Japanese Phone Call Phrases: Scripts for 6 Scenes from Moshi Moshi to Hang-Up

Table of contents

Who this guide is for

• Foreign professionals at Japanese companies who can handle email and meetings but feel the office phone is the single scariest part of the job.
• New hires and interns who will have to answer a shared line in week one and don’t yet know which words come first.
• JLPT N3–N2 learners who have the vocabulary but freeze on the sequencing and the keigo direction the moment a real call starts.
• Readers who finished our keigo guide and Japanese meeting phrases and want a phone-specific phrasebook that operationalizes those frameworks.

Each scene is self-contained, so you can skim only the part you need before the next call.

Three phone manners to get right first

Before any phrase, three rules decide whether you sound like a professional or a tourist. Get these wrong and the politest vocabulary won’t save the call.

1. Answer within three rings. Picking up after the third ring is read as keeping the caller waiting. If you were slow, open with o-matase itashimashita (お待たせいたしました, “sorry to keep you waiting”) before your company name.
2. Skip moshi moshi at work. Moshi moshi (もしもし) is casual — fine for friends, off-key on a business line. Lead with thanks and your company name instead. It survives only as a “are you still there?” check on a dropping connection.
3. Your own colleague gets no honorific. To an outside caller, your boss is not Tanaka-buchō but plain Tanaka — Tanaka wa seki o hazushite orimasu. This is uchi-soto (内・外): inside the company you elevate your boss, but to the outside world your whole company is uchi, so you humble it. Getting this backwards is the most common foreign-speaker tell on the phone.

The grammar behind rule 3 — when to humble your side and elevate theirs — is the keigo engine of every phone call. We unpack it in the phone keigo section below.

How the three politeness levels work

This site organizes workplace Japanese into three politeness levels — A, B, and C — and every phone phrase below is written at all three so you can pick in the moment.

On the phone, one overlay matters most: the moment you can’t see who you’re talking to, default up. An unknown caller on a shared line is Level C until you learn otherwise. If the A/B/C framework is new to you, our keigo guide covers the foundations; the rest of this article applies it to the six scenes of a call.

The 6-scene call at a glance

A business call decomposes into six time-ordered scenes. The receiver and the caller move through them from opposite sides — one answers and routes, the other opens and asks. Below is the map; each scene gets its own A/B/C table further down.

The receiver’s script (answering an incoming call)

You hear the ring. From “answer” to “hang up,” here are the lines in order.

Scene 1 — answering (the first words)

⚠ Common mistake: answering with moshi moshi. On a business line, open with the company name, never the casual greeting.

Scene 2 — catching and confirming the caller

You rarely catch a katakana company name on the first pass. Ask, then repeat it back to lock it in.

For a name you still can’t catch, ask them to spell it — see trouble recovery.

Scene 3 — transferring the call

Scene 4 — putting the line on hold

Say the hold phrase before you set the line down, and thank them when you return.

Hold longer than ~30 seconds? Offer a callback instead — leaving a client on silent hold reads as careless.

Scene 5 — the person is out (take a message or offer a callback)

This is where most calls go, and where the uchi-soto rule bites: no honorific on your colleague.

Before you hang up, read back the callback number and the caller’s name so nothing is lost: nen no tame, o-denwa-bangō o fukushō itashimasu (“to be sure, let me repeat your number”).

Scene 6 — closing as the receiver

Let the caller hang up first, and replace the receiver gently.

Found the right line already? The Essential 30 PDF puts these phone scripts — plus 30 more workplace scenarios — on a pocket card you can keep beside the phone for your first month.

The caller’s script (making an outgoing call)

Now you’re the one dialing. The order flips: you open, you give your name, you ask.

Scene 1 — opening and naming yourself

Japanese business callers identify themselves immediately — you’re seen as a representative of your company, so the name comes before the request.

O-sewa ni natte orimasu (お世話になっております) has no clean English equivalent — it acknowledges the ongoing business relationship and opens nearly every B2B call.

Scene 2 — stating the reason

Scene 3 — asking for the person you want

Note the flip: you elevate their employee with -sama and irassharu, the sonkeigo mirror of your own humble mōshimasu.

Scene 4 — leaving a message or voicemail (rusuden)

When the person is out, leave a tight, ordered message: name → company → reason → callback request.

On voicemail, say your number slowly, twice — the listener can’t ask you to repeat it.

Scene 5 — closing as the caller

Trouble recovery — when the call goes sideways

The textbook script assumes nothing goes wrong. These four moments are where real calls break — and the fixed phrase that pulls them back.

Bad connection

• Osore irimasu ga, o-denwa ga tōi yō desu (恐れ入りますが、お電話が遠いようです) — “I’m sorry, the line seems faint.” The polite way to say “I can’t hear you” — you blame the line, not the speaker.
• Moshi moshi, o-kikoe deshō ka (もしもし、お聞こえでしょうか) — “Hello, can you hear me?” The one business-legitimate use of moshi moshi: checking a dropping line.

Catching a hard name (katakana spelling)

• Osore irimasu ga, o-namae no tsuzuri o oshiete itadakemasu deshō ka — “could you tell me the spelling of your name?”
• Confirm by syllable: katakana no e-bui-i, ei-emu-iī … de yoroshii deshō ka (“that’s E-V-E … correct?”). Reading it back is non-negotiable for a name you’ll write down.

Negotiating a callback

• Receiver side: modori wa yūgata no yotei desu ga, ikaga itashimashō ka — “they’re back around evening; how would you like to proceed?”
• Caller side: ja, mata kochira kara o-denwa itashimasu — “I’ll call again, then” — a graceful way to keep control of the follow-up.

When you froze and missed it

• Mōshiwake gozaimasen, mō ichido o-namae o ukagatte mo yoroshii deshō ka — “I’m so sorry, may I ask your name once more?” One clean apology beats pretending you caught it and routing the call wrong.

The phone keigo that trips people up

Three verb pairs do most of the work on the phone, and they’re exactly where uchi-soto flips. Get the direction right and the rest of the call falls into place.

The rule: your own side is always humbled, the other side always elevated — even when “your side” is your own boss. That’s why Tanaka wa orimasu (humble) is correct to an outsider, but buchō wa irasshaimasu ka (respectful) is what you’d say to their department head. For the full system, see sonkeigo vs kenjougo and the keigo guide.

Two fully worked calls

Phrases in isolation are easy; stringing them together under pressure is the hard part. Here are two complete calls, line by line, with the politeness level marked.

Dialogue 1 — you receive a client call, the person is out (receiver side)

You (C): お電話ありがとうございます、ABC商事でございます。 — “Thank you for calling, ABC Trading.”

Caller: お世話になっております。XYZ社の鈴木と申します。営業部の田中様はいらっしゃいますか。 — “This is Suzuki from XYZ. Is Tanaka in sales available?”

You (C): 鈴木様、いつもお世話になっております。恐れ入りますが、田中はただいま席を外しております。 — Note: your colleague Tanaka takes no honorific.

You (C): 戻り次第、こちらから折り返しお電話を差し上げましょうか。 — “Shall I have him call you back when he returns?”

Caller: はい、お願いします。番号は03-1234-5678です。

You (C): 念のため復唱いたします。03–1234–5678、XYZ社の鈴木様でいらっしゃいますね。かしこまりました。失礼いたします。 — Read back the number and name, then let the caller hang up first.

Dialogue 2 — you call a vendor and ask for someone (caller side)

You (C): いつもお世話になっております。ABC商事の田中と申します。

Receiver: お世話になっております。

You (C): 先日のお見積りの件で、購買部の佐藤様をお願いできますでしょうか。 — Reason first, then the person — note Satō-sama takes the honorific.

Receiver: 申し訳ございません、佐藤はただいま外出しております。

You (C): さようでございますか。それでは、また改めてこちらからお電話いたします。お忙しいところ恐れ入りました、失礼いたします。 — Keep control of the follow-up; close with thanks.

A one-page printable script

Keep the bones of the call beside the phone. On this site, press Cmd+P (Mac) or Ctrl+P (Windows) and the tables above print clean — nav, sidebar, and CTA strip drop away. The minimum kit:

• Answer: お電話ありがとうございます、○○でございます
• Who’s calling: 恐れ入りますが、御社名とお名前を頂戴できますでしょうか
• Hold: 少々お待ちくださいませ → お待たせいたしました
• They’re out: 申し訳ございません、○○はただいま席を外しております
• Callback: 戻り次第、折り返しお電話を差し上げましょうか
• Close: 失礼いたします (let them hang up first)

Five phone mistakes to stop making

For keigo errors across all settings, see our 8 keigo mistakes guide. These five detonate specifically on the phone.

Related guides

Phone phrases stop here. The surrounding territory is covered below.

• Japanese meeting phrases — the meetings-and-phone pillar, including Zoom and Teams expressions
• Keigo guide — the full A/B/C framework
• Sonkeigo vs kenjougo — the humble/respectful split that powers phone keigo
• Japanese business self-introduction templates — the name-and-company open, in depth
• 10 polite Japanese phrases for the office — the week-one workplace defaults
• Japanese business phrases PDF — 30 scenarios × A/B/C, print-friendly

Frequently asked questions

The questions below are answered inline above; this block collects them for quick reference and “People also ask” boxes.

Is it ever okay to say moshi moshi at work?

Once: when a connection is dropping and you’re checking whether the other person is still on the line — moshi moshi, o-kikoe deshō ka. As an opening greeting on a business call, no — lead with your company name.

How do you answer a shared office line you don’t recognize?

Default to Level C, since you can’t see who’s calling. O-denwa arigatō gozaimasu, ○○ de gozaimasu, then ask for the company and name with osore irimasu ga, onsha-mei to o-namae o chōdai dekimasu deshō ka.

How do you refer to your own boss on the phone?

To an outside caller, drop the honorific and humble them: Tanaka wa seki o hazushite orimasu. The uchi-soto rule treats your whole company as your in-group, so your boss is humbled to outsiders even though you’d elevate them in-house.

What’s the safest way to handle a name I can’t catch?

Ask for the spelling — o-namae no tsuzuri o oshiete itadakemasu deshō ka — then read it back syllable by syllable. Guessing a name and routing the call wrong is far worse than one polite request to repeat.

Who hangs up first in a Japanese business call?

The caller. As the receiver, wait for the other person to disconnect, then replace the receiver gently. If you must end it as the caller, close with shitsurei itashimasu and hang up softly.