How do you leave a phone message in English?
In four moves: say who you are, ask for the call back, give the reason, leave your number — "It’s Peter Weber from Norton. Could you ask her to call me back? It’s about the invoice."
- Call-back request: "Could you ask her to call me back?" — not "Tell her to call me".
- Taking one: "Can I take a message?", closing with "I’ll pass that on."
- German ausrichten becomes tell, pass on or let her know — never "say her".
A2 · Telephoning · 10 minTaking and leaving messages, taught brick by brick.
A structured ten-slide lesson for A2 learners. Hear the call-back request in context, meet both roles — the caller and the colleague answering — from a tutor, then practise them across six interactive drills before a final quiz. The whole arc is under ten minutes and nothing requires a signup.
- CEFR levelA2 · Elementary
- Time to completeAbout 10 minutes
- SkillsSpeaking, Listening, Vocabulary, Pronunciation
- Bricks10 blocks
01 / 06
What a phone message actually has to do
A phone message is not a conversation. It is a small packet of data that a third person has to read and understand later, and that is exactly why its language is so predictable. If Sarah Klein is away from her desk and Peter Weber calls, Anna's note has to end up saying four things: who called, what it was about, what number will reach him, and what he actually wants to happen. Drop any one of those and the message is worthless — Sarah either never calls back, or calls back without knowing what the call concerns. English has a fixed phrase for each of the four, and you do not have to invent any of them: "Could you ask her to call me back?", "It's about the invoice", "Let me give you my number", "I'll pass that on." These are bricks, not free compositions. This lesson teaches both sides of the same event: the caller who leaves the message and the colleague who takes it. Know both roles and you will still follow the call when the line is bad.
02 / 06
The caller's side: four moves in a fixed order
As the caller you have four moves, and they nearly always come in the same order. First, say who you are: "It's Peter Weber from Norton", or slightly more formally, "This is Peter Weber from Norton Consulting." Second, the request. "Could I leave a message?" opens it, and "Could you ask her to call me back?" is the core of it — note the shape: ask + person + to + verb. Third, the reason. "It's about the March invoice" is plenty, and if there is no hurry you say so explicitly: "it's nothing urgent." Fourth, how to reach you. "Let me give you my number" warns the other person that digits are coming so they can pick up a pen, and "she can reach me on 0511 456 789" is the British pattern with "on". Two useful extras: "I'll try again later", when you would rather chase it yourself, and "When's the best time to catch her?", when you want to shorten the call-back loop. At A2 you need nothing beyond this — and native speakers rarely say anything more in this situation either.
03 / 06
The taker's side: offer, collect, promise
When you are the one answering and the person the caller wants is not there, your part runs in three movements. First the offer: "I'm afraid she's out — can I take a message?" A slightly more formal version is "Would you like to leave a message?" The verb marks the role: you take the message, the caller leaves it. Then you collect what has to go on the slip: "Sorry, who's calling?" or, more politely, "Could I take your name?", then "What's it about?", and finally "Has she got your number?" That last question is efficient because it allows two answers and may save you writing anything down at all. Then the promise: "I'll pass that on", or, more warmly, "I'll make sure she gets it." A time cue helps the caller too: "She should be back after lunch." Watch the detail that trips learners up: with a pronoun object it is "I'll pass it on", never "I'll pass on it".
04 / 06
Checking and reading back — the step everyone skips
The commonest reason a message turns out useless is not missing vocabulary but a misheard name or a scrambled digit. So every message needs a checking step, and it has two movements. First, ask before you guess. "Could you spell that, please?" is the standard request, "Sorry, could you say that again?" asks for repetition, and when only one letter is unclear you target it: "Was that M or N?" The same principle covers numbers: "Was that four-five-six or four-six-five?" Second, read the whole thing back. "Let me read that back to you — so that's Peter Weber, on 0511 456 789, about the invoice." Follow it with a short "Have I got that right?" and the message is safe. Many German-speaking learners feel this loop is excessive. In an English business call it reads as professional, because it shows you are treating the message seriously. One more note: a bare "Repeat, please" sounds like an order, so use the "Could you…?" form here too.
05 / 06
Typical mistakes German speakers make
Four habits carried over from German reliably cause trouble with messages. First, ausrichten: English has no one-word twin for it, and "Can you say her that I called?" is simply wrong, because English "say" does not take a person as its direct object. The natural options are "Could you tell her I called?", "Could you pass that on?" and "Could you let her know I called?" Second, the present tense used for the future: "Ich rufe dich später zurück" does not become "I call you back later" but "I'll call you back later" — a promise made while speaking needs will, or 'll. Third, "wieder anrufen": returning someone's call is "call back" — "call again" only means having another go at reaching them. So say "I'll call back later", or "I'll try again later" if you are the one chasing. Fourth, register: on a German line an imperative plus "bitte" is perfectly normal, but in English "Tell her to call me" sounds like an order given to a stranger. Use the frame "Could you ask her to…?" And two small ones: "Hier ist Peter Weber" is "This is Peter Weber", and a message is left "for her", not "to her".
06 / 06
Register: why almost every sentence starts with "Could"
Lay the phrases of this lesson side by side and a pattern jumps out: "Could I leave a message?", "Could you ask her to call me back?", "Could you spell that, please?", "Could I take your name?" In English the "Could you…?" question is not a genuine enquiry about ability; it is a conventionalised way of making a request — the default on the phone, not a special-occasion politeness setting. For German speakers this is the single most useful register note, because German loads the politeness onto "bitte" while English rebuilds the whole sentence shape instead. A second point is the choice of verb: "ask her to…" passes on a request, "tell her to…" passes on an instruction, so with someone else's colleague you choose "ask". Finally, compare the written twin: in an email the same content reads "I am writing regarding the March invoice", while on the phone you simply say "I'm calling about the invoice". Same job, different bricks, one step less formal.