Do you avoid opportunities to start
conversations socially because you're just not sure what to say or
ask in English? For example, if you see your neighbor
out watering her garden, or when you go to your yoga
studio every Monday and Wednesday, and you see the same
people there every time, maybe you even avoid things
like joining a book club, because you're so nervous about that
process of getting to know others. Several months ago, I did a lesson
on English, small talk for work, but what about small talk for
social more informal situations? Can you ask the same questions? How
can you be sure that you're polite, but not too formal or
too personal, too fast. If you don't already know, I'm
Annemarie with Speak Confident English. This is where you want to be every week
to get the confidence you want for your life and work in English. And today we're going to
answer all of those questions. I'm going to help you put aside that
anxiety and nervousness so that you can affectively start conversations using
small talk in social situations. By the end of this lesson today, you'll have several open-ended questions
that you can use to effectively start a conversation and make
a connection to others. Whether you're in a book
club, going to a yoga studio, talking to your neighbor or any other
social situation that you might be in. If you've been following
my lessons for a while now, you've probably heard me say this
before, but it's so important. I'm going to say it again. I know
that small talk can be uncomfortable. It is polite, but
unimportant conversation. And that might lead you to believe
that it's pointless or not really important, but that's not true. Small talk plays a critical role in
building relationships and forming friendships. We use it as a pathway to learn
something new about someone. And on that path, we're able
to establish connections, discover potential friendships,
and have fun along the way. So to help you do that
effectively in social situations, let's look at four different kinds
of questions. You can use strategy. Number one, start with a compliment.
If you've watched that lesson, I talked about earlier on
English, small talk for work, then you're already familiar with the
strategy. English speakers love it. When you meet someone new
for the very first time, you don't have any initial common ground. You have to find a way to discover
common interests or things to talk about. So it can be really hard to
know what to ask or how to start a conversation. The easiest way to take those first
steps is to start with a compliment, something related to the
situation that you're in. And then add an open-ended
question. For example, you're going to a party you might say
to someone, your dress is gorgeous. Where did you get that?
Or where did you get it? That question always surprises
my students and they think, why does someone want to know
where I bought my clothes? And the truth is that's not
what we're really asking. We're just trying to get
the conversation started. So we're beginning with that compliment
and adding an open-ended question. Where did you get it?
Or where did you buy it? Where do you do your shopping in that
process? As you answer the question, I might discover some common ground.
Maybe we love shopping at the same place. And once we find common ground, we
can easily continue the conversation. Here's a second scenario to consider
with this idea of using a compliment with an open-ended question. Let's say that you want to strike up
or start a conversation with a neighbor while you're taking a walk outside. You might say your garden is
beautiful. What's your secret? And that's all you have to say
to get that conversation going. The second way to initiate small
talk is to inquire about someone's day or their wellbeing. Sometimes it can be really
awkward to sit or stand and wait while someone is doing
something for you. For example, imagine yourself at the grocery store, you're checking out and you're
standing really close to someone else. And it's just that weird, awkward
silence. The same thing is true. When we get inside an Uber, we're
sitting in the Uber with a driver, and again, it's just silent. You could use that opportunity to
initiate some small talk and have a little conversation. The best way to do that is simply ask
about their day or their wellbeing. Let me give you two scenarios where
I begin by establishing a topic and then add an open-ended
question for the first scenario. Let's go back to imagining that you're
at the grocery store and you're checking out. You've probably heard a
sales clerk or sales person say, how's your day going as you approach
the checkout line and you can do the same. For example, let's say that you're
shopping during the holiday season, which is always a very busy time. You can use that as the topic and
then add an open-ended question to ask about their wellbeing
or how their day's going. Here's what that would sound
like. It seems so busy today. How are you holding up? Let's pause for
a moment and talk about that question. How are you holding up? This is a casual way to ask
how someone is doing during a particularly difficult
or challenging time. If you work at a store
during the holidays, you know that it is extremely stressful
and busy. So if someone asks you, how are you holding up? They're
asking you, how are you doing? This has to be a really tough
day or a challenging busy day. And now the second scenario again, let's talk about getting into an Uber
rather than sitting in awkward silence. While you drive 35 minutes
to your destination, you could begin some small talk by saying
something like there's always a lot of traffic at this time of day.
How are your trips going so far? The topic is the amount of traffic. And then we're following it up
with an open-ended question. Not only is this an effective way
to initiate some conversation, using small talk questions, it
also shows kindness and care. You're asking about how someone
else is doing that is always an effective way to start a conversation. The third question type
we can use for English. Small talk in social situations
is to ask for someone's opinion or ask for someone's suggestion. We've
all been to classes or meetups, where there are a lot of new people
around and it can be difficult or uncomfortable to get a conversation going. But there's one thing
that makes this very easy. You are all in the same class, or you have all come to the same
place, the same place to meet up. You've all joined the same book club. So there is something that you
automatically have in common. You have some common area of interest
or a goal that you're trying to achieve, and that common ground can help you take
those first steps and asking some small talk questions with a focus
on an opinion or suggestion. For example, if you have a gym membership
and you see this same person there, every time you go, the two of you
clearly have the same schedule. If you wanted to start a conversation
and have a little bit of small talk, you could say building
strength and getting fit has
been such a long journey for me, I'd love to know how do you stay
committed to your fitness goals? What I'm asking is for her opinion
on how to start an effective workout routine or her suggestions, let's look at a second scenario to
illustrate this. If you're in a book club, a podcast club or a class, again, everyone has come there with a
common area of interest to get a conversation going. You could start
with a comment on the current book, selection, podcast, selection,
or topic of the class, and then follow it up with a question
that is asking for someone's opinion or suggestion. Here's an example. I thought the author explored the
theme of happiness in an unusual, surprising way. What did you think? Before we move on to the fourth type of
question we can use to initiate small talk in a social situation. I want to
pause here for a moment, because again, with small talk, our goal is to take those first
steps toward getting to know someone, finding common ground and a connection. We have to be careful to not
become too personal too soon. So opinions are always a bit tricky. Opinions can feel a bit personal, but in the examples we're using here, we're not asking about someone's
personal life. Instead, we're focused on asking their
opinion about a common topic or a common area of interest such
as a productive gym routine or what you think about a book that both
of you have read and asking about those topics. It's certainly not too personal
and it's not controversial either. So these are great questions to use
to get those conversations going. And now the fourth type of question
you can use for social small talk is connect through hobbies or interests. Sometimes in the process
of getting to know someone, we have a difficult time moving
the conversation forward. Maybe you started with some initial
small talk like how's your day going, or what did you think about the book? And then the conversation
just kind of stopped. And you're not really sure where
to go next. In every conversation, I encourage my students to keep
an ear out for common areas of interest or hobbies. What this means is to always be listening
for those little details that people share. If someone shares, they
always go canoeing on the weekends, or they love to do yoga during the week, they have shared a hobby
or an area of interest, and you can easily ask additional
questions to keep the conversation going. Let me share two examples
scenarios to illustrate this. Again, we've all been in conversations where
there was some initial back and forth, and then there's just a weird lull or silence, and nobody knows what to do or how to
get out of it. So here's a suggestion. Change the focus of conversation
slightly by acknowledging an area of interest or hobby and asking
for more details. For example, imagine you're in a conversation with
your boss and one of those awkward silences shows up. You could say something like I
remember you mentioned reading Obama's autobiography. What
did you think about it? Would you recommend it in that example, I'm bringing up an area of interest
that was mentioned previously. It might've been earlier
in the conversation, or it may have even been a few
weeks ago. Here's another scenario. Let's say that you walk to your child's
school every day in the afternoon to pick her up from school and
bring her home. When you do that, you always see the same group of
parents and you just can't get past the basic hi, how you doing?
You want to go a little bit deeper? So how can you do that? If you have no idea what someone's
interests or hobbies are, you can simply ask after
you have that basic, hi, how are things going? You
could say something like, so what do you and your family
love to do on the weekends? And asking that question, you'll find out what her interests
are or what her family enjoys doing. And you may even find that you have
something in common and with that you have four different kinds of
questions you can use for appropriate, polite and interesting English
small talk for social situations. Before we finish, I have two
questions for you. Number one, what was your aha moment? I would love to know if there was a
moment while you were watching this lesson where you thought, oh my gosh. Yes. That's the answer I've always been
looking for. If you had that moment. Tell me about it. My second question is which
question type or which example are you most excited to try? Do you have a neighbor that you see
every day and you think yes, tomorrow, I'm going down ask about her garden. I'm going to use a compliment
and then a question, or do you have someone who is
in a pod class club with you? And you finally have a question that you
can ask to get the conversation going. I would love for you to share the
questions you're excited to use with me. And you can do that in the
comment section below as always, if you found this lesson useful
to you, I would love to know. And you can tell me in
one very simple way, give this lesson a thumbs up on
YouTube. And while you're at it, subscribe to the speak
confident Lish channel. So you never miss one of my lessons.
Thank you so much for joining me. And I look forward to
seeing you next time.
