 Welcome to this video. Today, you're going to learn how to record a professional voicemail message in English. So the next time that you get a call from a prospective client or job opportunity, you know that you're going to impress whoever's listening to your message. Of course, I'm Jennifer from jforsenglish.com and this channel is dedicated to helping you feel confident speaking English in public so you can take your career and your life to the next level. Now, before we go any further, make sure you subscribe and hit that bell icon so you're notified every time I post a new lesson. Now let's dive in with this video. So here we have Sophia. Let's take a look at her voicemail message to see what information we should include. So here's her message. Hello, you've reached Sophia Sanchez, Senior Project Manager at Google. I'm sorry I missed your call. Please leave me a message and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. Thank you. Now let's look at this message line by line to see what kind of information we should provide. Okay, so our first line. Hello, you've reached Sophia Sanchez, Senior Project Manager at Google. Now notice I started with hello. You can of course start with hi. We definitely are not going to start with hey. No, that is too informal for this situation. Now both of these are acceptable. Keep in mind, hello is slightly more professional. However, hi is slightly more friendly and welcoming. So the choice is yours depending on what tone you want to convey, but both of them are professional. Okay, and then we have you've reached. So this is the standard. It will always be in the present perfect. By now you're well aware of the present perfect. You've reached. And this is the standard verb as well to reach someone you've reached. So this doesn't change. Now you have the option if you want to say you have reached. And like I said, you may notice that English speakers in their voicemail message will choose to not use contractions. So whether you want to use you have or you've either is fine, but it's going to be with the verb reach. So you've reached. And then I recommend giving both your first and last name. If it was your personal voicemail, you might only give your first name. But in a professional context, I would include your first and last name, but not your middle name. So only first and last, not your middle name. Okay, and then notice we have our job title. Now I separated here with a comma because a comma tells me to take a pause, which I'm going to do. So notice how I would read this. You've reached Sophia Sanchez senior project manager at Google. So I take a brief pause between my name and my job title. So here, whatever your job title may be, graphic designer, software developer, receptionist, whatever your job title is, it would go after your name separated by a brief pause. And then add with your company. So here at Google, but whatever your company is, you would just put your name. Okay, I'll read this one more time. Hello, you've reached Sophia Sanchez senior project manager at Google. So that's how I would say it. That's what I mean by a warm but professional tone. Now in everyday English, if I'm speaking with my friends, I would be a little more enthusiastic, which I'm not going to do. So I'll give you an example of being very enthusiastic, which I don't want you to do. If I said, Hello, you've reached Sophia Sanchez senior project manager at Google. That's too enthusiastic. We want warm and professional tone in our tone. Okay. Now let's look at the next line. I'm sorry I missed your call. Now here, the verb to be we generally always put it in a contraction. So it would sound a little awkward to say I am sorry, I am sorry, simply because native English speakers always put the verb to be in a contraction. So here I would stick to the contraction. I'm sorry I missed your call. So this is a pleasantry that we include. There's alternatives. You could say, I can't take your call at the moment. I can't take your call at the moment. So this is an alternative. So this could be, you know, option A, option B, but you can also include this, I'm sorry for this one as well. So you could say, I'm sorry, I can't take your call at the moment. That's another one. And notice here just at the moment. So that means at the present time, an expression of time, or we can have an option C. And again, you could include I'm sorry in front. I can't answer your call at the moment. So here what's the difference between these two? Yeah, just the verb. So take or answer, either one of them is acceptable, or we can have an option D. I can't come to the phone right now. I can't come to the phone right now. And this right now, these two could be interchanged. So I could say, I can't come to the phone at the moment, or I can't answer your call right now. So those can be exchanged. And then you can put I'm sorry in front of all of them. Now, why do we put I'm sorry? It's just a pleasantry. It's to express that you wish you were there to talk to the person. So it's just a polite thing that we generally include in our message. Okay, the next line, please leave me a message, and I'll get back to you as soon as possible. So here's our standard information, please leave me a message. That's just a polite thing to say. And all so here I'm using a contraction. Of course, this is I will and why am I using the future simple here? Yeah, because I'm making a commitment. That's why I have it in the future simple for a commitment. And I'll get back to you as soon as possible. So here this as soon as possible. This is an expression of time reference. And there could be alternatives you could include here. Okay. But this get back to you. That's a pretty standard expression. Now let's look at some alternatives. So notice it starts the same, please leave me a message and I'll return your call as soon as possible. So here in saying instead of saying get back to you is just return your call. Now I wouldn't say that one is more formal than the other. You might be thinking return is a more formal verb than get back to you. But I wouldn't say that because get back to you is just a very common expression in English. Okay, so we can have our option a our option B and let's see. Okay, so instead of as soon as possible, you could say as soon as I can, for example, so you have this different option here that you could change. And another time reference within 24 hours. So within it's giving the final deadline. So if this is 24 hours later, later, so it's from the moment you called and then you count 24 hours and within is any time from now until 24 hours later. So that's within. And why might I say within 24 hours? Well, you're giving the expectation that the person can hear from you shortly. And certain industries might have standards for how quickly they respond to client requests or how quickly they respond to customers. And because of that, you might want to give the person calling the idea that they can expect to hear from you within a certain timeframe. Okay, so different alternatives here. And the next line. So notice how I end with just thank you. I don't say goodbye. It is not common in voicemail messages to end with goodbye. We generally end with just thank you. But it would be possible to say have a nice day or have a great day, for example, just a pleasantry if you'd like. Awesome job. Now you have the exact script that you can follow to write your voicemail message. So if you want to practice, you can leave your script in the comments, but make sure you practice it out loud. And I suggest saying it out loud five to 10 times before you hit that record button. 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