How to make FANTASTIC small talk | British English Conversation Practice (+ Free PDF & Quiz)

(upbeat music)

- Hello everyone.

And welcome back to English with Lucy.

I'm here once again in front

of possibly the most beautiful tree in England.

I don't know, no offence to other trees.

Now, today we are going to be talking about small talk

because I don't want to jinx it,

but it seems that the world is,

or some places in the world are slowly opening up again.

Here in the UK, supposedly we have Freedom Day

on the 19th of July where nightclubs,

bars and everything open up again,

and people have the choice to not wear masks anymore.

Let me know what the situation is like in your country

in the comments section down below.

And when I heard about this Freedom Day from the pandemic,

I suddenly thought, oh, my word,

I have not been in a big room of people

having to make conversation in a year and a half.

So I thought today we could talk about small talk

and I'm actually going to give you 50 different

small talk questions that you can use

in your next social event,

because not only are you learning English

you are also probably a little bit out of practise.

There's nothing worse than trying to make conversation

in another language and just having loads of boring,

embarrassing silences.

So all of these questions or nearly all of them

are open-ended.

So you can get really good answers from the other person.

As always I have created a free PDF

that goes with this video if you'd like to download it,

all you've got to do is click on the link

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Right.

Let's get started with the small talk.

I have divided the 50 small talk questions

into five different categories.

The first one being travel,

which is something that most of us haven't been able

to do a lot of recently.

But hopefully things are getting back to normal

and we will be able to attend conferences

and make small talk with people we don't know.

Yes.

The first question, a really good one

if you're in a new country and you're speaking to a local,

do you know of any hidden gems around here?

A hidden gem is something really, really great,

a really great place or restaurant,

that tourists don't generally know about.

In fact, not many people know about it.

You kinda have to hear about it to go there.

When I travel I always ask around for the hidden gems.

You could also put it in more simple terms.

Is there anything I should know about around here?

Are there any places I should know about?

Now generally when it comes to small talk,

it's really good to ask open questions.

Questions that can't be answered with a yes or no,

because if the answer with no and it really shuts

down the conversation,

but I think this next one is an exception.

Have you got any trips planned?

If they say, no, you can move on to another topic

of small talk.

If you know the person you're talking to,

and you know, they went on a trip recently,

you can say, "Tell me about your trip to Hawaii.

"Would you recommend it?"

If there's one thing I've learned,

people love talking about their past holidays.

Another great topic to bring up is food whilst travelling.

You could say something like I love trying new cuisines.

Have you been anywhere with really great food?

If you're with a fellow foodie,

then you know conversation is going to flow.

The next one is a great one for international conferences

where you know that the majority of people

have come in from another location.

One question I like to ask in those situations

is have you got any tips for jetlag?

I really, really struggle with it.

So if you do have any tips

please do put them in the comment section.

Now what about if you are in your hometown

but someone else has come in to visit.

You could say let me know if you need any recommendations.

I know this area pretty well.

That's a great opportunity for them to follow up with.

Yeah, actually I'm looking for somewhere for dinner tonight,

do you know anywhere?

And then you panic because you've lived here for 10 years

and you've hardly gone out.

That was like me in London as a student,

I lived there for three years

but because I never had any money

I never went to any restaurants.

So when people ask me,

"Where should I go in London?"

"I have no idea."

I just ate microwave meals.

Another great question is asking what sort of holiday

or trip someone prefers.

You could say, do you prefer a fly-and-flop holiday

or an adventure?

A fly-and-flop holiday is what it says on the tin,

you fly out to the destination,

you flop on a sunbed and you remain there for one

to two weeks and then you fly home.

Another interesting question to do with the pandemic is,

has the pandemic affected your travel plans at all?

And this will probably open up a lot of moaning

from the other person.

It would, for me, the pandemic ruined a honeymoon.

And the last one number 10 is so when are you heading back?

What do you want to do before you go back?

Right, let's move on to the topic of work.

Maybe you're trying to get to know your new colleagues

or your existing colleagues that you've hardly met before.

It's really nice to have a couple of small talk questions

up your sleeve to combat those awkward silences.

The first one.

So how did you get into marketing?

How did you get into sales?

So really nice general one.

And it invites the person to tell

you a little bit about their work history.

Two really interesting ones are what is the best career

advice you've ever received?

And then the next one,

what's the worst career advice you've ever received.

I use this one a lot

and I get some really interesting answers,

especially for the worst career advice.

The next one, a nice theoretical one,

if you were guaranteed to be successful,

what job would you want?

That's a really interesting one.

I don't even know how I would answer that.

You'll get your partner thinking there.

Another really fun one is what is the craziest

thing a boss has ever asked you to do?

I think the craziest thing a boss has ever made me do,

he didn't ask me,

is I had to knock on his door in the middle

of the night to beg for him to pay me.

It was two months late and I needed my money.

This next one is a nice way of making someone

feel part of your conversation.

You could say, I was just talking to a colleague

about our first jobs, what was yours?

Everyone who is currently working has a first job.

A really good and easy one is how long

have you been working at company?

How long have you been working at Lucy International?

My whole life darling.

(laughs)

A topic that's in the news quite a lot recently.

What do you think about this four-day work week?

I've been seeing that coming up a lot on my news apps

and I think it sounds like a fantastic idea.

If people can still maintain good productivity,

give the people an extra day off,

work to live, don't live to work.

Bring it back to the pandemic,

have you had to work from home recently?

How did you find working from home?

That's a really good topic 'cause that shook up the lives

of many people over here in the UK.

And I'm sure all across the world as well.

And the last one, have you got any plans for the weekend?

I remember Friday and sometimes even Thursday afternoon

when I did work in an office all we could talk

about with the weekend and I loved it.

I used to count down those hours

until it was five o'clock on a Friday evening.

Oh yes.

All right, next topic, current events or current affairs.

Now, obviously people are going to talk about the pandemic.

So one question you could ask is has the pandemic

affected you much?

But remember that lots of people have lost

loved ones in this,

so they might not want to focus too much on it.

Another one is this person is from another country

you could say, how are you all getting on back home?

This invites them to open up about how the pandemic

has affected their country if they want to talk about it.

Another variation is how has the pandemic

changed life for you?

Some really great conversation starters are the next three.

I read in the paper that, I saw on the news that,

or I heard on the radio that,

and then obviously you can speak about what you've seen,

heard, or read recently.

If you know that your conversation partner is a sports fun,

you could say, did you catch the game?

Even if you don't know which game it was,

hopefully just by saying the game they'll know which game

you were talking about,

but make sure you have a game up your sleeve

for if they say, what game.

If there has been an interesting or negative situation

in another country, and you've been following

it on the news,

you could ask something like, have you been following

what's been going on in, for example.

Again, if the person is from another town

or city or country, you could say,

so what's the latest news where you're from?

And the last one,

a really interesting question that somebody

asked me the other day is which news outlets do you prefer?

And then they asked why.

And this can invite the person to share kind of indirectly

a little bit of their political leanings,

which is quite interesting.

Right.

The next topic is social events.

I haven't been to a big social event,

well, I've said it before in a year and a half.

And I'm nervous.

I'm very, very nervous.

So I can't imagine how nerve wracking it will be in a second

language or a foreign language.

So here are some questions for you to have up your sleeve

to fill in those silences.

The first one, what brings you here?

What brings you here?

And that invites them to say, oh, well I work with,

or I know or I'm going out with, for example.

If you meet somebody and you have a mutual friend,

you could ask, so how do you know, Tom?

For example.

I always find a compliment goes a long way

as long as it's a genuine one.

So you could say, wow, your dress is so unique,

where did you get it from?

I'm in two minds about the next question.

Are you enjoying yourself?

Sometimes it can be a little bit patronising.

So you've got to say it in the right tone.

But if somebody says,

no, that opens up a bonding opportunity.

If you're also not enjoying yourself you can say,

oh, Thank God me neither.

I hate social occasions.

If you aren't enjoying a social situation,

you could say something like,

I really don't normally like crowded events like these,

how about you?

And if the person says, I love them,

then you know, you might not be friends.

But if they say, God, yes, I hate them too.

Friend for life instantaneous.

If you see somebody who is hovering around on their own,

you could go up to them and say,

do you know many people here?

And if they say, no, well then you can stand

and chat with them instead.

I absolutely love it when I'm on my own at an event,

and somebody comes in to save me.

I really, really liked that.

Right.

More pandemic.

A really good way of bonding with someone

else is to kind of share a bit of vulnerability.

And one thing you could say is,

hello, I've actually not been around another human

in a whole year so I'm feeling really awkward right now.

How are you feeling?

That's a good invitation for you to bond over.

Just feeling out of practise

and not knowing how to behave in social situations anymore.

Another one I'm desperate for everything

to get back to normal.

What have you missed most?

Or when is the last time that you were able

to go to a proper party like this?

And you can both bond over how much you've missed out on.

And the last one I really liked this one, it's very meta.

What is your best tip

for figuring out small talk these days?

I love it 'cause they can instantly say something like,

just don't talk about the weather.

So then you know, not to talk to them about the weather.

But that actually brings me onto my next topic.

The weather, come on, I'm British.

Of course I'm going to talk to you about the weather.

I did save this one for last,

because I know that it's almost a cliche

to talk about the weather in Britain

whilst participating in small talk.

But our weather just changes so much.

When I started filming this video, it was sunny,

and now it looks like it's going to rain.

Look at me I'm talking about the weather.

If it's a beautiful day,

you can say it's such a beautiful day, isn't it?

And then everyone else goes, oh yes, it is lovely.

Yes, very nice.

Haven't had one like this in ages.

Or an alternative,

we couldn't ask for a nicer day, could we?

And everyone else goes, no, no we couldn't.

It's wonderful.

It's just stuffy.

So nice.

Fortunately, we don't have many days like that in the UK

so we don't get to be, Oh, yes, yes, yes, lovely,

too frequently.

If it's very sunny, you could say,

did you bring the sunshine with you

or did you order the sunshine, oh, it's lovely.

And then you can have a little joke

about yes, yes, I brought it with me in my suitcase

from Spain.

So in the UK, we have a love-hate relationship

with the meteorologist, with the weatherperson,

because when they tell us it's going to be sunny,

we love them but when they tell us it's going to rain

we just don't believe them.

And then we get caught out and about with no umbrella.

One great topic to bring up is I saw on the weather

this morning that it's going to rain, it's going to hail,

it's going to be sunny, there's going to be snow.

What do you think?

And then you can follow up with what do you think?

Do you believe them?

Do you trust them?

Another version is, do you trust the weather forecast today?

Because they said it's going to rain but it looks lovely.

If it has been raining a lot,

you can say can you believe how wet it's been?

Or can you believe all this rain we've been having?

If you're in a foreign country you can say,

is the weather normally like this?

Is it usually like this?

A really interesting one is what's the worst weather

you've ever experienced.

And that invites them to talk about maybe a country

they've visited or just a prolonged period

of terrible weather.

So I've got two more small talk questions

about the weather that kind of take the Mickey.

They joke about small talk relating to the weather.

The first one is why do we always end up making small talk

about the weather?

And then that invites you to make some small talk

about the weather together.

And the last one is, is it okay if I try to talk

to you by pretending that I'm really interested

in the weather?

(laughs)

I think that's a great one to use at a situation

like a conference where small talk

can get a little bit much.

Right.

That is it for today's lesson.

I hope you enjoyed it, and I hope you learned something.

Don't forget to check out Skillshare.

Remember that the first 1000 of my students to click

on the link in the description box

will get a one month free trial of Skillshare premium.

You can also download the free PDF

that goes along with this lesson.

Just click on the link in the description box,

enter your name and your email address.

You sign up to my mailing list and I send the PDF

and all future PDFs to your inbox directly.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

I've got my Instagram and I've got my website,

englishwithlucy.co.uk,

where I've got a really cool,

if I do say so myself pronunciation tool,

where you can click on different phonemes

and hear me pronounce those phonemes

and words containing those phonemes.

If you'd like to practise your vocabulary

and your listening skills even further

then I have got a vlogging channel

where I document my life here in the English countryside

and every single blog is fully subtitled.

I will see you soon for another lesson.

(coughs)

I promise it's not COVID and it can't pass through lenses.

I recently took a class called,

what is it called, right?

A fly-and-flop is what it says on the card.

It says on the cards, what it says on the label.

Tin.

Don't forget to connect with me on all of my social media.

I've got my Instagram.

What else have I got?

I think what I was trying to say is you have an ologist.

But if really muscly, you have a meteorologist.

Terrible.

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