What to Say Next in an English Conversation

So here's the beginning of a pretty typical English conversation.

Hi. Hi.

How are you? Pretty good.

How are you? Pretty good.

And then sometimes you just don't know what to say next.

As an English learner, it's important to be ready for this moment

so that the conversation doesn't just die.

In this English lesson, I'll teach you ten different ways

you can continue the conversation.

Ten different ways you can go from that point where the conversation kind of stalls

to having a great English conversation.

The first way to keep an English conversation going

is to use two simple words, and it's to ask the question, Guess what?

This is a phrase we often use when we're going to share news about our lives.

Maybe you just got a new job.

You could say to someone, Guess what?

I got a new job.

You can pause if you want.

You can say, Guess what?

And wait for them to say What?, But you don't have to.

If you're really excited, you can just say, Guess what?

I got a new job.

Maybe you took an English test and you got 100% on it.

You got a perfect score.

You could say to your friend, Guess what?

I passed my English test. I got 100%.

A second way to keep a conversation going is to start a sentence with this phrase.

You're not going to believe this, but...

And then share some new, exciting news about you or someone else.

Maybe your cousin has won the lottery.

You can say to the person you're having the conversation with,

you're not going to believe this, but Joe won the lottery.

He won $1,000,000.

So if you have something exciting to tell someone about yourself or about someone else,

you can always start with the phrase, You're not going to believe this, but...

and then tell them something really, really cool.

The third way you can keep a conversation going is by asking

a question that starts with, Can you believe that..?

And then finishing the question.

Maybe there was just an election in your country,

you could say to a friend, Can you believe that Justin Trudeau won the election?

I thought he was going to lose.

So maybe something has happened in the world and you find it hard to believe.

You can ask a question to the person who you're having the conversation with, starting with.

Can you believe that..?

And then finish the question.

A fourth way to keep a conversation going

is to ask a question that starts with, How about those..?

And then you usually mention a sports team.

In fact, this question is almost always used when talking about sports.

Jen loves watching the Raptors.

I could say to her, How about those Raptors?

And then she will talk about the game that she just saw the night before.

So again, it's almost always used when talking about a sports team.

How about those Maple Leafs?

How about those New York Yankees?

How about those Raptors?

And then the person who, you know likes that team

will then talk about that team maybe for a little bit too long.

The fifth way to keep that conversation going is to start a question with, Did you hear..?

And you can either finish this question by talking about

something that you heard in the news, or you can finish it

by talking about something that you heard from a family member or a friend.

You can say, Did you hear that Julie is getting married?

And maybe the other person did hear about it.

Maybe they didn't.

But it will certainly have a good effect on your conversation.

So another way to just keep that conversation going,

ask a question that starts with, Did you hear..?

And again, you can ask about something that's happened in the world as well.

You could say, did you hear about the bank that failed in California?

That was big news last week.

I don't know if that's still big news today, but did you hear about it?

The sixth way to keep the conversation going is to simply make a statement.

When I do this, sometimes I like to do it in the negative.

I like to start by saying I didn't think...

and then finish the sentence.

Sometimes I'll say something like this.

I didn't think it would be sunny today.

I didn't think it would rain today.

It's a way to just mention something to prompt the other person to start talking about it.

It doesn't have to just be about the weather.

That's certainly a good place to start.

Right now, it's getting a little bit sunny out here.

I didn't think it was going to be sunny today, so I didn't bring my sunglasses with me.

Hopefully it stays cloudy.

A seventh way to keep a conversation going is to ask a question that starts this way.

What do you think about..?

and then finish the question.

Maybe your brother bought a new car and you could say to your sister,

you could ask the question, What do you think about Fred's new car?

So it's just a way to ask a general question about something.

Again, hoping the other person will have an opinion or respond

and it starts by saying, What do you think about..?

It's a great way to keep a conversation flowing and moving along.

An eighth way to keep a conversation moving along is to say that

you can't believe something and you start it by actually saying that, I can't believe...

And then you finish the sentence.

I often use this phrase when I'm talking about the weather.

I love reading the weather forecast.

And sometimes I'll go to Jen and say, I can't believe it's going to snow tomorrow

or I can't believe it's going to be 20 degrees tomorrow.

That's so warm I won't even need to wear a jacket.

So it's a good way to keep the conversation going

because you're expressing a strong opinion in a negative way.

And this usually has the effect of making the other person give a really cool response.

So you can always say, I can't believe...

and then finish the statement.

A ninth way to keep that conversation going is to say something that starts with the words,

It looks like..., and then describing a situation or what's around you.

I could say, It looks like it's going to snow later today.

It looks like we're out of milk.

It looks like I'm going to have to stay up late tonight doing a lot of work

so I have my project done for tomorrow.

So it's a great way to continue a conversation because you're talking

about something that you either see or that affects you.

And then the other person will naturally ask you questions about what you're talking about.

So number nine, start a sentence with the words, It looks like...

and then finish it.

A 10th thing you can do to keep a conversation

going is to start a sentence with the words, You know what?

And then say what you're going to do.

This is usually something you say after you've made a decision.

If Jen and I are sitting in the car waiting for the rain to stop,

I might say to her, You know what?

I'm just going to run in the store even though the rain hasn't stopped.

You know what? I'm just going to get wet.

So it's kind of something you say after you've made a decision.

You know what?

I'm going to take an English test next year. You know what?

I'm going to run in the rain without an umbrella because it's

nice and warm outside and I'm not going to get that wet anyways.

So number ten, start a sentence with, You know what,

and then finish it by describing what you're going to do.

Well, thank you so much for watching this English lesson about little things

you can do to keep an English conversation moving along.

Having some little tools

to use when you're in an English conversation can be very, very helpful.

So study these ten sentence starters or question starters.

Maybe write down a few that you can memorize and use in your next English conversation.

I guarantee you it will go much better.

Anyways, thanks for watching.

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Give me a thumbs up, leave a comment and I hope you have a great week

of English learning. Bye.