TELEPHONE ENGLISH (IDENTIFYING YOURSELF)

Hello again everyone. Happy Thursday. Welcome back to the Daily Vitamin. I hope you are having a great day.

Yesterday we finished the Daily Vitamin with the following mini dialogue:

Speaker 1: Good afternoon. ABC International. This is Rachel. How can I help you?
Speaker 2: Good morning; this is Mr Franklin from InfoSystems. Is Mr Anderson there?

In this dialogue, Mr Franklin identifies himself to Rachel at ABC International before asking for Mr Anderson. Today we will look at identifying yourself on the telephone in more detail.

After you have asked to speak to someone, you may be asked to identify yourself:
⇒ Who's calling, please?
⇒ Who shall I say is calling?
⇒ Can I have your name, please?

Some possible answers are:
⇒ This is Mr Jones from Jones & Company.
⇒  It's Charles speaking. 
⇒ My name's Betty Grant.

Remember Do NOT say, "I'm Charles." You could say it's Charles, but this is less formal.

When the person that you asked to speak to comes to the phone, they may say something like...

⇒  This is Charles.
⇒  This is Ms Grant.
⇒  Betty speaking.

Or they may simply say Hello!

The caller also has the option of identifying himself or herself before being asked, like in the Dialogue above. Tomorrow we'll look at expressions used for connecting calls and next week we will finish up with taking messages and saying goodbye.

If you have any questions about today's Daily Vitamin, please don't hesitate to post your questions or comments on one of our social media sites (Facebook or Bluesky) and we will get back to you ASAP. You may also want to write a short dialogue, using today's phrases.

Enjoy the rest of your day!