Welcome to English as a Second Language podcast number 968.
Recording an outgoing voicemail message.
This is English as a Second Language podcast episode 968.
I'm your host, Dr Jeff McQuillan, coming to you from the Center for Educational Development in beautiful Los Angeles, California.
Our website is eslpod.com.
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If you do, you can download the learning guide for this episode.
This episode is about recording a message that people will hear when they call you on the phone and you don't answer.
Let's get started.
I hate the sound of my own voice.
I always have.
When I'm speaking to an audience, I always sound forced and unnatural.
So when we had to set up our new voicemail system's outgoing message, It took me a few tries to get it right.
Hello, you've reached Martin Navra at McEw Corp.
I'm not available to take your call right now.
Please leave a message.
And I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Thank you for calling.
No, that wasn't quite right.
I gave it another shot.
Hello, You've reached the voicemail for Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'm in a meeting or away from my desk.
Please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
If your call is urgent, please contact Julia Mann at 555-434-3232.
Thank you.
But since I was leaving on vacation next week, I needed to record a temporary outgoing message as well.
This is what I came up with.
Hello.
You've reached the voicemail of Martin Navra, at McEwcorp.
I'll be on vacation from March 3rd through March 10th.
If you need to reach someone immediately, please call Julia Mann at 555-
434-3232 or dial 0 to reach reception.
Otherwise, please leave a message and I'll return your call when I return.
Thank you.
I was finally done.
The good thing is, whenever I call to retrieve my voicemail messages, I can bypass my outgoing message.
With any luck, I'll never have to hear my own voice again.
Ever.
Our story begins with Martin saying, I hate the sound of my own voice.
A lot of people say that they don't like to hear themselves in a recording.
The person in our story says that he hates the sound of his own voice.
I always have, he says.
When I'm speaking to an audience...
I always sound forced and unnatural.
Forced F-O-R-C-E-D here means trying to do something but having difficulty doing it in a natural way.
Something that is forced is something that you know the person is having difficulty doing.
Unnatural is the opposite of natural.
Natural is when you do something without thinking about it so that it seems completely normal.
Unnatural would be something that is somehow not normal.
Martin continues, So when we had to set up our new voicemail system's outgoing message...
To set up something or to set something up is a two-word phrasal verb meaning to get something ready, to do something, especially if you are using it for the first time.
If you buy a new television from a store and you bring it back to your house or apartment, you have to set it up.
You have to connect the cables and get it ready so that you can use it.
Martin is setting up his new voicemail system's outgoing message.
Voicemail is the... system that records a message when you are not there to answer the phone.
In the old days we used to have little answering machines with small cassette tapes in them that would record messages.
Nowadays it's more common that your phone company will set up a voicemail box.
They're called for you.
Basically it's a place on their computers that they store the messages that people leave for you, and then you can call in and get the messages from the computer that recorded them.
This is a system that is quite common in many places and it is often used in Companies so that the employees can receive messages even when they are not answering their phone.
Martin is setting up his new voicemail system's outgoing message.
Your outgoing, O-U-T-G-O-I-N-G message is the message that people hear when they call you.
That would be a typical outgoing message on someone's personal phone.
I can't come to the phone right now means I am not able to answer the phone.
Then you tell the person to leave a message and you will call them back later.
In our story, Martin is trying to set up his outgoing message, but he says It took me a few tries to get it right.
A try, T-R-Y, as a noun, is an attempt, your effort to do something.
Tries would be trying to do it more than once, many different attempts.
We then hear Martin's first outgoing message, the first one he records.
Hello, you've reached Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'm not available to take your call right now.
Please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Thank you for calling.
The outgoing message begins by Martin identifying himself, telling people his name.
This is always a good idea in your outgoing message to let people know what your name is, so they know that they have reached the correct person, that they have gotten the right person for whom they can leave a message.
Martin continues, I'm not available to take your call.
When you say you're not available, you mean you are not able to because you are busy doing other things like listening to podcasts or reading your email or watching videos of cats on YouTube.
You know, important things.
Martin says please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Please leave a message.
Please give me the information you want to give me, which should include, of course, your name and your telephone number.
And Martin says, I'll call you back as soon as I can.
To call someone back means to return their telephone call.
They call you, then you call them.
That's calling someone back.
Martin is not satisfied.
He doesn't like his first try at recording his outgoing message.
He says that he gave it another shot.
To give something another shot, S-H-O-T, means to try something again.
To give something a shot means to try it.
To give something another shot means to try it again, especially if you were not able to do it correctly or successfully the first time.
Now we hear Martin's second outgoing message.
Hello, you've reached the voicemail for Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'm in a meeting or away from my desk.
Please leave a message and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
If your call is urgent, please contact Julia Mann at 555-434-3232.
Thank you.
The second message that Martin records is a little different.
He says you've reached the voicemail for Martin Navra instead of you've reached Martin Navra.
This is more correct technically, because if you're listening to a recording you haven't reached, that is, you haven't successfully contacted Martin Navra.
You've only reached his voicemail.
Martin continues I'm in a meeting or away from my desk.
This is a very common thing for people to say in their outgoing message.
They're giving you basically a reason, an excuse for why they could not answer your phone call.
I'm in a meeting meaning I'm meeting with other people or I'm away from my desk.
To be away from your desk means not to be sitting at your desk so you can answer the phone.
They're saying to you that I'm not just sitting here playing video games and ignoring my phone.
I'm actually not here.
Well, that's what they say anyway.
Martin continues, If your call is urgent, please contact Julie Mann.
Something that is urgent, U-R-G-E-N-T, is something you need to do right away.
Something that has to be done immediately.
Martin is saying that if what you are calling me about needs to be acted on immediately, you should call this other person.
Here it's Julia Mann.
And then he gives Julia's telephone number.
Notice here the telephone number begins 555.
555 is often used in American movies and television shows when someone is giving their telephone number, because there are no telephone numbers in the United States that begin with 555.
So you know it's not a real number when someone says that their phone number is 555.
If you come to the United States and you meet a beautiful woman at a bar and she gives you her telephone number And it says 555.
It's not really her telephone number.
Sorry, dude.
Martin says that his second recording seemed okay.
But since I was leaving on vacation next week, he says I needed to record a temporary outgoing message as well.
Temporary means for a short time.
Martin has to record a special outgoing message for the time when he is going to be on vacation.
He says, this is what I came up with.
To come up with something means to invent something or to create something.
Hello, you've reached the voicemail of Martin Navra at McEw Corp.
I will be on vacation from March 3rd through March 10th.
If you need to reach someone immediately, please call Julia Mann at 555-434-3232 or dial 0 to reach reception.
Otherwise, please leave a message and I'll return your call when I return.
Thank you.
In this vacation message, Martin says I'm going to be on vacation from March 3rd through March 10th.
He continues, if you need to reach someone immediately.
As we mentioned earlier, to reach someone means to successfully contact someone, to actually talk to the person you are trying to talk to.
Martin says that if you need to talk to someone right now, please call Julia Mann, and then he gives her phone number.
Or he says dial zero to reach reception.
To dial, D-I-A-L, nowadays means to press a number on what's called a keypad for the telephone.
This verb to dial comes from telephones as they existed many years ago when I was growing up, that had actual round circles on them called dials.
A dial in general is the front of a watch or a clock that has numbers on it.
Well, in the old days, telephones had dials and you would move the dial around in a circle in order to call a telephone number.
We've kept that verb to dial to mean the same thing, but now you don't actually move your fingers around on a dial.
You simply press a number and it produces an electronic tone.
Martin says in his outgoing message that you can dial zero to reach reception.
Reception, R-E-C-E-P-T-I-O-N, is usually the area where people are greeted in an office building.
When you first come into an office, there's often someone sitting at a desk who is asks your name and who you are there to see, and so forth.
In this case, it would be the person who answers general phone calls for the company.
If you dial zero, you will reach someone who works for the company, who can then perhaps connect you with another person, or of whom you can ask questions in order to get the information you need.
We finish the story by Martin saying, I was finally done.
The good thing is, whenever I call to retrieve my voicemail messages, I can bypass my outgoing message.
To retrieve R-E-T-R-I-E-V-E means to get something often to get something back that you used to have.
We use this verb also when we are talking about getting your voicemail messages, hearing your voicemail messages.
Remember we talked about how phone companies record your message for you and then you call them and you can get your message from their computer.
You are retrieving your message.
You are getting it back, if you will.
To bypass B-Y-P-A-S-S is a verb meaning to get to where you want to go without having to go to a certain place by using a different route or path to get to where you want to go.
In this case, Martin wants to get to his voicemail messages so he can bypass his own outgoing message.
He doesn't have to listen to it.
He can take a different route to get to his message.
The word bypass is most commonly used when we're talking about driving.
It is a road or a freeway that goes around a big city, so that you don't have to go through the middle of the city.
You can bypass the city.
You can go around the city to get to where you want to go on the other side of the city.
Martin ends by saying with any luck, that is, if he is lucky I'll never have to hear my own voice again, ever.
Now let's listen to the story this time at a normal speed.
I hate the sound of my own voice.
I always have.
When I'm speaking to an audience, I always sound forced and unnatural.
So when we had to set up our new voicemail system's outgoing message, it took me a few tries to get it right.
Hello, you've reached Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'm not available to take your call right now.
Please leave a message, and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
Thank you for calling.
No, that wasn't quite right.
I gave it another shot.
Hello, you've reached the voicemail for Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'm in a meeting or away from my desk.
Please leave a message, and I'll call you back as soon as I can.
If your call is urgent, please contact Julia Mann at 555-434-3232.
Thank you.
That seemed okay, but since I was leaving on vacation next week, I needed to record a temporary outgoing message as well.
This is what I came up with.
Hello, you've reached the voicemail of Martin Navra at McEucorp.
I'll be on vacation from March 3rd through March 10th.
If you need to reach someone immediately, please call Julia Mann at 555-434-3232 or dial 0 to reach reception.
Otherwise, please leave a message and I'll return your call when I return.
Thank you.
I was finally done.
The good thing is, whenever I call to retrieve my voicemail messages, I can bypass my outgoing message.
With any luck, I'll never have to hear my own voice again, ever.
There's nothing forced or unnatural about the English used in our dialogues.
That's because they're written by the wonderful Dr. Lucy Say.
From Los Angeles, California, I'm Jeff McQuillan.
Thank you for listening.
Come back and listen to us again right here on ESL Podcasts.
English as a Second Language podcast is written and produced by Dr Lucy Say, hosted by Dr Jeff McQuillan.
Copyright 2014 by the Center for Educational Development.
