student asking question

What's the expression "speak at the tone"? Doesn't it mean "speak something at the same time with the tone"? How was it translated into "speak after tone"?

teacher

Native speaker’s answer

Rebecca

"Speak at the tone" is an example of instructions that are commonly given before recording a voicemail on the phone. "Tone" is another word for beep, so we can understand the phrase to mean, "begin speaking (recording your message) once you hear the beep." "At" here does not mean "at the same time," we can understand it to mean "after" as it is not possible to begin speaking at exactly the same time as the beep.

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