Learn how to navigate a phone recording system using honorific Korean
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| INTRODUCTION |
| Michael: Are You Playing Phone-Tag in Korea? Michael here. |
| Suhyun: 안녕하세요. (Annyeonghaseyo.) I'm Suhyun. |
| Michael: In this lesson, you’ll learn useful phrases to understand phone announcements. This conversation takes place over the phone. |
| Suhyun: It's between Sujin and Minho. |
| Michael: The speakers are acquaintances; so they’ll be using honorific Korean. Okay, let's listen to the conversation. |
Lesson conversation |
|---|
| 민호: 수진 씨는 지금 뭐 하고 있을까? 전화 걸어 봐야지. |
| 교환원: (dialing) 고객님이 전화를 받지 않습니다. 삐소리 후 음성 사서함으로 연결됩니다. (beep sound) |
| 민호: 안녕하세요, 수진씨. 전화를 안 받아서 음성메시지 남깁니다. 나중에 전화해 주세요. |
| (few minutes later, phone ringing) |
| 수진: 여보세요? 민호 씨! 미안해요. 약을 먹는 중 이어서 전화를 못 받았어요. |
| Michael: Listen to the conversation one time slowly. |
| 민호: 수진 씨는 지금 뭐 하고 있을까? 전화 걸어봐야지. |
| 교환원: (dialing) 고객님이 전화를 받지 않습니다. 삐소리 후 음성 사서함으로 연결됩니다. (beep sound) |
| 민호: 안녕하세요, 수진 씨. 전화를 안 받아서 음성메시지 남깁니다. 나중에 전화해 주세요. |
| (few minutes later, phone ringing) |
| 수진: 여보세요? 민호 씨! 미안해요. 약을 먹는 중 이어서 전화를 못 받았어요. |
| Michael: Listen to the conversation with the English translation. |
| Minho: I'm wondering what Sujin is doing now. I'll call her. |
| Operator: (dialing) The person you are calling didn't answer the phone. You'll be directed to the voice mail service after the beep. (beep sound) |
| Minho: Hi Sujin. You didn't answer your phone so I'm leaving you a message. Call me later, please. |
| (few minutes later, phone ringing) |
| Sujin: Hello, Minho! Sorry. I was taking medicine so I couldn't answer the phone. |
| POST CONVERSATION BANTER |
| Suhyun: Michael, do you know the main phone companies we have in South Korea? |
| Michael: Sure. They are SK Telecom, KT, and LG U Plus, right? |
| Suhyun: That’s right. If you’ve just come to Korea, you’ll be asked to choose one of these services. |
| Michael: I think the prices are almost the same, but if you’re interested in a prepaid phone service, KT or Korean telecom offers it. |
| Suhyun: Please note that you need to have an alien registration card to purchase this service, so you can’t buy a prepaid sim card as a tourist. |
| Michael: If you’re a tourist, the easiest and cheapest way is actually to borrow a sim card. It’s more expensive than using the prepaid card, but you can rent them at an airport counter, or by making a reservation online. |
| Suhyun: You can also rent a smartphone if your phone is sim-locked, by the way. |
| Michael: That’s good to know. Okay, now onto the vocab. |
| VOCAB LIST |
| Michael: Let’s take a look at the vocabulary from this lesson. The first word is.. |
| Suhyun: 전화를 걸다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: to make a phone call |
| Suhyun: 전화를 걸다[slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 전화를 걸다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 고객 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: customer |
| Suhyun: 고객 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 고객 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 삐 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: beep |
| Suhyun: 삐 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 삐 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 소리 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: sound |
| Suhyun: 소리 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 소리 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: voice mailbox |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 연결하다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: to connect, to link |
| Suhyun: 연결하다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 연결하다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 음성 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: voice |
| Suhyun: 음성 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 음성 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 남기다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: to leave (a comment, food, etc) |
| Suhyun: 남기다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 남기다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 약 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: medicine |
| Suhyun: 약 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 약 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: Next we have.. |
| Suhyun: 전화를 받다 [natural native speed] |
| Michael: to answer the phone, to pick up the phone |
| Suhyun: 전화를 받다 [slowly - broken down by syllable] |
| Suhyun: 전화를 받다 [natural native speed] |
| KEY VOCAB AND PHRASES |
| Michael: Let's have a closer look at the usage of some of the words and phrases from this lesson. The first phrase is.. |
| Suhyun: 전화를 걸다 |
| Michael: meaning "to make a phone call” |
| Suhyun: This phrase has the word 전화 (jeohwa), which means "telephone", and a verb 걸다 (geolda), which means to "to hang". All together, it is 전화를 걸다. |
| Michael: Again, this means "to make a phone call". How would you say “to receive a phone call”? |
| Suhyun: That's simple. Just replace the verb 걸다 (geolda) with the verb 받다 (batda) which means “to receive.” |
| Michael: Altogether, it will be…? |
| Suhyun: 전화를 받다 |
| Michael: Meaning "to receive a phone call" or "to answer the phone". Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Suhyun: Sure. For example, you can say.. 나중에 전화를 걸겠습니다. |
| Michael: "I'll call you later.” |
| Suhyun: Or using the phrase 전화를 받다, you can say 왜 제 전화를 안 받았어요? |
| Michael: “Why didn't you answer my call?" Okay, what's the next word? |
| Suhyun: 고객 |
| Michael: meaning "customer", “client” or “guest”. This word is widely used in business and refers to a person who is using the services of a company or other professional person. |
| Suhyun: Right. But note that you can't use it for a person who is invited to visit someone's home. In this case please use 손님, meaning “guest”, a person to whom you give hospitality. |
| Michael: Can you give us an example using this word? |
| Suhyun: Sure. For example, you can say.. 21번 고객님! 어떻게 도와드릴까요? |
| Michael: .. which means "Customer #21! How may I help you?". |
| Suhyun: Usually the word 고객 comes with the honorific suffix 님 as in 고객님. |
| Michael: Okay, now onto the grammar. |
Lesson focus |
| Michael: In this lesson, you will learn useful phrases for understanding phone messages, which can be a bit complicated. This is because they are designed to be polite and therefore very indirect, with a lot of honorific verbs. But if you know some key words, you will never misunderstand what the message means. |
| Suhyun: I think the first key to understanding a phone message is to understand the reason the person didn’t answer. |
| Michael: So let’s go over some reasons one by one. |
| Our first phrases are… |
| Suhyun: 부재 중 and 휴가 중 |
| Michael: which mean “absent in the workplace” and “on vacation” respectively. |
| Suhyun: As you can see, both 부재 중 and 휴가 중 have the word 중. |
| Michael: The word means “in the middle of” so.. |
| Suhyun: 부재 중 |
| Michael: literally means “in the middle of absent.” |
| Suhyun: While 휴가 중 |
| Michael: means “in the middle of vacation.” |
| Suhyun: So just listen carefully to what word was placed before the noun 중, then you’ll be able to get the reason why. |
| Michael :Okay Suhyun, can you give us a few sample sentences? |
| Suhyun: Sure. 지금은 부재 중이어서 전화를 받을 수 없습니다. |
| Michael: “I cannot answer the phone because I’m not at my desk.” |
| Suhyun: 부재중이어서 means “because of absence” or literally “because I’m in the middle of absent” and 전화를 받을 수 없다 means “cannot answer the phone.” |
| Michael: And what about a phone message about being on vacation? |
| Suhyun: Sometimes, you will hear something like 15 일까지 휴가 중입니다.” |
| Michael: “I’m on vacation until the 15th.” |
| Suhyun: 15일까지 means “until 15th” as it has 까지 meaning “until” and 휴가 중 is the word meaning “on vacation.” And it’s usually followed by the message saying 메시지를 남겨주세요. |
| Michael: “Please leave a message.” After you hear these messages, you’ll be asked to press a specific button to leave a message. Of course the sentences can vary depending on a company, but the key words are almost always the same. For example, you might hear... |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함은 1번. |
| Michael: meaning “Number one for the voice mail.” |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함 means “voice mailbox”, and 1번 (ilbeon) means “the number 1”. As a note, 번 is the counter for numbers. |
| Michael: So “number one for the voice mail” is..? |
| Suhyun: 음성사서함은 1번. |
| Michael: After you press the button to leave a voicemail, you can simply leave a message asking the person to call you, or letting him or her know that you’re going to call later. |
| Suhyun: Right. In that case, you can say 그럼 전화 부탁드립니다. |
| Michael: “Please call me back.” |
| Suhyun: Or if you know when the other person will be available, you can say 오늘 저녁에 전화 드리겠습니다. |
| Michael: “I will call you again this evening.” |
| Suhyun: 전화 드리다 literally means “to give a phone call” honorifically, and you can use this phrase to those who are older than you, or those with a higher social status. |
Outro |
| Michael: Okay, that’s all for this lesson. Listeners, please be sure to check the lesson notes where we have more useful expressions. Thank you for listening, everyone, and we’ll see you next time! Bye! |
| Suhyun: 안녕히 계세요. (Annyeonghi gyeseyo.) |
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