Welcome to a new episode of English Vocabulary Booster.
My name is Lara and I'm a SALSA-certified English teacher.
Learning new vocabulary usually takes a long time, but we'll do it in a way that's easy, quick and efficient.
In every episode, we'll learn how to use five new English words or expressions, so that you too can start speaking like a native.
So let's get learning!
What's going on you guys?
How's life going?
I hope you're doing well.
I am currently pre-recording this episode because I'm hopefully, if our flight doesn't get canceled, I'm going to be flying out in a couple of days and finally be on vacation.
I don't even remember what that feels like, so I'm super excited.
All right, let's get right into it.
And today we're going to talk about on the phone.
Hey, Grandma, it's me, Meg.
Meg, hi, sweetie.
How are you?
Grandma, I can't hear you very well.
What's wrong with your phone?
Oh, I don't know.
I got this new phone and I'm not sure how it works.
Grandma, you're breaking up.
I think you're not getting good reception.
Could you try going to another room?
Okay, let me just go to the kitchen.
Is this better?
It's a bit better, I think.
So tell me, honey, how's the- Grandma?
Grandma?
Oh.
Grandma?
Oh, Meg.
It's you.
We got cut off.
No, Grandma.
You hung up on me.
So anyway, I was just calling to... Grandma?
What are you doing?
Hello?
Grandma?
Is everything okay?
Hey, Cav.
It's me, Meg.
I think Grandma dialed your number by mistake.
Oh, look at that.
My two favorite grandchildren on the phone with me at the same time.
I didn't know we could do that.
Oh my goodness.
What a stressful conversation.
I really do feel for poor Meg.
Let's begin with expression number one, breakup.
Grandma, you're breaking up.
We're not talking about relationships here.
It's not that breakup.
We're talking about being on the phone.
So if the person you're talking to on the phone is breaking up, can you hear them well or not?
No.
If the person you're talking to is breaking up, then you cannot hear them very well.
And why can you not hear them well?
Because they sound distant or because you can only hear part of what they're saying?
That's because you can only hear part of what they're saying.
So when someone is breaking up, they kind of, they are trying to, but okay.
I don't know how that turned out.
I'm going to listen to it later and probably be very embarrassed, but that's how it sounds when someone is breaking up.
What could cause you to break up?
Well, if you're in an area or a place or a house that doesn't get good reception, we're going to talk about this expression in the second set of questions.
But if you don't get good reception, so if you don't get a strong signal, then maybe you could start breaking up during a phone conversation.
If you call someone and they're breaking up, what do you do?
Oh my gosh, that is so frustrating.
If that happens and the person that I'm talking to starts breaking up, then I think I would give him maybe a few seconds to One minute tops.
And then after that time I either call them back or I just like I tell them that we're going to talk another time because it's so frustrating.
Extraction number two, get good reception.
I think you're not getting good reception.
If you get good reception, how will the quality of your calls be?
If you get good reception and the other person, the one that you're talking to, also gets good reception, then the quality of your call is going to be really really good.
So you're going to hear each other perfectly.
Have you ever stayed at a place where you didn't get good reception?
And what did you do?
Did you find a solution?
Not really.
I've been pretty lucky.
I think in all of the houses that I stayed at, I always managed to get good reception.
Maybe there was like one room where I didn't get very good reception, but then you could always move to a different room and get good reception.
So yeah.
Expression number three, get cut off.
We got cut off.
If you're talking on the phone and you get cut off, Can you still speak to the other person?
No, because the line disconnects.
You can't keep talking to the other person.
If you get cut off, does the line disconnect suddenly or gradually?
It's a sudden thing.
I'm talking to someone and then all of a sudden... There you go.
See, just see what I did there.
Um, so yeah, you kind of that's why you say cut off, because it feels like you know you're being cut and you can't keep talking.
If you get cut off, what do you usually do?
Wait for the other person to call you back or do you call them back yourself?
So this is a big dilemma and I think the whole world should agree on a solution to this problem, because if you're talking to someone and then, for whatever reason, you get cut off, then you're always like okay, should I call them back?
Should they call me back?
So I think we should like all find a solution to this problem.
Normally, because I'm a very impatient person, I would call them back right away.
And then if I realize that they're also trying to call me, I was just like not do anything for a couple minutes and give them time to call me back.
But there's always like that moment of like, should I wait for them to call me or should I call them?
So yeah.
Yeah.
Expression number four, hang up on someone.
No, grandma, you hung up on me.
If you hang up on someone, do you end the conversation or do you keep talking?
If you hang up on someone, you end the conversation.
And do you end it by saying goodbye or without any notice?
Well usually, like you can say goodbye, but hanging up on someone that means that the other person still wants to talk, but you end the conversation, you hang up the phone and you don't let them say whatever it is that they want it to say.
So why would you hang up on someone?
Sometimes it's a mistake.
You know you're talking, the other person's talking and all of a sudden you know you press the wrong button and you hang up.
So you hang up on them, but you didn't want to.
Other times you do it on purpose because, I don't know, you're angry.
You know, sometimes you just you don't want to talk to the other person, but the other person wants to talk to you and you get really frustrated.
You want to end the conversation and so you hang up on them, which is really rude.
Have you ever hung up on someone?
So not on purpose, a lot.
Just the other day I was trying to have a.
I think it was like a 30-minute conversation with my boyfriend on the phone.
And I hung up on him like a good five times just because I can't use my phone.
On purpose, I've done it.
But I stopped doing it because I realized that it was very rude.
But, you know, in the past, I...
Did hang up on someone, unfortunately.
Expression number five, dial a number.
I think grandma dialed your number by mistake.
If you dial a number, do you plan to start a phone call or end a phone call?
If you dial a number, you plan to start a phone call.
You want to call someone.
And what sound do many phones make when you dial a number?
Many phones are going to make this sound.
So do you still dial numbers nowadays when you have to call someone?
I think it's very unusual nowadays.
What do you guys think?
I honestly don't do it.
I don't know.
I think I know maybe two phone numbers by heart and all the other ones that just have them saved on my phone.
And I absolutely like – that's why I never dial them because I wouldn't know what to dial.
But there's actually like my – house phone number, the one in Italy, that I still it's easier for me because it's a very short phone number.
It's easier for me to dial the number and press, like each individual key, rather than look it up on my phone.
So yeah, I think that's really the only time I dial a phone number.
And that is it for today.
And remember, if you want to access the transcript, as well as lots of other resources, visit enboocom.
That is E-N-B-O-O-O dot com.
Have a great day.
