Alpha, Bravo, Charlie... will help improve your phone communication.
This is the first post I’m writing based on the suggestion of a person I know. In this case, Juan Lopez-Tamez, a former co-worker and dear friend who, like me, became a fan of using the NATO phonetic alphabet in his phone conversations.
I grew up watching World War II movies where the main characters used Alpha, Bravo, Charlie, etc., to spell out words. Later on, I found out they were using the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet a.k.a. NATO phonetic alphabet. Turns out the words comprising said alphabet were chosen so that they’d be easily understood over the two-way radio, in less than ideal situations, without the possibility of misinterpretation. Can you imagine providing coordinates of an enemy bunker that needs to get flattened by the artillery and because of a misunderstanding, friendly troops get taken out, instead? Not good. Well, the thing is that since I wasn’t a soldier (at the time I didn’t know civilians used it too) and didn’t have the need to spell out English words to communicate with others, I didn’t see how this could benefit me or anyone for that matter.
Fast forward to 2007 when I moved with my wife and kids to the United States. That was when I found out I had an accent and also when I began to understand the importance of pronouncing English words properly, to avoid confusion. I’ll never forget a phone conversation with a customer service representative. Every time I said the word travel she heard trouble. It was frustrating. I decided to spell out the word travel, t-r-a-v-e-l and a second round of confusion started: “Sir, did you say “t” or “p”? “V” or “b”? Yikes!
Lesson learned. In the phone conversations that followed I added to my arsenal. Travel: “T” as in tomato, “r” as in radio, “a” as in apple, “v” as in victory, “e” as in elephant, and “l” as in Linda. Easy-peasy. But the thing is that sometimes I would get nervous and come up with awkward words: “T” as in tarantula, “r” as in radioactive… Who talks like that?
It wasn’t until I watched a video from Rachel’s English.com where Rachel herself, an English native speaker, explained how she uses the NATO phonetic alphabet whenever it is important for her to be clearly understood over the phone, that I realized if it was good enough for the native speakers, I could certainly benefit from it as well.
I tried memorizing the phonetic alphabet a couple of times, but in the end, I decided to print a wallet-size copy of it. I also carry it on my cellphone just in case.
The phonetic alphabet will do wonders for your communication over the phone. Just ask Juan Lopez-Tamez. ☼
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Alex Guerrero is a content creator who lives in Lawrence, KS. He’s very vocal in his displeasure over pineapple pizza. Chocolate, on the other hand, makes everything better!
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