Uh-huh.

Uh-huh.

Okay.

Yeah, that sounds good.

Hey, yeah, I gotta go actually.

I'm standing here making an English lesson right now, so I'll have to give you a call back later.

Okay.

Yep.

Bye.

Well hey, hello and welcome to this English lesson about things you say when you're on the phone, and in particular, things you say when the phone call isn't going well, when you're having problems.

By the way, that wasn't a real phone call, I was just pretending, and you heard the first phrase there, the phrase, I gotta go.

When you're on the phone, and you need to do something else, and you need to stop the conversation, often you'll say, hey, I gotta go, I'll give you a call right back.

So, welcome to this English lesson, I'll teach you a few more phrases you can use when you're on the phone.

So phones don't always connect well.

Sometimes you're having a phone conversation and you can't hear what the other person is saying, or maybe they'll say something and then you won't hear them for a split second and then you'll hear them again.

So often we will then say this, we'll say, hey, you're cutting out, or you're breaking up.

Either of those two phrases simply means that as the person is talking, maybe you're only hearing every other word.

Maybe I'll try to mimic that for a sec.

If I was to talk right now it would sound like this.

So in the edit hopefully you understood that I switched that phrase so that the sound dropped out a bit.

It wasn't your video acting badly.

So, two phrases we often use when we're having trouble hearing the other person.

We say, hey, you're cutting out, or hey, you're breaking up.

Meaning that you're having trouble hearing every word that they're saying.

So let's say you're in a situation where the person is cutting out and you can't quite hear every word that they're saying.

What do you say to them so that they repeat what they're saying?

I will say, sorry, you're cutting out.

What was that?

It's kind of rude and direct but it's quite often what I will say.

I will say, what was that?

A nicer way to say it is to simply say, hey, you're breaking up, or hey, you're cutting out.

Could you please repeat what you just said?

So, if you're like me having a normal conversation, even if I'm talking to Jen, I might say, hey, what was that?

I didn't hear you.

Or if you want to be really nice you might say, hey, could you please repeat that?

Oh, and on a side note, I did just drop my skates off to get sharpened.

It's that time of year here in Canada.

They're skating on Tuesday afternoons for people my age.

I'm not going to say how old I am, but I dropped my skates off today and I'm planning to go skating when they're done.

So speaking of conversations that are cutting out, there's two more phrases I should teach you.

If the other person is cutting out you might hear me say something like this, hello, are you there?

Hello, are you there?

So if I can't hear the other person, if they're talking and halfway through their sentence I don't hear anything, I might say, hello, are you there?

Are you there?

And then if the other person says, hey, Bob, you're cutting out.

I'm having trouble hearing you.

I might move.

I might walk somewhere else and then I might say, can you hear me now?

Can you hear me now?

Those are two very common things to hear someone say when they're using a phone.

Either they say, hello, are you there?

Are they say, can you hear me now?

Let me move a little bit.

Can you hear me now?

So I think the way we normally talk about a connection where you can't hear someone and they can't hear you is to say you have a bad connection.

And you might even say that to someone.

You might say, ah, Jen, I think we have a bad connection.

And then you would probably say one of two phrases.

You might say, I can hardly hear you.

Or you might say, can I call you right back?

Sometimes when you have a bad connection, if you just hang up and call the person back, sometimes it's really clear the next time.

I'm not sure how phones work in your country, whether you have all these problems, but they're pretty common in Canada.

Sometimes you say, hey, I think we have a bad connection.

I can hardly hear you.

Can I call you right back?

So sometimes when you're having a phone conversation, it just ends.

You didn't hang up and the other person didn't hang up.

The connection is just so bad that it ends.

It disconnects.

And in that situation, I usually think this, and sometimes I say it out loud.

I might say, oh, I lost him.

Or, oh, I lost her.

So the connection is disconnected.

We are no longer able to talk to each other.

And that's what I'll probably say.

Oh, I lost him.

Or, oh, I lost her.

I often wish that the battery in my phone would last forever, but it doesn't.

So sometimes when I go to make a phone call and I notice that I'm at one or 2% battery, I will tell the other person, hey, let's talk quickly because my phone is going to go dead.

It's nice to let the other person know that that might happen.

That way if the phone call ends suddenly, they'll know why it happened, because you told them that your phone was going to go dead.

So, I do wish the battery would last forever.

They obviously don't.

So sometimes it's nice to just say, hey, let's talk quickly.

My phone is going to go dead.

Well, hey, thank you for watching this English lesson about the common things English speakers say when they're on the phone.

I hope you were able to learn a few new phrases that you can use in your next English conversation.

Remember, if this is your first time here, don't forget to click that red subscribe button.

Give me a thumbs up if this lesson helped you learn a little bit more English.

And if you have time, leave a comment below.

Have a good day.

Bye.