Who hasn't gotten a phone call from an English-speaking caller and had some trouble understanding what the caller was saying? Perhaps understanding is not the problem so much as knowing the right words and phrases to be polite and get your point across. I know for me as a German learner, it was very difficult to make successful phone calls in German for a very long time. The only thing that helps is practice, practice, practice!
Visit the Focus Online site and watch the video about telephoning entitled "Hilfe, wir haben ein Problem" (here's a link). Then please answer the questions and complete the task below. If you are already signed up as a Virtualingua student, you can do this as a tutored exercise for your course, if not, send the exercise to us and test our tutoring for free! Send the exercise directly to your tutor or to tutor@virtualingua.de
Questions about "Hilfe, wir haben ein Problem":
1. What is the problem that the caller (the woman, Cynthia) describes?
2. In the first phone call, how does the man answer her questions? Is he polite or impolite?
3. In the second phone call, what does the man say to answer Cynthia's questions? Is he polite or impolite?
Now write your own phone call about some kind of problem! Maybe you've had a phone call at work or privately in English during which you had to handle a problem, or you can think of your own. Use the polite phrases from the call you watched.
Talk to you later!
