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Daily lessons · Day 27 of 90

On the phone and making a booking

Book a table or a room by phone

The telephone is the hardest thing you will do in a new language, because you lose the face, the gestures and the chance to point at something. It is also very learnable, because a booking call follows a script. Today gives you that script, in the order it happens, plus the phone-specific words that appear nowhere else.

Opening the call

Phone Japanese starts differently from face-to-face Japanese:

moshimoshi.
Hello (on the phone only).
Only ever used on the phone. Never say it in person.
yoyaku o onegaishitai no desu ga.
I'd like to make a booking.
The trailing が softens it. Learn it whole.
nihongo ga amari dekimasen.
My Japanese isn't very good.
Said early, it makes everyone slow down. あまり with a negative, from day 10.
yukkuri onegaishimasu.
Slowly, please.
Say it at the start rather than after you are lost.
Why it works

Declaring your level at the beginning of a phone call is genuinely worth doing. It is not an apology, it is information, and it changes how the other person speaks for the rest of the call. Saying it after you have already lost the thread is much less useful than saying it in the first ten seconds.

The booking itself

Almost all of this is grammar you already have:

kinyōbi no rokuji ni futari onegaishimasu.
Friday at six for two, please.
Day, then の, then time, then に. Counters from day 18.
nanmei-sama desu ka.
How many people?
From day 18. Answer ふたりです.
onamae o onegaishimasu.
Your name, please.
They will ask you to spell it in katakana.
odenwa bangō o onegaishimasu.
Your phone number, please.
Read digits one at a time. Four is よん, seven is なな.
Why it works

Note the order in きんようびの ろくじに: the larger unit comes first and the smaller one second, which is the opposite of English six o'clock on Friday. Japanese does this consistently, in dates, addresses and names. Once you expect big-to-small you will find you can parse a lot more of what you hear.

Closing, and what can go wrong

The last thirty seconds, plus the two things you will need if it goes sideways:

mō ichido onegaishimasu.
Once more, please.
Your safety net. Use it without embarrassment.
manseki desu.
We're fully booked.
Worth recognising so you know to try elsewhere.
nanji ga yoroshii desu ka.
What time would suit you?
よろしい is the polite いい.
arigatō gozaimasu. shitsurei shimasu.
Thank you. Goodbye.
しつれいします ends a phone call politely.
Why it works

しつれいします literally means I am being rude, and it is how you end a call or leave a room. It is not an apology in any real sense; it is a formula, like goodbye, which also once meant something else entirely. Japanese has several of these, and treating them as fixed units rather than translating them is much the easier path.

Carry over, from earlier days

moshimoshi.
Hello (on the phone).
nihongo ga amari dekimasen.
My Japanese isn't very good.
kinyōbi no rokuji ni futari onegaishimasu.
Friday at six for two, please.
arigatō gozaimasu. shitsurei shimasu.
Thank you. Goodbye.

Check yourself

8 questions. Nothing is saved unless you finish.