Business meeting & conference SMALL TALK – How to avoid that awkward moment!

Hi, everyone. I'm Jade. What we're talking about today is conference talk. So, we've got

"Conference Small Talk", and also more generally about talking about the thing that

you're there for. The reason I made this lesson is because, hopefully, I want you to learn

how to avoid that awkward moment when you're like standing outside a conference room or

somewhere, or maybe it's a break, you could be by yourself, and you're just standing there, like:

"What am I supposed to do? Am I supposed to say something? Am I supposed to talk to someone?"

And maybe you start to pretend that you're busy, get your phone out or something.

So, anyway, this will save you in your awkward moment situation.

So, the small talk part, that's where I'm imagining you're... You're waiting for something

to happen. You're waiting for the next talk, or there's a break, or there's some kind of

interlude where you're not doing something. Here are some conversational starters that

you could... That you could have. You could say to someone:

"Are you presenting a paper here?"

That would be like an academic kind of conference. Or you could say:

"Are you a speaker here?" If they look like they are.

Or you could be more general. You could say:

"Is this your first time in __________?" Blah, blah, blah place?

A lot of the time these kind of conference events, people come...

Come there from all... You know, all different places, so it could be any place, really.

Couldn't it? But let's say it's in Amsterdam. "Is this your first time in Amsterdam?" And

then you can generally talk about Amsterdam, and how lovely it is, and how nice it is to

ride bicycles all the time.

Perhaps you kind of know each other; you've met before. In which case, you can ask them

how they're getting on with their work. So: "getting on"-I'm going to use a pen again-means

progressing... Is the formal verb for "get on".

"How are you getting on with your research?"

Or: "How are you getting on with your project?"

Or: "How are you getting on at work?"

You've met before, but this could get your... Your... This could help you catch up with each other.

What if you want to...? Want to be friends and you want to make friends at the conference?

What can you say? You can say:

"So, are you attending the welcome drinks tonight?"

Because you want them to say:

"Sure I am. Let's go together." You want them to say something like that, maybe.

Or if you're not sure yet if you want to hang out later, you could say:

"Where are you based?"

So, the place where you're based means the place where you... Where you work. So, I'm

based in Dubai at the moment. So, you know, this one I'm thinking it's more like if you're

all part of the same bigger company, but you have different offices in different places.

Perhaps you just want to know where they're based.

Moving on from general small talk, because not everybody likes to do small talk, we've

got some talk about the talk, now. So:

"What did you think of the last talk?"

And I've got some suggestions for you to sound very clever and informed, like this guy.

So you could say:

"Yes, I thought it... It raised some interesting questions."

What that means is it was a kind of talk that made you think

and consider new things, and you know, got

some... Got some ideas, and some brain connections flowing, there.

Or perhaps you could say:

"Well, it provoked a fierce debate."

A fierce debate would be when people are very much disagreeing with each other about what was said,

and there's not much agreement about it. Whereas:

"It generated a lively discussion",

doesn't have the opposition or against each other

feeling of a fierce debate. A lively discussion is

like in... On the enjoyable side of things, talking about things, and, you know, sharing

different opinions, but not so much in confrontation.

Or you might say, as you're a clever person:

"It challenged the status quo."

The status quo is the established way of doing things. So, this paper may have been so, so evolutionary

that it challenges the status quo. It's never... It's such a new idea, nobody's ever considered

it before. Or a similar one is:

"It presented a new angle."

A new angle would be a new way of looking at things. So you could say any of those things,

and sound very, very clever.

When we come back, I've got some more conversational tips for you to use at a conference.

Let's have a look at some more conference conversation. So, if we're talking generally

now about the conference, someone might say to you:

"How have you found the conference?"

And we're using the present perfect there, because the conference isn't finished yet.

But you would say: "How did you find the conference?"

if it's already... If it's already finished.

So, you can decide. Do you want to be the can-do positive guy? He's the one with a positive

energy, he's saying good things. Or do you want to be the nit-picker, downer, who thinks

everything is not so good? So let's have a look at some... Some phrases. So, if you're

this guy, you could say:

"The presentations have been to a high standard." That means...

A high standard is up here. Everything was rather good. Or you could say:

"Overall, it's been worthwhile."

So, that implies that it was worth your time to come to participate

in the conference, or attend the talks.

But what about the nit-picker, here?

This is a kind of person who's just never really

satisfied. Maybe in an academic context they're being like this because they weren't invited

to speak at the conference, so maybe that's why this person's not feeling so happy about

the conference. This person might say:

"Well, I'm rather disappointed about the organization."

What they may mean, there, is like the lunch wasn't very good, or they didn't have enough

desserts, or something like that. Or they may also say... This could be about the talks:

-"Oh, what did you think of the talks?" -"Nothing stood out.

Nothing was good. Nothing was interesting

to me. Nothing stood out." Or:

"So far it's been mediocre."

"Mediocre" is a more academic word for "average", basically.

"So far it's been average. Not up to my high intellectual standards. Mediocre."

So, what now if you want to talk about specific talks? Here's some... Here is some verbs that

you can use and some adjectives that can be really useful for that. So you could say...

Maybe you're talking about a presentation, maybe you're talking about a film, maybe you're

talking about a talk. You can say:

"The talk was rather in-depth."

If something is in-depth, it means that it goes into detail, and it tells you...

Yeah, it just tells you in detail about everything that's important, perhaps more than you would expect,

especially using this "rather" with it as well. Perhaps that's now more than you want. It's...

Maybe it's too in-depth for you.

What if the film was "fairly superficial"?

If something is superficial, then it's not

really going into something at a deep and meaningful level; it's just being very surface.

So, if you're in an academic context, that would be an undesirable thing, I guess, for

something to be superficial.

And what if the film was "particularly insightful"? When something's insightful, you learn something

new. It gives you like a new way of understanding something. So, that would be a good experience

if something is insightful.

But perhaps you want to use a different structure. You could say... Now we're talking about the

talk, or a film, or whatever.

"It presented complicated research."

Complicated, it was difficult to understand, but I feel like that's implying

it was delivered in a way that you understood it.

"It presented groundbreaking research."

If something is groundbreaking, it's completely new.

That could be a really great thing to get at a conference. The reason

you go there is to learn something new, right? Or what about this?

"The talk outlined key areas of concern."

So, "key" is another word for "important", or similar to "major" as well.

"It outlined major areas of concern."

Something we really need to address, something

we really need to look at, because it's very important.

So, using all of these, that should help you when you're at a conference so that you don't

feel quite so lost for conversation. You can have something to say at a level of small

talk, but also at a level where you're showing that you paid attention to the talks, and

you're showing to people that you have an opinion of what you've listened to. So, based

on that, you can decide if you're kind of a nit-picker person, or if you're the positive,

can-do energy guy.

What you can do now is go to the website, do a quiz on this.

You can also subscribe here on my engVid channel, also on my personal channel,

because I've got two channels on YouTube to help you learn English.

And I have finished now, so I'm going to catch up with my conference buddies.

We're... We're just going to have some nibbles, and we're going

to have some drinks tonight.

So come back and watch me again soon, and I'll see you later.

Wait for me!