Follow a repair appointment by phone

Listen for a window, not one exact time

Use a real spoken scene about arranging a visit or a service appointment. Avoid technical repair instructions for this worksheet. The useful speech is the negotiation: availability, arrival and a condition. Before listening, draw a timeline with morning, afternoon and evening. Add exact times only when the speaker gives them. An arrival window is not a single appointment time. If you write two o'clock when the speaker says between two and four, you remove important uncertainty.

The sample uses entre as duas e as quatro, between two and four. In this visit context the intended window is the afternoon. The phrase by itself does not contain the word afternoon. The customer's response supplies it. Use both turns before completing the timeline. A number can be clear while its place in the day remains uncertain.

Mark the condition with a separate line

Se conseguir a peça means if I can get the part. The condition affects the visit, not whether the customer stays at home. Write it below the arrival window and join it with an arrow. The final aviso antes, I will let you know beforehand, is a promise to notify. It is not a promise that the part will arrive. Those two commitments are different. Keep them separate when summarising a call.

Peça can mean a part in this repair setting. Elsewhere it can mean a piece, a play or an item of clothing. Check the scene rather than choosing the first English meaning you remember. The task does not ask you to identify which machine part is needed. If the speaker never names it, write unspecified part and continue.

Test who must do each action

Make two rows headed technician and customer. Put conseguir a peça and avisar in the technician row. Put estar em casa in the customer row. This is a small handover map: each action has an owner. In fast speech, subject pronouns may be absent. The turn structure and verb forms help you track the owner. If you assign every action to the last named person, you can reverse the practical meaning of the call.

Listen to your chosen scene twice before opening the captions. First, decide whether the appointment is firm, proposed or conditional. Second, record the actions. Check only the uncertain phrases in the text. If you change your answer after reading, explain why: I missed se, or I attached aviso to the wrong speaker. That explanation gives you a clear target for the next recording.

Practise a safe summary

We make Jibber Jabber. Interactive captions can help you inspect a condition in available video speech. The Portuguese listening page gives a wider practice plan. This workbook does not supply a phone recording or connect you to a tradesperson. It also does not verify repairs, access arrangements or costs. Use real service communication to confirm those details when they matter.

End the task with a cautious summary: the technician may come between two and four if the part is available, and will notify the customer first. Do not shorten this to the technician will come at two. Then choose another scheduling scene where no condition is given. Compare the strength of the two arrangements. Listening practice becomes useful when your summary preserves what the speaker did not guarantee.

Questions & answers

Sources for this entry

• Jibber Jabber feature documentation ↗ — supports the caption and vocabulary feature statements. Checked 9 November 2026.
• Workbook method — explains our original examples, regional labels and limits. The exercises are editorial practice, not research findings or recorded transcripts.

Connected entries

• Distinguish Portuguese deadlines and time windows
• Unpack a landlord's Portuguese voice message
• Turn a Portuguese work handover into an action list

Useful terms: repair, listening evidence, inference and listening task.