Spanish on Twitter. Mucha gratis and hasta Pronto. This is the production of the

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