When to END a conversation: 4 signs

So then, I was blah blah blah blah blah blah blah... where are you going?

Hi, James from www.engvid.com . I don't know why they just walked away.

That was so rude!

Let's go to the board and talk to E. Stop boring people?

Four signs it's time to end a conversation.

Wow.

You know what?

When I think about it, he's got a point.

This video is to help you to be aware of when you should let a conversation go.

Why is this important?

I've done many videos on how to continue a conversation, make conversations interesting,

how to start one, because we know that you need practice to get good at learning languages,

or acquiring languages.

Whether it be English, Spanish, Arabic, Russian.

So, you need a lot of practice.

But in order to get that practice, you want people to willingly talk to you.

And if you continue a conversation past the point that they want to talk to you, they

will eventually start avoiding you when they see you, because you don't know when to end

it and they feel trapped.

You don't want to be the one person that people are like, "Oh god, here comes E and James.

We gotta get out of here."

Right?

So, this specific lesson is how to spot when somebody wants to end a conversation with

you.

And why it's important?

Because if you can end that conversation before they get there, they will want to talk to

you later.

Now, how will we do this?

Well, I'm going to introduce to you body language you should look for.

I will show you some phrases or words - key words they may use.

Some things about tone, okay?

And conversation pacing.

Once you have these things in your head, you'll be able to find that you'll know just before

a conversation's about to go - we call it sideways, or go in a bad direction.

You'll be able to end that conversation and have that person feeling comfortable enough

to speak to you again.

Are you ready?

Let's go to the board.

So, I've got numbers for you, 1, 2, 3, 4, because the lesson is about the four signs

it's time to end a conversation.

I did tell you how we're going to do this, and one of the ways we're going to look at

is body language.

Because when you see people using these signs, they're telling you it's time to end the conversation.

The first one is shoulder and foot position.

Now, you can't see my feet.

Maybe that's a good thing.

I haven't cut them yet, no mani-pedis.

But you'll notice the person's foot will go towards an exit.

So, if you're talking to somebody and you just casually look down and one foot is pointing

towards you and the other foot is pointing towards a door, probably they want to leave.

Now, that's not a bad thing.

It might be just at that moment, they're thinking to themselves, "Oh, I've got go home and cook

dinner", or "I've got to do...", and you notice what's happening with my body?

It's shifting over.

It doesn't mean I really need to get out, but my brain is starting to go there.

My body's moving there.

You'll see also that shoulders will move.

Their shoulder might start going, "Oh, that's really nice.

You and the kids are going on vacation next week.

Cool, I'd like to hear more about..." going towards an exit.

So, look at the rotation of their body or the position of their body.

If someone's really exited to talk to you, you'll notice that the foot might shift back

towards you, indicating they want to continue the conversation.

So, the first sign you should look for, which is the beginning of they want to end the conversation

is look at their foot.

Is it pointing towards an exit?

Look at their shoulder, does it start to move towards the exit?

Because it means the body's getting ready to run.

Well, not really run, but you know what I'm saying.

First one.

The second one, eyes.

After I've moved my body this way, you might start noticing that my eyes aren't on you

anymore.

They're down, if I'm holding at drink, at my drink.

They might be looking at other people, looking at the clock around you.

This is when it's becoming - from unconscious - that is my body turning towards an exit

- to conscious, that I feel I've got to get going and I don't want to be rude.

So, these signs are - you're moving closer to somebody wants to end the conversation.

And now it's conscious.

They're aware that maybe the conversation isn't exciting anymore, or stimulating.

Making them interested, or that they have to leave and time is happening.

Or, they're bored.

You've been talking and they're like "Oh wow.

Hm hm hm hm hm hm."

They're just trying to think of anything else.

And looking at objects is to try to keep our attention.

Because when people want to talk to you, they will keep close attention or keep their eyes

on you.

Alright?

So, second sign, watch their eyes.

There's a difference between moving their eyes and thinking about things and then looking

over for a second or two over here and over there.

It's almost a very obvious sign, but sometimes we miss it because we're so excited about

getting to practice that we're not really paying attention to the other person.

Now, let's look at number three.

Number three - I've got musical notes here, but what I'm really talking about is tone.

When I'm really happy to see you, I'm going to go, "So, what have you been up to?"

My voice goes up, and you go, "Well, I'm going to be going to the store and then I'm going

to be doing..." as my tone goes up, it's about excitement in English.

It's excitement, I'm happy, alright?

So, if I go, "Well, what have you been doing?"

Well, what have you been doing?

So, is this your new boyfriend?

This is good.

But when our tone goes down, as the arrow indicates, and you see these words, okay?

You'll notice that the tone will go down.

I'll be talking to you and I'll go, "Well..."

I'm not "Well!", it's "Well..."

My voice dips down because I'm kind of coming to the end of the conversation, okay?

Or, I'll go, "Anyway..." and there'll be a pause.

Or, "So..."

Now, at this point, I've gone from changing my body position to say I want to leave.

Looking around to show I'm not as interested, to actually giving you an audio cue, that

means a listening cue, that I'm out of conversation and I'm basically almost done.

I'm giving you the opportunity, actually, in this case, to say "Hey, I gotta go, I'll

see you later."

Or, "It was nice talking", but I'm giving you the opportunity so I'm not rude.

Really, we want to catch it here, because then you'll the cool person who ends the conversation

first.

By the time you got here, they're saying hey, last chance.

Do you remember I talked about pacing?

Some of you were like, "What does he mean, pacing?"

Well, pacing means the speed of something.

If I pace this, I've got a quick pace.

I'm being very fast.

But I could also have a slow pace and walk slowly.

That's the speed of my walk.

The same with talking.

When we use these words, the pace of the conversation will change to being upbeat and relatively

fast to slower with pauses.

So, the more the pause, the longer the pause, the pace is slowing down.

The worst case you want to be in is this one.

One, two, three, four.

That's when someone says this, "Well..." they say nothing.

Basically, the conversation is now dead.

Morte.

You've gone on too long and they've basically ended it.

So, they're forcing you to keep talking, but they're too nice to actually just walk away

from you.

But, once it gets that four second pause, we call it the awkward stage of conversation.

Awkward means not comfortable.

It's very difficult when someone stops speaking for four second and just looks at you or looks

away for you to start the conversation or keep it going.

It's like - and you're trying to get that heart started again.

It's a dead duck.

Leave it alone.

And even by now, the advice I'm going to give you, even if you use it, you've left the person

with a bad taste in their mouth, so when they speak to you they're like, "Ugh, not that

person again."

So, what can we do about it?

Because we started out why is this important, which is you want to have as many people communicate

with you as possible.

And I've told you how you can figure out that they want to end the conversation in four

steps, and we really want to get to this stage.

And really, what I'm asking you to do is pay attention to the people you're speaking to.

Which is what you should be doing when you're learning language, to get the proper pronunciation,

learn vocabulary, and syntax.

So, we really want to be here.

But if we're not here, I've told you the other places you can kind of catch that they want

to end it.

So, here's what I'm going to tell you to do, okay?

Once you see something like this happening, if you can catch it here, great.

At the very worst, if you get it here, here's what you do first.

You say, "Hey, it was nice talking to you.

It was nice seeing you or meeting you."

Why did I say "It was nice" not "It is nice"?

By saying "it was nice", I'm saying I know this conversation was done, but it was a nice

conversation and it's done.

So, you're freeing the other person, because it's like you finally got it.

Oh ok, I get it.

You don't want to talk, so it was nice talking to you.

It was nice meeting you.

This conversation is now done.

Now, that's the first part.

But the second part is almost the most important part.

I'm sorry, I forgot, you can also use this, "Well, I've got to run."

That kind of takes it - the power back in your position, that they've ended the conversation

but you're saying "and I'm ending it".

It's not a competition, by the way, but you're going, "Well, I've got to run".

You're kind of releasing them again.

You're saying okay, it's not you, it's me.

So, I've got to run so this conversation's over so you can relax.

So, in the future, you know I will take the responsibility for ending the conversation.

But the second part, and that's why I wrote it in red, is once you've either said, "It

was nice talking to you, seeing you, or meeting you."

Or, you said, "Well, I've got to run", you have to do this.

"Well, it was nice talking to you.

See you later."

And leave.

Exit.

Don't turn around and go, "But next week!" or "What about?"

Nope, nobody wants to know about you.

Nobody cares anymore.

You have to leave.

You started to end the conversation, now finish it.

So, you can say, "Well, I've got to run", and exit.

It's not as bad as you think, because they've already started ending it for you anyway.

You're just freeing them to go, "Oh", without "Oh my God, I hope I never see this person

again."

Now, I've explained this to you and the importance of it.

And it's a simple enough lesson that you can get it on its own.

But what happens if it's you that's got to leave?

How can you end a conversation in a nice way that that other person doesn't feel that you're

being rude or - yeah, mean?

Come back and I'll give you some hints on that.

Ready?

Okay.

So, through the magic of cinematography, we're back.

And that's basically camera on me, cinematography, movie magic.

I would like to introduce to you some strategies for yourself, as we learned in the first part

of this video, we should pay attention to other people and be aware when they want to

end a conversation.

And in this part, I want to address, there may be situations where - I know you're very

happy to speak to someone, but you might want to end the conversation.

So, these strategies are actually for you to end a conversation, but in a way that the

other person doesn't feel like you're being rude, so they feel safe to come talk to you.

Just like before, it was you don't want people to be afraid of speaking to you because you

won't stop, sometimes you literally have something you have to do.

Or, and this is not the great part, sometimes the person you're speaking to, you really

don't want to talk to.

Now, these things I'm giving you are basically cultural.

In different cultures, you might have - when we say hierarchical, you may have a situation

where older people end conversations, younger people aren't allowed to.

Or, people feel quite safe in saying, "Now I must go.

This conversation's done!"

Maybe you're in a culture like that, but this is basically when I say cultural bias, this

is one of the best ways to do it in an English setting.

I mean, English-speaking countries are different, but there are some cultural values we share

that I'm trying to give you the best ways of getting around so you can have the best

interactions and get to learn the most English you can from people who want to talk to you.

Now, as I said, in situations when you want to end the conversation because you may have

something you want to do, or this is a person you don't wish to speak to.

For instance, you might be a girl at a bar and the conversation is done and the guy's

not understanding.

The same thing can happen for guys.

You could be somewhere and maybe a lady's talking to you and you don't feel comfortable

and you want to end that conversation.

So, just keep that in mind.

There will be opportunities or times when you want to end it.

And my job here is to help you with that.

So, let's look at some quick strategies for you to end a conversation.

Number one: Break in the conversation, or interrupt it.

So, the person's going, "Blah blah blah blah blah blah blah", and I want you to use one

of these three things.

You can use your own variation, but these are almost universal.

You can just say, they're going "Blah blah blah" you go, "Hey, hey!".

Or, "Blah blah blah", you go, "Look!".

Or, "Blah blah blah blah", "Listen!"

Interrupt.

It will take them back, because if I'm in the middle of talking to someone and you say

"Listen!", it's imperative.

I did a video before about imperatives, using them to stop a conversation or change it,

I can't remember, but you can go back through and look at conversational topics and you'll

find it.

And I said, you say one word, it gets people's attention.

They pay attention and they stop right away.

So, by saying "listen", "look", or "hey", not making another sentence to continue the

conversation.

It interrupts it and they will go "Hm?" and you will have their attention.

The second part, after you have their attention, is tell them what you have to do.

Be honest.

Please don't make something up.

There's nothing worse than you saying, "I have to go to work" and then they go down

to McDonalds and they see you eating French fries.

Don't do that.

Just say "I have to go to work" if you have to go to work.

"I have to catch a bus" if you have to catch a bus.

It doesn't matter if you're catching the bus to go home and sleep, you have to catch a

bus.

You have to go to the library, or you have to go.

Believe or not, if you just say, "Sorry, I gotta go".

Boom.

It's honest.

At least they will appreciate you being honest, okay?

So, the first thing is interrupt, because you have to stop this conversation.

You obviously want to leave and they obviously don't want to stop, so interrupt it.

Second part, tell them what you have to do.

Be honest in what it is.

I have to home, I'm tired, I need to sleep.

I have to go to the bar and drink with people I want to talk to.

No, that's not nice, don't do that, okay?

But, be honest.

The third thing is - and this is where you're showing you're a pretty decent person - say

something that is true and add something nice if possible.

What?

What do you mean, James?

Well, Mr. E. Listen, Mr. E, I've got to go to work right now.

It was really nice talking to you - that's nice, alright?

And I'll see you another time.

Maybe that's true, we're good friends.

Or, I could say, "The conversation was really interesting", -- true - "and I really enjoyed

it" - nice - "I gotta go", right on.

Say something that is true, add something nice if possible.

If there's nothing nice, you can just say, "Listen, I've got to go.

It was nice meeting you again, or seeing you again."

That's it.

Don't try and project more that you might talk in the future if you don't plan on it.

And if you follow these three steps, breaking the conversation with a "look", "listen",

or a "hey".

Tell them what you have to do, so you're being direct, you're being honest, and you're being

nice.

There's an old saying and it goes something like this, "If you have the choice between

being right or being nice, be nice."

Because you can always be right.

You probably are right, but you don't always have the opportunity to be nice.

So, follow these three steps and you'll be a pretty decent human being as well as being

able to end a conversation in a polite way but being strong at the same time, and still

leaving the opportunity to continue conversation with that person in the future.

Now, I want don't want to keep boring you going over these rules.

You understand why we did it in the first place, or why you should be aware of why people

want to end a conversation, which is quite similar to why you might want to end a conversation.

You might be bored, you might be busy, you might not even like the person, right?

It goes both ways.

But you have a civil or nice way of ending conversations when you need to right here.

Now, learning something and doing something are related but not exactly the same.

You may have learned the lesson, but now, can you do this yourself?

So, we're going to go over to the board and I'm going to give you homework.

Because if you don't get to practice, how do you know if you're any good?

Or, how will you ever get good?

And your homework today is to write out one sentence to politely end a conversation.

And I've given you some examples by what I've said and some I've written down previously.

And I want you to write it in the comments.

And you will get one million - I was going to say "dollars", but I'm poor - so you'll

get one million points for every correct sentence.

And I know that many people out there actually look over your sentences.

In one video I have where it says, "Stop saying 'I know'", people were getting thumbs up on

YouTube and getting the million points off of www.engvid.com . And I invite you to go

either place to leave your comment and you notice what I said, I looked over.

Yeah, I do look over some of these comments.

So anyway, in that case - oh, before I go, because I was about to do it and you would

have noticed.

Remember, I said when a conversation ends, the tone goes down?

I was about to end our conversation.

If you check over my videos, or Ronnie's or anyone else's, or Adam's, you'll notice when

we end our conversations, the tone goes down.

And I'm about to show it to you right now and I'm going to say okay, so thank you for

watching this video, as always.

And I'd like you to go to www.engvid.com to do the quiz.

I invite you to do that, and to come and visit us at another time.

And so, I won't be boring you anymore, I'm going to let you go.

So, have a good evening.

My voice dropped, see that?

Ciao.