This is the Business English Podcast, episode 153.
Please hold a moment for amazing Business English vocabulary.
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Hello, Aubrey. How's it going? I'm great, Lindsay.
How are you today? I'm feeling good. Ready to talk about business English.
Let's get into it. What are we talking about?
Yeah, I have a question for you. Okay. Lindsay, what is elevator music?
Oh, elevator music is the worst thing. We never want to hear it.
In my mind, elevator music is historically was probably the music they played in the elevator, right in a building, a corporate office building.
But it's more often used when you're put on hold on the phone.
We now call it hold music a lot, right? And it's usually not the best music they want to hear.
And it just loops over and over. Oh, and the worst.
Yeah, go ahead. Remake of whatever song.
Oh, it's so bad. And the worst thing is, is that I think companies must buy like packages or something because I hear there's one tune when I call certain software companies we work with.
It's the same tune that I hear. And it's just, ooh.
Yes. You guys, we're talking about being on hold today.
A lot of us working in business English, we're going to make phone calls.
We have to put people on hold. We get put on hold.
We actually recently talked about this a little bit on the All Ears English podcast.
If you missed episode 2046, we were talking about pet peeves.
And both Lindsay and I shared a pet peeve that has to do with being on hold on the phone.
So if you want to know what those are, go and check out that episode.
Be sure to hit follow so you don't miss episodes of All Ears English as well.
Yeah, hit follow over there on All Ears English and then come back and hit follow on Business English.
That way, the episodes just drop right into your queue.
You don't have to go out and search for them, guys.
You will get them automatically. All right.
So today's episode is inspired by a question.
Oh my gosh, Aubrey, would you read this question?
It's a big one. I will read it. Yes. Okay.
This listener said, I really love the All Ears English podcast that you guys make almost every day.
I've followed it for almost a year and I've improved a lot since then.
I I love that. Awesome. We love it. This is Fabian Sanabria from Colombia.
Thank you, Fabian. We appreciate that. Yes.
I'm trying to get a higher level in English, but I think before I need to build a solid base.
Sometimes I feel a bit confused with two verbs.
Those are let versus leave. I've heard people who use them sometimes interchangeably.
For example... The other day I heard, I am going to let you for a moment on hold.
And I heard as well, I'm sorry for the delay because I left you on hold for a while.
I understand the meaning of both phrases, but honestly, I don't know when to use every verb in particular.
I'd really appreciate if you could give me feedback about this.
Thank you so much for the amazing job that you guys do.
Greetings, Fabian from Colombia. Such a good question. yes so thank you to fabian for sending in your question a great way to send us your question guys is to write a review i do want to call out our reviewers awesome students and listeners who left us reviews uh wherever they listen s mostafa from iran ibai old brahim from martinia jimen pals from mexico guys thank you so much for those reviews and if you want to see your name announced on the show a good way to do it is to let us know what you think of the show in a review Right, Aubrey?
Yes. Awesome. Definitely. We love those reviews.
We read them. Send us a question. Let us know if you like the show.
We love it. Yeah, let's get into the answers here for our listener, Fabian.
What do we want to say to Fabian? We know a lot of us, whenever we're making phone calls or answering phone calls, like this is a thing that people have to be put on hold.
And it's interesting, you might not think about it until you go to put someone on hold how to say that, right?
And you will hear lots of different options.
It says especially applicable to anyone working in customer service or office administration, but it comes up for anyone working in business English.
Oh, my gosh. So the first one that Fabian mentioned, let you hold.
What do we think about that? Right. So you might hear I'm going to let you hold a moment or you can let me hold while you find out.
Right. So you'll definitely hear this. I don't use it as commonly as some other phrases that we're going to share in just a minute, but definitely grammatically accurate to say I need to let you hold.
Interesting. I don't use this at all. So it's a little different for me, this one.
But yeah, I feel like the second one is more like instead of saying I'm going to let you hold, I think there are more natural ways to say that.
But I do feel like I will hear someone say, you can let me hold a minute while you find out if they're like, oh, I need to check about that.
Right. Right. Yeah. Permission. And yeah, I could see that more in context for sure.
Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So then the second one Fabian mentioned was leave you on hold or in the past tense, I left you on hold.
They left me on hold. What are some sentences we might hear this in?
So you might hear, do you mind if I leave you on hold or sorry, I left you on hold for so long. that's not good i know right that happens but yeah this again sure it's grammatically accurate but again doesn't feel quite as natural what do you think lindsay would you say it this way oh something doesn't feel quite right about either of these two for me completely doesn't feel completely natural so i hope we have a better option for our listeners today Yeah, I will more often here for this, put you on hold.
Mind if I put you on hold? Or just can you hold a moment?
So I have heard people use leave, let in this way, but much less often.
And for me personally, I would go with these other options.
What do you think, Lindsay? Because it's the action, right?
We're putting them on hold. You're taking the action of pressing a button and putting the phone down, right?
If you're saying that. And so it just works.
That is the chunk that I have always heard and used.
Yes. So our main answer here, this is our number three, is to use neither of these.
Not because they're grammatically inaccurate, but they just don't sound quite as native and natural.
We would usually opt for either, can I put you on hold?
Or do you mind if I put you on hold? Which is a very polite way to ask to put someone on hold.
Right. Or is it okay if I put you on hold a moment?
And, you know, a bonus for today will be kind of breaking out these other ways to ask if you can do something, right?
Can I, do you mind if, and is it okay if?
I love those. That would be a whole other episode.
I'll bring it for another day, but very useful today as well. yeah so many options right and you can just say do you mind holding or do you mind holding a moment right there's no options to use that all of those sound more native and natural i would use them more often rather than the can i let you hold or can i leave you on hold you just won't at least in american english in u.s business english you won't hear those 100 agree Yes, I completely agree with you here.
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Exclusions apply. See details online. Okay, Aubrey, let's break into a role play and show our listeners how it's done.
Shall we do it? Yeah, perfect. So in this role play, Lindsay, you have called a car dealership and I work there and I'm going to answer the phone.
So I'll start us out. Ready? All right. Yes.
Jennifer Golden Automotive. May I help you?
Yeah, I need to speak to the service department, please.
I'll transfer you. Can you hold a moment?
Sure. No problem. yes nice right so that's one of many options right i could have said any of those that we shared do you mind if i put you on hold can i put you on hold a second right there are certainly options yeah guys so write down these right our recommendations today can i put you on hold do you mind if i put you on hold or the other two one more time aubry is it okay is it okay if i put you on hold a moment or just this one do you mind holding Yeah, I love it.
Well, what's the takeaway for our listeners today?
Today's a quick episode, but a valuable one.
You know, sometimes you just get what you need quickly, guys, and move on with your day.
We love that. Yes, absolutely. And this is helping you avoid what might be considered a mistake depending on who you're talking to, right?
Both verbs, let and leave, can be super confusing in English.
They have separate meanings as verbs. they're not used often to talk about putting someone on hold.
So I would suggest avoiding those and instead using the other recommendations we had today.
Yeah, I think there's something about, especially when you work in customer service or any kind of service, customer facing business, you're answering the phone.
It's important that you put your customers at ease.
And what's gonna put them at ease is these chunks that they know and have heard a thousand times in their lives.
What do you think about that, Aubrey? Yeah, I agree.
This is one situation where you don't want to be unique and colorful and flowery with your language because it just makes it feel a little less natural, a little less what's expected.
And it's true. It kind of puts us in our comfort level to sort of hear the same phrase we're expecting. yeah so go with the standard traditional ones the four that we taught you today guys and you know that's the key taking care of the client taking care of the customer we can talk more on this podcast you know if you guys you know let us know on social media do you do a lot of answering the phone and customer service work we can definitely go into this more Yeah, there's so many phrases, vocabulary that you could have at your disposal.
I know I've taught several classes where it was a student who was in customer service.
And so that's what we hit. Like, I need to have the phrases to be prepared for what's happening.
Right. So, yeah, let us know, guys. Social media, YouTube in the comments.
If this is something you could use, we would love to do more of it on Business English.
Yeah, good stuff. All right, Aubrey. Well, thanks for hanging out with me on the show today.
And guys, remember to hit follow on Business English.
I'll see you soon. Bye. Bye. Thank you for listening to Business English, a podcast just for you, the high achieving global professional.
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