Learn English Conversation

Hey, what have you been up to lately? If I asked you this question, would you go, uh, uh, oh no. How do I respond? Well, never fear, today I have some good news. In the next 30 minutes, you are going to learn my top tips for having a successful conversation in English so that you can breathe easy and never fear having an English conversation again. Hi, I'm Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com. And like always, I have created a free PDF worksheet for you with all of today's amazing tips so that you can print it out, put it under your pillow, sleep on it and dream about beautiful English conversations and feel confident the next time that you need to speak in English. You can click on the link in the description to download this free PDF worksheet today. In today's lesson, you will learn how to start a conversation in English, some easy small talk tips in English and some bonus tips about having amazing conversations. Yes, this lesson is for free for you. Can you believe it? Here it is. All right, let's get started with my top tips to help you start a conversation in English. In life, there are two kinds of people, people you know and people you don't know. We call those strangers. So it makes sense to have two different types of conversation starters. Of course, there's some overlap, but it's helpful to separate them. Let's start with people you know. Imagine that you're in the grocery store, you're pushing your car, looking for some spinach and you see your coworker and you want to say hi. What can you say? Well, here are four great questions that you can ask in that situation or that they might ask you so you need to understand them and how to respond. The first two questions are about the past. Let's take a look. Hi, Dan. Hi. How are you? Pretty good. What have you been up to lately? Oh, not much. Just went to see my family yesterday. What about you? Hi, Dan. Hi. How are you? Pretty good. What were you up to this weekend? Oh, not much. Just went to see my family yesterday. What about you? These questions asked about some time in the past. You can change the words to say lately, today, last weekend, for a recent holiday. You can switch that up depending on the situation, but it's great to ask about the past. The next questions are going to ask about the present. What do you have going on today? Oh, not much. Just going to a friend's house this evening. What about you? What have you got going on today? Oh, not much. Just going to a friend's house this evening. What about you? These questions asked about the present. Did you notice the beautiful, casual verbs that were used here? What have you got going on today? What are you doing today? That's another way to say it, but we often say, what have you got going on today? It's really casual, informal. It's great for these just passing by situations when you see someone who you already know. Let's go on to the next questions, which talk about the future. Do you have anything fun going on this weekend? Oh, not much. Just going to a friend's house tomorrow. What about you? Do you have any plans for Easter? Oh, not much. Just going to have lunch with my family. What about you? For these questions that ask about the future, I want you to be a little bit careful because if you say this with a certain type of intonation, the other person, especially if you're a guy talking to a girl, it could feel like you're trying to ask them on a date, or maybe they'll feel a little bit uncomfortable, so make sure that when you say, oh, do you have anything fun going on this weekend, make sure you say it with a smile, very casually. You don't need to look them into the eye and say it seriously from the bottom of your heart. It's just a casual question. Of course, unless you do want to ask them for a date, and then you can say it a little more seriously, but if you just want to casually say something to your coworker, you need to have a light tone. Don't worry about using this, just make sure you have a light tone and you say it with a smile. Oh, do you have anything fun going on this weekend? Great. Like you saw in those sample conversations, Dan could have just said, not much, and then stop the conversation. Boring, boring, boring. But you know what? Some people do that. If you're lucky, the person you're talking to might ask, not much, what about you? Okay, at least they're asking a question and you can share some information about what you're doing or what you did over the weekend. So here, not everyone is going to give a lot of information, but they might give you something. And if they don't, don't worry about it. It's not your fault. You tried your best. What about the second kind of people? People you don't know. Strangers. In the U.S., we sometimes strike up a conversation with strangers, but it depends where you are. For example, in the south of the U.S. where I live, it's pretty common that when you pass by a stranger, you make eye contact and you might say, hi. But if you're in Manhattan, in New York, if you did that to every stranger who you passed by, hi, hi, hi, people would think you were a little bit strange. So it depends on where you are in the U.S., but it's certainly common to strike up a conversation with someone who you don't know. If you visit the U.S., I recommend visiting a grocery store called Trader Joe's because it's a requirement for working there that every employee is amazing at having small talk conversations with strangers and it's part of their job to talk with customers. So if you have ever visited a Trader Joe's, you know exactly what I mean. These employees are known for being so kind and so friendly, and if you go there, be prepared with some of these questions and be prepared to answer them because they'll definitely ask you them. Let's think about a scenario where you might talk with a stranger. We can imagine you're in the park, you're walking your dog, and like dogs do, your dog is sniffing and going towards another dog. Well, you'd like to strike up a conversation with the owner of that dog. What can you say? Aww, what a cute dog. Do you come here often? Yeah, we try to. It's a great place to walk. Aww, what a cute dog. Have you ever been here before? Yeah, a lot. It's a great place to walk. Aww, what a cute dog. Yeah, he's a sweetie. Have you been in Asheville for a while? Just two years. What about you? Aww, what a cute dog. Yeah, he's a sweetie. Do you live nearby? Yeah, we live just down the street. What about you? Like with the previous set of questions, it's important to have a light attitude. If you ask someone, do you come here often? The other person might feel a little bit uncomfortable, like, are they following me? Are they a scary person? So make sure you just say it lightly. Oh, do you come here often? No problem. This is a great question to ask, and I ask this all the time. When I go to the park and I'm playing with my toddler and he ends up playing with another kid and I ask the parent, oh, do you come here often? It's just a way to start a conversation. Okay, now it's special notice time. I want to let you know that not everyone is a great conversationalist. You have to try your best and practice this. So if you ask these questions to someone and they don't respond and you don't have an amazing conversation, you know what? Maybe they're just not a good conversationalist. Maybe they haven't practiced this skill. So I want you to be able to try your best, and then it's really up to the other person. It's their choice if the conversation continues. You might be thinking, Vanessa, you seem like a good conversationalist. What do you know about being worried about what to say or not knowing what to say? Let me tell you a little story. Well, Dan and I lived in South Korea for three years, so that means that for three years, every time that I had small talk or started a conversation with someone, it was in Korean. That means that I didn't practice small talk in English for three years. When we moved back to the US, I remember two situations. One was when I was getting my driver's license because we had just moved back, so I needed my driver's license again, and the man at the desk said something to me like, have you just moved here or how's your day going? Some kind of typical small talk question, and I just stood there and I stuttered and I didn't really know what to say. And then he repeated the question and I said something, probably something silly. And when I walked away from that conversation, I just laughed and thought, what happened? This is my native language. Why can't I respond to him? And then I realized, oh, I haven't practiced small talk with strangers in English in three years. I'm going to need a little bit of practice to get used to speaking like that again. Then, a few weeks later, I was at Trader Joe's, the grocery store that I mentioned to you, and I was getting a sample of food from one of the workers, and she asked me some typical question. I don't even remember what it was, but it was some kind of small talk question and my brain just went and shut down completely. And I recognized this feeling because it had happened a couple weeks earlier at the driver's license place. So I thought I should just tell her why I'm reacting like this. So I said, I'm sorry, I just moved back from Korea and I haven't had small talk in English for a long time, so I'm sorry about my awkwardness. And you know what? She had lived in Korea too. It was a really unusual circumstance, but we bonded over that and I could kind of loosen up a little bit and feel comfortable because we started talking a little bit and this helped me to get practice and practice and practice and repetition is what's going to help you to really improve this skill. Always remember that a smile is the best tool. Sometimes when we feel nervous, our face gets really serious and we forget to smile, but something happens when you smile, you start to loosen up, you start to feel a little more comfortable and maybe you'll be able to remember some of the sentences and questions that we talked about. Great work leveling up your skills so that you can start a conversation in English. Now you're going to learn some easy small talk tips in English. This will help you to feel comfortable going beyond the basics and connecting with someone else. Let's watch. Small talk means that you're not just saying, hi, see you later, bye. Instead, you're having a short, light conversation, usually with someone in passing or before you're going to have a more in-depth discussion. So when you see someone, you know, at the grocery store, when you have a quick conversation with a coworker as you're eating lunch, or maybe when you're just wanting to make a new friend, you need to have good small talk skills. The first topic is weather. Weather is a very simple, non-controversial, neutral topic, unless you're talking about climate change. In that case, it's a little more serious to talk about. But we often use this as an icebreaker. An icebreaker is a common expression we use when talking about introducing a conversation. You're helping it to become less awkward. You're having some icebreaker or small talk discussion, and then you can relax and having normal discussion. Some common weather questions you might ask are, isn't it a gorgeous day? Can you believe how rainy it's been? Is it hot enough for you? This last one might seem a little strange, but it is a silly or humorous way to address how extremely hot the weather is, or maybe extremely cold. If you say, is it cold enough for you? You're joking about the extreme temperature that you're experiencing, and it's a light way to introduce a conversation. Notice that all three of these questions are not open-ended questions. They are only yes or no questions, and this makes it a very simple way to introduce a conversation. The other person doesn't need to think about some kind of answer. They can just say, yes, it is a gorgeous day. Oh, yes, it is so rainy. Yes, it's really hot. Very simple, and it makes for a comfortable introduction. If you would like to learn some more ways to talk about the weather, I made a lesson completely dedicated to the weather, 100 expressions for talking about the weather, and you can watch that lesson up here to expand your weather vocabulary. Our second small talk topic is where you're at or your location. Now, you need to think about this, of course, in an understanding way. If you are at a hospital, you might not want to ask these questions because if you say, and they're at the hospital, it might be a little bit too sensitive to talk about, but you can use these questions for any type of location like a park, the zoo, a library, a museum, walking down the street. You can use these for most daily life situations. So let's imagine that you see someone who you've met a couple times, but you don't know that well. You might talk about where you're at, and you might ask, this place is great. Do you come here often? How long have you been coming here? Do you live near here? If you're at a dog park, these are pretty common in the U.S., people bring their dogs and their dogs can run freely together, well, great. You already have something in common because that other person probably has a dog. Or if you're at the library, you both have an interest in books, so you have something in common, your location, and you can ask these questions. Do you come here often? How long have you been coming here? Do you live near here? Do you live in the area? Great. Let's say that you're somewhere that's not a regular hangout like a coffee shop or a library or a park. Let's imagine that you're at the zoo or a museum, these kind of special occasion places. You could ask, have you seen the Da Vinci exhibit? It's really cool. Or which exhibit do you like the most? Have you seen the monkey exhibit? It's amazing. You can use this to talk about the location where you're at. What if you're in transit somewhere? Maybe you're at an airport, you're at a train station, you're waiting for your subway to show up. Well, what are some questions you could ask to someone who maybe you don't know and you want to start a conversation with? You might ask, so where are you headed? Headed is a verb that we often use to say, which direction are you going to? I'm headed to the office. I'm headed to San Francisco. I'm headed to some place. This is a great question to ask and I just want to let you know that if you ask someone this and say, oh, so where are you headed? And they say, to work. Okay. Maybe they're not open to conversation. They just gave you a one word answer, two word answer. That's completely fine. Not everyone is going to be open to conversation, but I've started a lot of great conversations and even friendships by trying to just give it a try. Try to speak with someone else who you feel like might be open to having a conversation and also respecting other people's distance if they're not interested. When you have established that the other person might be interested in talking, if they say, I'm headed to San Francisco, you could ask, are you traveling for business or pleasure? Business is kind of obvious for work. Pleasure might mean they're visiting family or they're doing something for fun, for vacation, something like this. And this is a good way to continue the conversation. Of course, you have to be aware that if someone is traveling for a sensitive reason, for example, they're going to a funeral. Don't push the topic too much and you can just shift your questions accordingly so that the other person also feels comfortable. Our third topic for small talk conversation is to talk about your plans. You can talk about the past, in the present, in the future. In this first scenario, you run into someone who you kind of know, but you maybe don't know too well or you haven't seen them in a little while. You can ask them, hey, how are you? What have you been up to? You don't need to ask, how are you? But it just feels really comfortable and it's kind of introduces the conversation instead of being like an interrogation, hey, what have you been up to? Instead, when you say, hey, how are you? What have you been up to? You can kind of smoothly introduce the conversation. If you haven't seen this person in a while, you might say, we have so much to catch up on. What are you up to this weekend? This is asking about the future. This future weekend, what are you up to? Now, of course, if you're asking this, it means that you would like to get together with the other person and catch up. This phrasal verb to catch up means that you are learning about what has happened to them in the past. Maybe you don't know, you haven't seen them since elementary school. So you have a lot to catch up on. You want to know what's going on in their life. So if you ask this, be prepared to make some plans and to have some availability. That way you can follow through on your question. You can also ask the informal question, do you want to grab coffee? Do you want to grab a drink? Do you want to grab lunch, brunch, dinner, and catch up? To grab something, usually we use this in a very informal situation so that it doesn't seem like you need to sit there and talk for five hours. Instead, you're just going to grab a coffee, maybe a 30-minute conversation, one-hour conversation, very informal and spontaneous. And it's also potentially an easier way to not make someone feel uncomfortable if they say no because it's not so serious. Just a little note, if you are a guy asking a girl or, you know, any combination I imagine, if you say, do you want to grab coffee with me? Make sure that you say this very lightly if you don't want to ask them on a date. Because for me, if a guy tells me this and says, hey, do you want to grab lunch later? And they don't know me or they don't know that I'm married, then I will feel really uncomfortable because is it a date? Is it not a date? Do I want to just talk with them? So make sure that if you are in this situation, you just ask in a very light and happy manner. Of course, if you do want to ask them on a date, this is a good question to ask. And finally, talking about your plans, we have two very safe questions you can ask. The first one is, I can't believe it's already time for some kind of holiday, whatever holiday is coming up. I can't believe it's already time for Thanksgiving. I can't believe it's already time for Christmas, for the new year, for spring break. Do you have any plans? And this is asking them about the future. What are you going to do for the holiday season? Or you can simply ask, do you have any plans for this weekend? Ask it very lightly so they know that you are just simply asking, hey, what are you up to this weekend? Do you have any plans for this weekend? Great small talk. Our next small talk topic is a job. Even if you're talking with someone who you work with, you can alter these questions slightly and still talk about your job with them. In fact, it might be the best option because it's something that you already have in common. If you're talking with someone you've never met before, this is a great question to ask. So what do you do? Or so what do you do for work? Sometimes we leave off the last part for work and we simply ask, so what do you do? This might seem a little bit vague for English learners who've never heard this expression before, but it is extremely common. So I want to make sure that when someone asks you, so what do you do? You might say, what do I do? Well, I eat breakfast, I wake up, I breathe, I like to run. No, no, no. This is talking about your job. What do you do? Next, you could ask them, how long have you been doing this job? How long have you been an architect? How long have you been a nurse? How long have you been a builder? Well, this is great. You're trying to ask some more details. If they haven't done that job for very long, you can follow that up with, so what did you do before this? What did you do before this? This means this current job. What was your previous job? Or maybe you were a student, or maybe you were traveling. What did you do before this? You might notice that I'm starting a lot of these questions with the word, so, and it just provides a kind of smooth entrance to your question so that it doesn't sound like an interrogation. What do you do? How often have you done this? Where are you coming? How often do you come here? If you ask questions like this, the other person will feel uncomfortable. We often add these filler words like so, to make it seem more casual and just more natural. What did you do before this? How long have you done this job? Great idea. If someone really likes their job, you could ask, so what made you get into architecture? What made you get into teaching? If someone is a teacher, I'm sure they'd love to share about how they became interested in teaching. That's what the essence of this question is. So, how did you get into teaching? Especially if you have an unusual job, like my job, which is to teach you English online, a lot of people ask me this question, how did you get into teaching English on YouTube and online? So, I tell a little background story about teaching English in the classroom, and then I was searching online for how to teach English in the US, and I found out I could teach English online, and I just started to dive into it and give it a try. This is a little background story to talk about how I became interested in my current job. Not everybody likes their job, though, so if someone doesn't seem that excited about their job, and you want to learn more about them, you could ask them this fun question, which is, if money was no object, what job would you do? This means, if you didn't need to make money, or you didn't care about how much money you had, what kind of job would you have? This is a classic question, and it really gets to the heart of someone's passion. Maybe they love horses, but they just don't think they can make a career out of loving horses. So, they might say, oh, I really wish I could be a horse trainer and teach people how to ride horses. Well, great, all of a sudden, you have a treasure, which is a piece of information about the other person. They love horses. Great. You want to make sure that when you learn something interesting about other people, you store that away, because it's a great way to continue conversations or to bring up something interesting with them. What if you're talking with someone who you work with? How can you talk about your job? Because you can't ask them, what do you do? Well, I guess unless you don't really know what part of the company they work for. But in general, we want to ask more specific questions. So let's imagine this scenario. You are in the lunchroom. Most offices in the US have a kind of break room or lunchroom with some tables and a microwave, maybe a sink, so that you can heat up your food or wash some dishes. And you are waiting for your food to heat up. You brought some leftover soup. This is a very detailed scenario. You brought some leftover chicken noodle soup, and you put it in the microwave to heat up. But you've got two minutes, and there's somebody who works with you standing beside you. What do you do? What do you say? Don't worry. I'm here to save you. You can ask these three questions. If you know which department they work in, you might say, hey, what's new in the marketing department today? If they work in marketing, or if they work in management, you might say, hey, what's new in management today? Cool. Great. You might say that you know a little bit about them, but you're just having some small talk. Or if you know they're working on a project, you could say, how's your project going? How's your project going? Or if you have no idea what they're doing, you might say, do you have any fun or exciting projects coming up? You're asking about the future, what kind of things they're planning for. Not everybody is great at small talk, so they might just say, nope, not much. Okay, not everybody is willing to have small talk, but who knows? Maybe they'll say, yeah, we're working on this really cool initiative. We're working with a charity, and we're going to try to raise some funds for this organization. And maybe they're excited about it and will want to share it. Maybe they've just been dying to share this with someone, and you were that opportunity. So it's worth a try. You never know. Give small talk a shot. Before we go, I want to give you four tips for excellent small talk. These are general ideas about conversation, but they are essential for connecting with someone else. Number one is put your phone away. This seems like a basic thing, right? But sometimes we don't realize how often we're opening our phone, checking our messages. There's a little buzz, and you open your phone. This is disconnecting you from the person you're talking with. So when you're trying to have small talk, keep your phone in your pocket. Keep your phone away. If you have an emergency or urgent phone call, you can just say, excuse me, I'm sorry, I have to take this. And that means you have to talk with that person. I'm sorry, it's my boss. I have to talk with him. I'll be back. And you have to take that emergency call. But in general, for small talk, keep your phone away. My second tip is to be curious about the other person. This is one of the great joys in life, I think, is getting to know other people and being very sincere about getting to know them. You're not just a robot blithely asking questions. No, you want to get to know another person, even if it's just for one minute while you're waiting for your food to heat up in the microwave, that chicken noodle soup, so you can get to know someone else. Be curious. A great way is to ask why or how questions. Oh, why did you decide to get this type of dog? Or how long have you had this dog? Wow, this is a great way to ask further questions. Of course, don't interrogate them. Why did you get this dog? How long have you had him? No, you can just be friendly. Be yourself. But these open questions with why and how show the other person that you are sincerely interested in their choices and their life. My third tip is what I just mentioned, which is do not interrogate the other person. Instead, just be genuine and interested in them. If you feel like you're asking too many questions, do you know what you can do? You can share about yourself. This is something that's also essential to do, but not easy for everyone. If someone says that they are a math teacher, you might say, oh, you know what? When I was in high school, I had an awesome math teacher who was a really special person. Okay, that's really short, but you're sharing some kind of connection from your personal life, and this helps you to not interrogate them. Instead, you are also giving. You're not just taking their question, their answers. Instead, you are giving from yourself as well. My fourth tip for a great small talk is to avoid your personal favorite topic. So if, for example, you're really into gardening and growing vegetables, but you have a feeling that the other person has no experience with this, well, you want to keep the conversation balanced. Of course, you can say, yeah, I'm really into gardening, and I've been working hard to be able to grow lots of kinds of vegetables in the spring. Okay, that's great, but if you keep talking on and on and on about it, well, that's not a balanced conversation. Of course, you can share what you're interested in, but make sure that you don't get carried away lecturing the other person about your favorite topic. Well, congratulations, now you are armed and ready to have amazing English conversations. Don't forget to download the free PDF worksheet, which includes everything that you learned in today's lesson, all of the tips, all of the sentences, all of the ideas, so that you can feel confident and comfortable speaking in English. Click on the link in the description to download the free PDF worksheet today. Well, thank you so much for learning English with me, and I'll see you again next Friday for a new lesson here on my YouTube channel. Bye. But wait, do you want more? I recommend watching this video next, the top 20 speaking mistakes that English learners often make, including one mistake that my English students make, which can be quite rude, but you don't want to be rude. I don't want you to be rude. So watch that video to find out how you can be polite.