BBC LEARNING ENGLISH

Office English
Calls and instant messages
This is a transcript of a spoken conversation and is not a word-for-word script.

Pippa
Phone calls, video calls, even instant messages. There are so many ways to
communicate at work.

Voicenote clips
I hardly ever use phone calls at work. They're almost always video calls. Yeah, I
can't remember the last time I made an actual phone call.

It's really easy to just message someone at work or start a call online.

I might call somebody on the phone if there's something urgent, but I don't think I
use phone calls at work as often as before.

Instant messages are very useful at work. We use them all the time.

Phil
In this episode of Office English, we're looking at the language of calls and texts
at work.

Pippa
Welcome to Office English from BBC Learning English, your podcast guide to the
language of business. I'm Pippa.

Phil
And I'm Phil, and we're here to talk about the more difficult parts of speaking
English at work. In episode one we were talking about emails, but there are loads
of other ways that people communicate in the workplace today. What's your
favourite, Pippa?

Pippa
I think my favourite is actually a video call. I think it's so useful, now that lots of
people work from home some of the time, to be able to have a video call and to
talk with people, and it means that a meeting can be quite productive because
you can prepare what you want to say in advance and you don't have the pressure
of being in the room with people. I find that quite useful, actually. What about
you, Phil?

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 1 of 6
Phil
I think I like instant messages because they're kind of immediate, they're kind of
you can get a quick answer quite often, you can chat quite easily, you can look
back and see what someone said. I think they're quite practical and they just...
they just feel a lot freer than email.

Pippa
Yeah, but we should talk about instant messages because not everybody has
those at work. So, an instant message is what a lot of offices use now so that
when you are working at home, working remotely, you can still keep in touch
really easily with the people that you work with. So, it will be a messaging
platform that might be part of your email or a different app at work and you can
talk to your colleagues like you might do on your phone. You can also have the
messages on your phone. So it makes it really easy. And yeah, those are really
popular now. And we use them here at BBC Learning English.

But, with all these different ways to talk to colleagues at work, making sure you
say the right thing is quite stressful, even if you speak English like a pro. So, we're
going to look at some useful phrases to use whether you're talking on a video call,
using an instant messaging app, or making a good old fashioned phone call.

Phil
Let's start with video calls. We talked about the difficult language of meetings
before on the podcast. But having a meeting via video can make things even more
complicated. What phrases can help us here, Pippa?

Pippa
Well, lots of the phrases around video calls are usually around technology. So if
there are problems on the video call, and lots of people listening will have
experienced this. So we need to know phrases like could you mute, please? to tell
somebody to turn their microphone off. Or you're on mute to tell someone their
microphone is turned off and they need to turn it on to speak.

But it is also useful to be able to say things like my internet is slow or I'm going
to turn off my video because my internet is rubbish, which means, you know, I'm
going to try and help the call, and then the other one is your video is freezing,
which means your video is not very good because your internet connection is bad.
There's a lot of language around the technology of video calls, Phil.

Phil
There's one there I like, it's Ooh sorry, you're breaking up. I didn't catch that.

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 2 of 6
Pippa
Yeah. Which you can also use if you weren't listening and you need them to
repeat.

Phil
Don't give away the secrets, Pippa!

Pippa
But then you also need to be able to interrupt during a video call. Now this can be
really difficult because when everyone's talking on a video call it's harder to know
when someone is about to speak. You might have noticed when you use a video
call people often talk over each other. But so, you can use some phrases
like could I stop you for just a moment or sorry, would you mind if I asked a
quick question? Being polite at all times when you're trying to interrupt because
you might not get the natural pause like you do in an in-person meeting.

Phil
Yeah and sometimes on the different platforms that people use there are things
where you can put your hand up or show a little picture or something to say that
you want to say something.

Pippa
Yeah, and that can be a good way, if you're chairing a meeting, to keep on top of
when people want to speak.

So, there's lots of technical language for video calls. But what about sending text
messages or instant messages at work? How do these work, Phil?

Phil
Yes. The great thing about instant messages is they're very quick and they can be
very immediate. But of course, that also causes a problem sometimes because
maybe we expect an immediate response. Or maybe when someone sends it to us,
we think they expect an immediate response. We feel under pressure and we want
to... We need to stop doing what we're doing or we're in a meeting somewhere
else.

So it's quite good to use phrases when you're sending it saying when you have a
moment or sorry to bother you. Actually and also, if when you do get a message
you're quite busy and you can't respond are there any good phrases you could use
for that, Pippa?

Pippa
Yeah. You could just say I'm in a meeting right now, I'll get back to you
later or I'm really sorry, I don't have time, maybe ask... Phil.

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 3 of 6
Yeah, and also I think, when you want to send an instant message to somebody,
you should think about what you're messaging them. So what the topic is, so is
instant message the best place for your conversation because things get lost so
easily if they're in an instant message because the chat carries on and it's hard to
search for something. So, if it's an important thing or a document or something
that somebody might need to find again, an email might be better. But if it's more
like, oh, it's going to be much quicker if we quickly chat about it, a bit like you
might do if you thought I'm going to phone somebody, then that's when you use
an instant message.

Phil
Now, there is one thing that I think is a little bit complicated about instant
messages and that is in a way we don't have many rules yet on how to use them.
So I think we can sometimes be incredibly informal in instant messages, much
more so than you'd ever be on an email.

But then on the other hand, sometimes you do have to instant message someone
who you don't know so well, or they're very important or you have to get through
to them and we might change the way that we send our message. We might
suddenly become much more formal and it look a little bit like an email the things
that we're sending, or lines from an email.

Pippa
Yes.

Phil
What do you think about emojis and GIFs in instant messages?

Pippa
Oh, we like emojis. I think that's the place for an emoji. If it feels like that's the
way other people at your work are using it, then definitely. Go for it. The reason
that these platforms exist is to try and create a sense of being in the office but
when you're not. So they are supposed to be more chatty. They are supposed to
be friendlier. But yeah, just keep an eye on what other people are doing. So try
and look at other messages people send to you and respond in a similar way.

Phil
Right so, we've covered video calls and instant messages, two new ways to talk to
people at work. But sometimes you just need to pick up the phone and call
somebody. Now, are there any phrases that can help us with that, Pippa?

Pippa
Yes so, when you're calling someone on the phone, and you might already be

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 4 of 6
familiar with this, you want to introduce yourself and check that you have got the
right person. So you might say Hi, this is Pippa from BBC Learning English. Is
that Phil speaking? That's when you're calling somebody from outside your
organisation or somebody that you don't know.

But because we don't use phones as often, definitely in the UK now at work in the
office, it might be useful to check the person's free to speak to you. So, especially
if you're calling them out of the blue, so that means you're calling them and they
didn't expect a call from you, you say is now a good time to talk? or do you have
a few minutes to talk about this? Just a polite way of checking that they have the
time to speak to you because people get annoyed if you call them out of the blue.

Phil
Yes and another thing that I sometimes do when I'm calling... Often when I call
someone it's because I've got a problem and I need to get it sorted out. So I'm
calling other departments and I don't know whether they can help me or not. I
might just say I don't know if you can help me, but... or I don't know if this is the
right place, but... That's something I say quite a lot. And it often isn't the right
place. Sometimes they can point you to the right place to call.

Pippa
They're much more likely to be helpful if you start the call in a friendly way, rather
than demanding something from, for instance, the IT department, as soon as you
call them.

Just like when you are writing an email, taking the time to study how other
people at your workplace use messages, video calls and phone calls to
communicate can be really useful to make sure you get the tone of your language
right, and that you're using the right platform for the right message.

Phil
Let's hear again from a BBC Learning English colleagues.

Voicenote clips
I might call somebody on the phone. If there's something urgent, but I don't think
I use phone calls at work as often as before.

I hardly ever use phone calls at work, they're almost always video calls. Yeah, I
can't remember the last time I made an actual phone call.

Pippa
It sounds like, as the workplace changes, as more of us work from home and as we
have more access to the internet, people use phones a lot less and video calls and
messages more. What do you think, Phil?

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 5 of 6
Phil
I think it might depend what industry you work in. I think some people might be
very keen on making lots of phone calls, whereas in others it's much more based
on email. So it does depend a little bit on the culture of the company you work in
and maybe the type of company that you're working for as well.

That's it for this episode of Office English. Remember, there's loads more courses
and activities to help you with your English at work at bbclearningenglish.com.

Pippa
Next time, we'll be talking about mistakes and the language we can use when
things go wrong at work.

Phil
Ooh, I think I might need that one. See you then. Bye.

Pippa
Bye!

Office English ©British Broadcasting Corporation 2024

bbclearningenglish.com Page 6 of 6