6.6 On the Phone — Epoché
What you will be able to do Answer a Greek telephone, which is done with the word for please: Ναι, παρακαλώ. . Ask for the person you want: Μπορώ να μιλήσω στον Τομ, παρακαλώ; , Ποιον θέλετε παρακαλώ; . Say that somebody is on the phone or is not there: Ο Τομ είναι στο τηλέφωνο. , Μιλάει στο τηλέφωνο. . Say you will call back later: Θα σε πάρω τηλέφωνο απόψε. , Θα σου πω αργότερα. . Use the word that lesson 2.6 flagged and that a Greek says into a receiver: μάλιστα . Prerequisites : 6.5 — shopping at the laïkí. Read 6.5 Conversation first. This is the last lesson of the conversation volume and the hardest exchange in it. The telephone is hard in any foreign language and it is hard for one reason: you cannot see the other person. There are no gestures, no pointing and no lip-reading, the line compresses the sound, and the other person cannot tell from your face that you have stopped following. Everything this course has said about asking people to slow down applies here twice over. What makes it manageable is that a telephone call has a fixed opening and a fixed closing, and those are learnable whole. The middle is the part you cannot prepare, and the honest advice is to say at the start that your Greek is poor, because that changes how the whole call is conducted. The dialogue A visitor calling a hotel. Both use the plural. The opening two lines are fixed and will be the same every time. Ναι, παρακαλώ. [1] Yes, please. Μπορώ να μιλήσω στον Τομ, παρακαλώ; [2] Can I speak to Tom, please? Ο Τομ είναι στο τηλέφωνο. [3] Tom is on the phone. Θα σου πω αργότερα. [4] I'll tell you later. Μπορείτε να μου πείτε το όνομά σας παρακαλώ; [5] May I have your name, please? Το όνομά μου δεν είναι Τομ. [6] My name isn't Tom. The first line is the whole of how a Greek answers the telephone. It is the word for please, said with a rising tone, and it means something between yes? and how can I help you . English speakers expect a name or the word for hello and hear neither. The third line is the answer you will get half the time: the person is on the phone. The preposition and the article are fused, as they have been since lesson 3.6, and the phrase for being on the telephone is fixed. The second dialogue A visitor whose Greek runs out, which is the likelier call. The strategy is to say so at once. Ναι, παρακαλώ. [1] Yes, please. Συγγνώμη, δεν μιλάω ελληνικά. [7] Sorry, I don't speak Greek. Συγγνώμη, μιλάτε αγγλικά; [8] Excuse me, do you speak English? Ποιον θέλετε παρακαλώ; [9] Who would you like to speak with, please? Θα σε πάρω τηλέφωνο απόψε. [10] I'll call you tonight. Τα λέμε. [11] See you. The second line is the sentence this course has now given you four times, and it is worth the repetition: it is the single most useful thing a beginner can say on a Greek telephone. It is short, it explains everything, and it will usually produce either English or slower Greek. The fifth line is the promise to call back. The Greek for telephoning somebody is the verb for taking with the noun for a telephone after it — literally I will take you telephone — which is an idiom with no English parallel and which you will hear constantly. The pattern The telephone has its own small set of fixed phrases, and they do not behave like ordinary sentences. Greek Literally What it is used for Ναι, παρακαλώ. [1] yes, please answering; also said alone, as the whole greeting Μπορώ να μιλήσω στον Τομ, παρακαλώ; [2] can I speak to Tom, please asking for a person; the preposition and the article are fused Ποιον θέλετε παρακαλώ; [9] whom do you want, please the switchboard's question, in the accusative Θα σε πάρω τηλέφωνο απόψε. [10] I will take you telephone tonight the idiom for telephoning somebody The second pattern of this lesson is the word the syllabus of this course marked from the beginning. μάλιστα is what a Greek says into a receiver when he means yes, go on, I am listening . It is also used in ordinary speech to mean indeed or what is more . A dictionary of ancient Greek, asked for the same spelling, gives most or most of all , which is the ancestor of the emphasis and the translation of neither modern use. This is the third and last of the words that lesson 2.6 flagged, and it completes the case that lesson was making. Greek and ancient Greek share a spelling and not a meaning, and a dictionary that does not separate the two layers will hand you the wrong word at the moment you most need the right one. Saying it politely Telephone politeness in Greek is mostly the plural, which you will use to everybody you ring. Beyond that there are two habits worth copying. A Greek says who he is early, often in the second sentence, and a caller who does not is assumed to be selling something. And a Greek ends a call with the verb for seeing each other again, exactly as he would in the street, rather than with a word for goodbye. The one thing that is less polite in Greek than in English is the pause. English speakers fill silences on the telephone; Greeks do not, and a silence of two seconds is not a signal that anything has gone wrong. Waiting through it is better than filling it with a sentence you cannot finish. Finally, a practical note that belongs to the language. Numbers on the telephone are said in pairs, not digit by digit, which means you need the tens and the two-digit numbers of lesson 3.13 rather than the units. If you are going to be given a number, ask for it slowly with the phrase from lesson 6.4, and read it back. New words Word (with article) Meaning Notes το τηλέφωνο el to tiléfono telephone Part of speech / class noun, neuter How it differs from English both halves of the word are Greek, and it came back into Greek as a borrowing Ο Τομ είναι στο τηλέφωνο. Tom is on the phone. Μιλάει στο τηλέφωνο. He's talking on the telephone. Θα σε πάρω τηλέφωνο απόψε. I'll call you tonight. το κινητό el to kinitó mobile phone Part of speech / class noun, neuter How it differs from English literally the moving one; the adjective alo