hi everyone welcome back to my channel learn academic english where i teach intermediate and
advanced level lessons for english learners who want to be successful in school and work today i'm
talking about a tricky topic for so many people how to make small talk in english so i've been
teaching english to english learners immigrants and people overseas for more than 20 years and in
my experience i have found that for many english learners it's really hard to make small talk in
english and this is for a couple of reasons first of all we all know that having a conversation
in another language is really hard there are so many things that you have to do you have to think
about the grammar vocabulary think about your pronunciation pay attention to what the person
is doing is the person listening does the person understand you then you have to listen to what the
person is saying sometimes you don't understand everything it's a really hard task but then
if you add the task of making small talk it becomes even more difficult why because when we
make small talk it's usually with someone that we don't know very well and it can be kind of
an awkward situation because if someone we don't know and we're trying to find something to say
to that person even for native speakers making small talk is not easy also cultural differences
there are many differences in cultures and how people make small talk or what topics are
considered appropriate for small talk so doing it in english especially in an english-speaking
country can be very difficult but it is important because americans love to make small talk that
is something that a lot of people notice when they come here they notice that americans will
talk to them on the street or when they go to the supermarket the cashier will have a conversation
with them about the weekend or what happened yesterday so americans love to make small talk
but it's not easy let's look at some strategies that you can use to make small talk more easily
before we get started i'd like to remind you to please give this video a like and leave a comment
if you find it helpful and make sure that you're subscribed if you want more videos like this one
so first let's talk about some general guidelines for making small talk in english first of all you
want to find something that you and the other person have in common what is something that you
share this could be the place where you live it could be your neighborhood it could be the weather
that's something that we often talk about it could be a situation like a holiday that is coming up or
a famous sporting event that a lot of people are thinking about for example recently the olympics
were on tv and i made small talk with people about whether or not they were watching the olympics
so find something that you have in common that's usually the easiest way to make small talk and
especially to have the small talk be successful where you and the other person find something
that you share next sound positive try not to say things like oh i don't like the food here
or oh the weather is just so bad today tried to find something positive that both of you
will want to continue the conversation next avoid offending someone so this is obvious
but there are a lot of differences in what people find offensive americans
usually try to sound positive and we try to avoid any kind of language that could offend someone
okay next number four don't get too personal we have some topics that we avoid talking
about unless the person is a very close friend or family member so we avoid religion politics
age so we don't ask someone how old they are or we don't make comments about how old the person looks
wait we don't talk about other people's bodies and money we don't like to ask people how much
they paid for something how much their house cost how much their car cost how much money they make
money and those other topics are considered taboo we don't talk about them with people
whom we don't know well so those are considered not appropriate for small talk
and finally another question that you can often hear is what do you do this is a common question
that you can hear when people make small talk what does it mean what do you do means
what do you do for a living what is your job so if you hear someone say what do you do you can tell
them i'm a lawyer i'm a student i am a teacher i'm a nurse etc and the other thing i want to mention
about this question is that it's considered a little bit old-fashioned now the younger
generations don't ask this question as often so you might not hear it as often or you might
hear it more with older people and finally show active listening when you are making small talk
it's very important to show that you're listening and to respond appropriately so when someone is
saying something you could say oh really or that's great wow if you hear something surprising wow oh
or at the end of the conversation don't forget to wrap it up by saying something like nice chatting
with you or nice to meet you be careful with this one because nice to meet you is only used when you
meet the person for the first time we never use this with someone whom we've already met before
nice to meet you is only when you see and talk to a person for the first time if it's a person whom
you've already met before then you can say nice to see you so again find something like that to
wrap up the conversation if the other person says it first you can say you too okay so let's move
on to some topics how can we start small talk with someone well first if we are at school one of the
things that we can think about is what do we have in common you and your classmates have homework
and tests in common so at the beginning of class you can sit next to someone and you can say did
you finish the homework or how was the homework or what did you think of the homework and the other
person might say oh it was okay it was pretty easy how about you and you can say oh yeah it was
pretty good but there was one question i got stuck on and then you guys can talk about that question
tess same thing after you take a test you can say to your classmate how was the test or what
did you think of the test and that person would then give their overall impression of the test
was it hard was it easy was it okay another thing you want to think about with tess is
is it okay for you to ask someone their score or their grade on a test so in the u.s our culture
is pretty private we don't like to share a lot of personal information and so in this situation it
might not be appropriate to ask someone what was your score or what grade did you get on the test
it is also considered rude for you to look at the person's test we never do this and it's very
important to respect the other person's privacy so if the teacher gives back the tests you're
going to look at your test but you're not going to look at a classmate's test but it is okay to ask
something general like how did you do on the test and the other person will usually answer
with something more general like oh i did pretty well or i didn't do too well how about you again
that will give you the opening to talk about the test more you can say oh i did well on
the first part but on the second part i had some mistakes for example and then you can talk about
some parts of the test that were hard for you that will help you keep the conversation going
okay next another topic that you guys have in common as classmates is your classes or your major
for example you can ask your classmate what other classes are you taking this semester
what other classes are you taking oh you're taking english me too who's your professor okay
so you can ask that and again find some questions that you can continue the conversation
to help the conversation keep going how about major you can ask the person what's your major
that's a very common question for college and university students people love to talk about
their majors when you ask you can say what's your major and the person will say my major is biology
or psychology and you can say oh i've heard that that's a really interesting major or i took a
psychology class once it was really interesting and of course you can talk about your major too
another thing you can do is you can talk about the future you can ask someone what classes are
you going to take next semester or have you chosen your classes for next semester yet
and then talk about what classes you might want to take give each other some tips and finally
vacation plans college students love to talk about their vacations it's the time of the year
when they have time off from school it's time to relax and go have fun so in the us we usually have
three big vacations we have spring break which happens in march or april and this is one week
that students have off and usually they will go do something fun go on some kind of trip or they
might go home and spend the week with their family another vacation that we have is summer break and
this is the long vacation two or three months and that is a time when people usually will go home
and live with their family and work for the summer or live somewhere else and work or maybe travel
and finally another vacation that we have is called winter break and this is usually two
to four weeks after christmas so this might start around like december 20 and go into january and
again people will usually have some interesting plans for those vacations so when those vacations
are coming it's very common for people to ask each other what are your plans for the break
or what are your plans for summer very common question and it's something that people enjoy
talking about all right let's move on then and talk about how we can make small talk at work
and one of the things you want to think about with work is that the days of the week
are sort of important so if it's monday what are you going to talk to your co-workers about
talk to them about what they did over the weekend you can say good morning happy monday how was
your weekend or did you do anything fun over the weekend did you do anything fun over the weekend
or if it's thursday it's getting closer to the weekend you can say do you have any fun plans
for the weekend doing anything special for the weekend okay next work project so anything that
you guys have in common about work projects that you're working on meetings that you are attending
trainings that you are doing any changes in work that affect both of you certainly those could
be topics that you could talk about how's that project going let me know if you need any help did
you attend the last meeting and you can talk about something that happened at the meeting and again
remember that you want to try to sound positive don't you know say negative things about your boss
or bad things about the job a lot of people will do this and if someone else starts it then you can
engage in that conversation but in general for small talk at work you want to avoid negativity
all right finally in other situations so this could be at the supermarket at the dentist
at the doctor's office at the neighborhood park at school maybe talking to other parents at school
if you have kids and these could be many other situations we love to talk about holidays so think
about holidays that are coming up if it is the end of december that means that new year is coming
if it is the last week of june that means that july 4th independence day
is coming so you can ask someone do you have plans for the holiday or
you can say the name of the holiday do you have plans for new year's eve
or you can say are you ready for halloween and that would be a way that we would
talk about something that we have in common which is celebrating or preparing for the holiday sports
if there is a sports team in your city so for example if you move to the u.s and you live
near san francisco you might talk about the 49ers the football team did you watch the big game or
are you watching the olympics or do you watch the world cup and then talk about some sports events
this is kind of hit and miss you know some people don't like to watch sports but for people who
enjoy watching sports it's a great topic for small talk and americans usually really enjoy
watching sports they will have like a hometown team that they like to root for
and especially with men they love to talk about football so that's a good topic for small talk
okay next the weather the weather is something that everyone has in common and so you can say
something like uh it's such a beautiful day today or the weather has been so nice lately
so you can talk about the weather it's not the most interesting topic but it's very common and
finally travel going back to vacation plans if there is a holiday or like a kind of break
coming up people will often ask you what you're going to do for that vacation time
or they might ask you what you did in the past for example if you go to the dentist after
the winter break they will often ask you did you do something fun over the christmas holidays
people love to talk about their trips so you can say oh i went to san diego oh how was it i love
san diego did you go to the zoo etc i will leave many examples that i mentioned in today's video
down in the description box below please let me know if you have any questions and i would love to
hear from you what strategies do you use to make small talk in english or how do you find small
talk in english is it difficult and let me know take care and i hope to see you back here soon