The Secret to Having Amazing Conversations in English

- Do you find it difficult

to keep a conversation going in English?

Well, in this video, I will give you the secret

to having amazing conversations in English.

(bright music)

Hello, this is Keith from the Keith Speaking Academy.

You know, many students learn English in a classroom

and then they struggle with real life conversations.

And that's mainly because real life conversations

don't follow a script, right?

They can suddenly change direction

a bit like an Italian taxi driver.

(Keith imitates car whooshing)

And you're like, "What? What's happening?"

And you're lost.

So today, I will give you the secret. (laughs)

The secret.

I don't know if it's a secret

but I will tell you how to have amazing conversations

in English.

I'm gonna focus on three simple things.

Number one, how to start a conversation.

Number two, how to develop a conversation.

Number three,

how to change topic naturally in a conversation.

And at the end, I'm gonna give you some tips

on how to end a conversation politely.

Great.

At the end of this video,

I think you will be much more confident

to have natural conversations in English.

Sound good?

Let's do it.

Right, let's begin, how to start a conversation?

Let's imagine, you're going to speak

to either someone you know, maybe a friend or a colleague

or someone you don't know very well,

maybe someone you've just met.

So typically, we would say something like,

"Hi, how's it going? What's new?"

Okay?

Now, that's fine, okay?

But you usually get a short response.

"Well, nothing new.

Same old, same old.

Business as usual."

And so the conversation stops.

And that's because these questions are not seen

as conversation starters by native speakers.

We see these as greetings.

So we stop, right?

A much better question would be something like,

"What have you been up to lately?"

Notice the pronunciation.

What have you been up to?

What have you been?

It's a chunk.

What have you been?

What have you been?

What have you been up to lately?

That's it. Nice.

And so they're more likely

to tell you something they've done, some activities, right?

"I've been doing that. I've been doing this."

The more specific you get, the better.

Because then people focus more.

So you could say, "Well, what did you do yesterday?"

Notice the chunk again.

What did you do?

What did you do?

What did you do?

What did you do yesterday?

Great.

Or, "What did you get up to yesterday?"

Dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee-dee. (chuckles)

What did you get up to yesterday?

To get up to, to do, right?

Here, because you're focusing,

you're more likely to get a specific answer.

Personally, in my life, especially in working life,

I found these two questions,

the next two questions to be really powerful, right?

Things like, "What have you been working on lately?"

Again, notice that, "What have you been?"

What have you been?

What have you been?

What have you been working on lately?

Or, "What's been keeping you busy lately?"

Because these questions normally make the person

think about a particular project

and something maybe they're passionate about

and start talking about.

And you get better conversations, right?

Remember, ask better questions

and you will get better answers.

Great. Let's move on.

Okay, so how to develop a conversation, right?

Let's take an example conversation here.

And just to let you know, the word Asda here.

It's the name of a supermarket in the UK, okay?

So here's a conversation. Have a look at this.

"I went shopping yesterday."

"Where did you go?"

"Asda."

"What did you buy?"

"Some fruit and veg."

Okay, now, that conversation to me

looks like a classroom conversation or a script from a book.

It's not very natural, right?

Now, it uses these question words,

where, what, how, who, right?

Where did you go?

What did you buy?

Who did you go with?

Now, that's okay.

And I think especially if you're a lower level student,

using these question words

can help you start a conversation.

The problem is these follow up questions,

you can start to sound like a police officer

doing an interrogation, right?

My friend Ian does this, right?

"Ian, I went to the supermarket yesterday."

"Oh, yes? What time did you go?

Who did you go with? What did you buy?"

Like, what? What's going on?

Am I on trial for murder?

I mean, you know, he sounds like a policeman.

So that's the danger of that.

You end up with a conversation that's like,

question, answer, question, answer, question, answer.

And it's, mm, it's not great, right?

But it's okay.

So here's the secret. (laughs)

The secret, right?

Most natural conversations do the following.

I'll explain it and then I'll give you an example, okay?

So you take the last theme someone talked about, right?

And then you develop it into a new theme.

Simple as that, right?

When somebody speaks, you take the theme,

develop it into a new theme.

Theme, meaning topic or idea.

Let's look at a more natural conversation.

Look at this one.

"I went shopping yesterday."

"Really? Oh, I find shopping such a pain."

"Well, I don't mind it actually,

although everything is so expensive these days."

"Yeah, tell me about it.

We go to Asda, stuff tends to be cheaper there."

Okay, now, that is a much more natural conversation, right?

Compared to the original one, like the book dialogue.

What's happening here is there's a theme.

So it begins, right?

Shopping. The theme of shopping.

"I went shopping yesterday."

And then the next person takes a theme of shopping

and talks about the feeling developing a new theme.

"I find shopping such a pain, it's a headache," right?

The next person takes that idea of feelings

and develops a new theme about the price of food.

"Yeah, I don't mind it,

although everything is expensive."

The next person takes that theme, right?

Expensive.

"Yeah, tell me about it. It's true."

And then carries on developing that theme about price

but relating it to them.

"We go to Asda, stuff tends to be cheaper there."

And they could go on taking this theme.

So you take a theme, develop a new one, relate it,

and that is the conversation.

It's really interesting.

I think personally, you know,

you can mix this idea, theme, a new theme,

and also the question words, mix them all up.

It's not one or the other.

And you can create and have some really nice conversations.

Let's move on.

Okay, let's talk about changing topic in a conversation,

because I find a lot of students find this difficult

and they don't do it naturally.

They suddenly say something and people go, "What?

Where's the connection?"

Because they haven't connected it to what's gone before.

And I know this is difficult, but let's see an example.

Remember that conversation we just looked at,

talking about shopping, the feeling, and the price.

Imagine at the end, at the last line, it goes like this.

"Yeah, tell me about it.

We go to Asda, stuff tends to be cheaper there."

"I went to a party last night." (laughs)

It's like, "What?

We're talking about shopping and feelings and price

and you went to a party?"

There's no connection

but you just need one word to make the connection.

And the word is anyway.

Anyway.

Normally with a falling intonation.

Anyway.

And that indicates, tells everybody, you're changing topic.

It's a bit like the Italian taxi driver, do you remember?

Right?

With all respect to Italian taxi drivers,

but those in Rome in particular,

if before turning, they just turn on the indicator

(Keith imitating car indicator clicking)

and they tell everybody, it would be better.

So anyway is the indicator, like when you're driving,

it tells everybody you're changing direction.

"Anyway, I went to a party last night."

"Oh, really? Who did you go with?"

"Oh, right, yeah, good."

"No, I hate parties. I'm quite shy."

And the conversation takes a new turn, right?

Maybe some questions, maybe new theme,

developing new themes.

Okay, great.

Now, a second way of changing the topic

is when we use the expression, "By the way."

By the way means, okay, we're talking about this

but also, I want to talk about this.

And it's just a very simple signpost if you like, right?

By the way.

And we normally use the past tense.

So we would say either,

"By the way, I was going to ask you do, do, do, do, do."

Or, "By the way, I wanted to ask you something."

We use the past tense as a way of being polite.

"I want to ask you," is quite direct, it's not bad.

But "I wanted to ask you," is a ridiculous English thing

about being super polite.

It's about conditionals and hypothetical.

If I was going to ask you a question, I would ask you.

It's just being polite, right?

I wanted to ask you.

"By the way, I wanted to ask you,

do you know any good vegetarian recipes?

'Cause my friend Ian is coming for dinner

and he's a vegetarian," right?

That's it.

So anyway, by the way, past tense,

great ways to change conversation.

Let's move on.

So how do you end a conversation in English politely?

Conversations tend to go one of two ways.

They may be that you're listening to somebody

who's very boring and you're like, "Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

Oh, really? Mm, yeah."

And you're thinking, "How do I escape?

How do we end this?"

Or the other way is two people's conversation has dried up

and they don't know what to say now.

(Keith humming)

And you're thinking, "Mm, are you gonna finish this

or shall I finish this?"

And you don't know what to say.

So typically, British people will just say,

one person will just say, "Listen, I've got to go."

Simple as that, right?

You just say, "I need to leave.

Listen, I've got to go."

Or more informally, "Listen, I've got to be off."

To be off here means to go.

"Listen, I've got to be off," or "I must be off,"

or even, "I should be off."

"I should be off."

Any of those are great.

I should be off.

Can you say that?

I should be off.

I should be off.

Nice.

The other way is rather than saying, "I need to go,"

is we switch it

and we say that it's the other person, right?

"I know you're busy, I don't want to keep you."

I don't want to keep you.

Or, you know, "I know you're busy, I'll let you get on."

I'll let you get on means I'll let you continue.

I'll let you get on with your work.

I'll let you get on with what you're doing.

Or just, "I'll let you get on."

I will becomes I'll, right?

I'll let and 'cause it's I'll let, there's just one L sound.

I'll let you.

I'll let you get on.

That's it. Exactly.

And then normally, the other person says,

"Sure, yes, great."

And probably, both of you say something like,

"Well, it was great chatting.

It was good to chat to you."

Something like that.

And that is how you end a conversation politely.

It's a bit like a secret code, right? (laughs)

Great.

Great, so listen, if you want the PDF for free

of all these ideas and just a quick summary

with all the language so you can start practising ,

then just click on the link in the description below.

You can get that for free.

Also, if you want to practise your conversation skills more,

why not think about joining my online course?

IELTS Speaking Success: Get a Band 7+ GOLD.

Because now, we have a new feature,

Daily Online Breakout Rooms.

And the breakout rooms are online

with two or three other people

and you practise speaking English with them, okay?

With other students on the course.

You can practise your conversation skills,

you can practise IELTS speaking questions,

you get to speak to people all over the world,

build your confidence,

and so become a much more confident speaker of English,

and you can ace your IELTS test.

If you're interested, again, click on the link below

to the course.

If you're on YouTube,

you can get a 10% discount off that course.

In the meantime, do remember to subscribe to my channel.

Thank you so much for watching.

I do appreciate it and I'll see you in the next video.

Take care, my friend.

Bye-bye.

(bright music)