English Small Talk for Social Situations [4 Question Types]

Do you avoid opportunities to start conversations socially because you're

just not sure what to say or ask in English? For example,

if you see your neighbor out watering her garden,

or when you go to your yoga studio every Monday and Wednesday,

and you see the same people there every time,

maybe you even avoid things like joining a book club,

because you're so nervous about that process of getting to know others.

Several months ago, I did a lesson on English, small talk for work,

but what about small talk for social more informal situations?

Can you ask the same questions? How can you be sure that you're polite,

but not too formal or too personal, too fast.

If you don't already know, I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English.

This is where you want to be every week to get the confidence you want for your

life and work in English.

And today we're going to answer all of those questions.

I'm going to help you put aside that anxiety and nervousness so that you can

affectively start conversations using small talk in social situations.

By the end of this lesson today,

you'll have several open-ended questions that you can use to effectively start a

conversation and make a connection to others.

Whether you're in a book club, going to a yoga studio,

talking to your neighbor or any other social situation that you might be in.

If you've been following my lessons for a while now,

you've probably heard me say this before, but it's so important.

I'm going to say it again. I know that small talk can be uncomfortable.

It is polite, but unimportant conversation.

And that might lead you to believe that it's pointless or not really

important, but that's not true.

Small talk plays a critical role in building relationships and forming

friendships.

We use it as a pathway to learn something new about someone.

And on that path, we're able to establish connections,

discover potential friendships, and have fun along the way.

So to help you do that effectively in social situations,

let's look at four different kinds of questions. You can use strategy.

Number one, start with a compliment. If you've watched that lesson,

I talked about earlier on English, small talk for work,

then you're already familiar with the strategy. English speakers love it.

When you meet someone new for the very first time,

you don't have any initial common ground.

You have to find a way to discover common interests or things to talk

about. So it can be really hard to know what to ask or how to start a

conversation.

The easiest way to take those first steps is to start with a compliment,

something related to the situation that you're in.

And then add an open-ended question. For example,

you're going to a party you might say to someone, your dress is gorgeous.

Where did you get that? Or where did you get it?

That question always surprises my students and they think,

why does someone want to know where I bought my clothes?

And the truth is that's not what we're really asking.

We're just trying to get the conversation started.

So we're beginning with that compliment and adding an open-ended question.

Where did you get it? Or where did you buy it?

Where do you do your shopping in that process? As you answer the question,

I might discover some common ground. Maybe we love shopping at the same place.

And once we find common ground, we can easily continue the conversation.

Here's a second scenario to consider with this idea of using a compliment

with an open-ended question.

Let's say that you want to strike up or start a conversation with a neighbor

while you're taking a walk outside.

You might say your garden is beautiful. What's your secret?

And that's all you have to say to get that conversation going.

The second way to initiate small talk is to inquire about someone's

day or their wellbeing.

Sometimes it can be really awkward to sit or stand and wait

while someone is doing something for you. For example,

imagine yourself at the grocery store,

you're checking out and you're standing really close to someone else.

And it's just that weird, awkward silence. The same thing is true.

When we get inside an Uber, we're sitting in the Uber with a driver,

and again, it's just silent.

You could use that opportunity to initiate some small talk and have a little

conversation.

The best way to do that is simply ask about their day or their wellbeing.

Let me give you two scenarios where I begin by establishing a topic

and then add an open-ended question for the first scenario.

Let's go back to imagining that you're at the grocery store and you're checking

out. You've probably heard a sales clerk or sales person say,

how's your day going as you approach the checkout line and you can do the

same. For example, let's say that you're shopping during the holiday season,

which is always a very busy time.

You can use that as the topic and then add an open-ended question to

ask about their wellbeing or how their day's going.

Here's what that would sound like. It seems so busy today.

How are you holding up? Let's pause for a moment and talk about that question.

How are you holding up?

This is a casual way to ask how someone is doing during a

particularly difficult or challenging time.

If you work at a store during the holidays,

you know that it is extremely stressful and busy. So if someone asks you,

how are you holding up? They're asking you, how are you doing?

This has to be a really tough day or a challenging busy day.

And now the second scenario again,

let's talk about getting into an Uber rather than sitting in awkward silence.

While you drive 35 minutes to your destination,

you could begin some small talk by saying something like there's always a lot of

traffic at this time of day. How are your trips going so far?

The topic is the amount of traffic.

And then we're following it up with an open-ended question.

Not only is this an effective way to initiate some conversation,

using small talk questions, it also shows kindness and care.

You're asking about how someone else is doing that is always

an effective way to start a conversation.

The third question type we can use for English.

Small talk in social situations is to ask for someone's opinion or

ask for someone's suggestion. We've all been to classes or meetups,

where there are a lot of new people around and it can be difficult or

uncomfortable to get a conversation going.

But there's one thing that makes this very easy.

You are all in the same class,

or you have all come to the same place, the same place to meet up.

You've all joined the same book club.

So there is something that you automatically have in common.

You have some common area of interest or a goal that you're trying to

achieve,

and that common ground can help you take those first steps and asking some small

talk questions with a focus on an opinion or suggestion.

For example, if you have a gym membership and you see this same person there,

every time you go, the two of you clearly have the same schedule.

If you wanted to start a conversation and have a little bit of small talk,

you could say building strength and getting fit has been such a long journey for

me, I'd love to know how do you stay committed to your fitness goals?

What I'm asking is for her opinion on how to start an effective workout

routine or her suggestions,

let's look at a second scenario to illustrate this. If you're in a book club,

a podcast club or a class, again,

everyone has come there with a common area of interest to get a

conversation going. You could start with a comment on the current book,

selection, podcast, selection, or topic of the class,

and then follow it up with a question that is asking for someone's opinion or

suggestion. Here's an example.

I thought the author explored the theme of happiness in an unusual,

surprising way. What did you think?

Before we move on to the fourth type of question we can use to initiate small

talk in a social situation. I want to pause here for a moment, because again,

with small talk,

our goal is to take those first steps toward getting to know someone,

finding common ground and a connection.

We have to be careful to not become too personal too soon.

So opinions are always a bit tricky.

Opinions can feel a bit personal,

but in the examples we're using here,

we're not asking about someone's personal life. Instead,

we're focused on asking their opinion about a common topic or a

common area of interest such as a productive gym routine

or what you think about a book that both of you have read and asking about those

topics.

It's certainly not too personal and it's not controversial either.

So these are great questions to use to get those conversations going.

And now the fourth type of question you can use for social small talk is

connect through hobbies or interests.

Sometimes in the process of getting to know someone,

we have a difficult time moving the conversation forward.

Maybe you started with some initial small talk like how's your day going,

or what did you think about the book?

And then the conversation just kind of stopped.

And you're not really sure where to go next. In every conversation,

I encourage my students to keep an ear out for common areas

of interest or hobbies.

What this means is to always be listening for those little details that people

share. If someone shares, they always go canoeing on the weekends,

or they love to do yoga during the week,

they have shared a hobby or an area of interest,

and you can easily ask additional questions to keep the conversation

going. Let me share two examples scenarios to illustrate this. Again,

we've all been in conversations where there was some initial back and forth,

and then

there's just a weird lull or silence,

and nobody knows what to do or how to get out of it. So here's a suggestion.

Change the focus of conversation slightly by acknowledging an area

of interest or hobby and asking for more details. For example,

imagine you're in a conversation with your boss and one of those awkward

silences shows up.

You could say something like I remember you mentioned reading Obama's

autobiography. What did you think about it?

Would you recommend it in that example,

I'm bringing up an area of interest that was mentioned previously.

It might've been earlier in the conversation,

or it may have even been a few weeks ago. Here's another scenario.

Let's say that you walk to your child's school every day in the afternoon to

pick her up from school and bring her home. When you do that,

you always see the same group of parents and you just can't get

past the basic hi, how you doing? You want to go a little bit deeper?

So how can you do that?

If you have no idea what someone's interests or hobbies are,

you can simply ask after you have that basic, hi,

how are things going? You could say something like,

so what do you and your family love to do on the weekends?

And asking that question,

you'll find out what her interests are or what her family enjoys doing.

And you may even find that you have something in common and with that

you have four different kinds of questions you can use for appropriate,

polite and interesting English small talk for social situations.

Before we finish, I have two questions for you. Number one,

what was your aha moment?

I would love to know if there was a moment while you were watching this lesson

where you thought, oh my gosh. Yes.

That's the answer I've always been looking for. If you had that moment.

Tell me about it.

My second question is which question type or which

example are you most excited to try?

Do you have a neighbor that you see every day and you think yes, tomorrow,

I'm going down ask about her garden.

I'm going to use a compliment and then a question,

or do you have someone who is in a pod class club with you?

And you finally have a question that you can ask to get the conversation going.

I would love for you to share the questions you're excited to use with me.

And you can do that in the comment section below as always,

if you found this lesson useful to you, I would love to know.

And you can tell me in one very simple way,

give this lesson a thumbs up on YouTube. And while you're at it,

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So you never miss one of my lessons. Thank you so much for joining me.

And I look forward to seeing you next time.