Phone calls
Answering, asking for someone and leaving a message. Phone Japanese is full of polite set lines. The ones marked "listening" are keigo from Everyday Japanese 6 that you only need to recognise; the ones marked "fixed line" are short lines to learn whole and say as they are. Tap to hear any line. The bar at the bottom plays a hands-free drill for walking.
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25 phone words and lines
Each card shows a word or line with a sentence from a call to a company, the school or the family. Six are from earlier lessons.
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How a call to a company goes
Most calls follow the same steps. You say the short lines; the receptionist uses the long polite ones.
| Who | Japanese | English |
|---|
- Listening lines are keigo. They use polite forms like おります and いたします from Everyday Japanese 6. Just learn to recognise them.
- No さん for their own staff. A receptionist says , not , when talking to you about a colleague.
- Phone numbers. Say the digits one by one, with の for the dash: 03-1234 is ゼロさんの、いちにさんよん.
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Four patterns to use today
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Say it in Japanese
Say each one out loud before you reveal the answer. Getting close counts.