I aim to translate an automated system that will provide spoken phrases to callers, including prompts about when a person will be back from an appointment.
I don't know German, but I am trying to complete at least a prototype translation, that can then be sent to professionals for verification.
I got super good help from a Portuguese forum, so good in fact that only very minor adjustments will be necessary, so I figured I would see if I can do the same for German to be able to demo for German users with your help.
So, for this kind of use you want short and very standardized – but no awkward – wording and during prototyping.
For instance, in English, the automated voice may combine these phrases into a sentence (actual example):
“Lisa” “is in a meeting” “and” “will return” “the fifth of” “January” “at ten” “thirty” “five” “a.m.”
In this real world example, we omit “on” in “will return on the fifth” for simplification reasons in programming, since will return might also be followed by “tomorrow” for instance. We would also use the somewhat less natural “ten-thirty” even for “half past nine” sharp, since that also simplifies coding and is considered good enough.
I hope this example works as background of what I am trying to achieve. The first question I have is how would you best say the time in German for it to work well on a system of this kind.
I supposed Germans are used to the 24-hour system, which is good. But how would you say the minutes best for both exact fractions of ours, and full hours in a natural way when automated.
That is, would something like
Lisa ist in einer Besprechung, und werden wieder am einunddreißigsten Dezember um sechzehn Uhr fünfzehn.
Lisa ist in einer Besprechung, und werden wieder Morgen um sechzehn Uhr dreißig.
Lisa ist in einer Besprechung, und werden wieder um sechzehn Uhr
work?
Or what would be more natural sounding ways to say these sentences?
Also, how would you say 00:30? „Null Uhr dreißig”?
---EDIT---
According to the discussion with besc below, this is currently the alternative I am leaning towards using:
A) Herr Schmidt ist im Urlaub und ab ersten Februar wieder erreichbar.
B) …und ab ersten Februar, acht Uhr wieder erreichbar.
C) …und ab acht Uhr fünfundzwanzig wieder erreichbar.
D) …und ab Morgen, acht Uhr wieder erreichbar.
Do they appear reasonable from an automated spoken system?
--- EDIT---