本文发表在 rolia.net 枫下论坛Well, some friends will think I am talking nonsense. Here is my observation: Most Chinese people like to initiate a phone call by asking something like "May I speak Jabber?". Actually, there are some other ways to begin a call. I believe the most pupolar one is : "Is Jabber there?". Of course, this is informal.

Regarding answering a call, there are also a lot of English idioms. I may very seriously respond: " This is Jabber speaking". But in most cases, people simply say "Speaking". What is worse for us, some people answer the call by saying "It's he" or "Its's she." On the one hand, a lot of Chinese people cannot hear and understand "It's he" or "It's she"; on the other hand, some Chinese people say "It's me", but this is improper on the phone.

In addition, if we are at a working place, we had better answer the phone in the following way: "Jabber speaking." Some people like to pick up the phone and say "Hello", even "Hi", but this is not a very good practice.

As for business calls, they are another story. Here is an example. "Nortel Networks. This is Jabber. How can I help you?" . Sounds funny?


My observation may be completely wrong. Please correct my mistakes, if any. Thank you in advance.更多精彩文章及讨论，请光临枫下论坛 rolia.net