So often when we talk about having better conversations in English,
we focus on the questions.
Asking better questions assumes that you're going to be the person in charge of the conversation.
You're going to be the person leading the conversation.
You're going to be the person engaging the other person in conversation.
For many people, being the person initiating the conversation and leading the conversation
can actually be quite stressful.
Rather than talking about the questions, I want to focus on your answers so that your
answers are actually encouraging and contributing to the conversation.
Remember, the goal of your conversations is to connect with the other person.
At times you're going to be the person asking those questions and at times you're going
to be the person answering those questions.
As always, if you want more guidance on better questions that you can ask in a conversation,
I encourage you to download my free guide to more interesting small talk at englishwithkim.com/smalltalkguide.
I'll include the link below the video.
But like I said, today we're going to focus on creating strong answers to questions.
These strong answers are going to enable you to connect with the other person.
They're going to show that you're participating and they're going to show that you're truly
involved in the conversation.
Let's look at three elements to a strong answer to questions in English.
First of all, a strong answer to a question enables
the other person to learn something about you.
As I keep emphasizing, when you want to connect in conversation with the other person, you
really do want to know something about them.
If you answer a question, but don't reveal any details about yourself, the other person's
going to sense that you're not that interested in talking to them.
Whether you're in a personal or professional situation, if someone's asking you a question,
they often want to hear a little bit about your personal experience.
Your response to questions should focus on the way
that someone can learn something about you.
While you don't have to reveal too much personal information in the conversation, your answers
should enable the other person to learn something about you.
You may share something that reveals aspects of your personality, something that talks
specifically about your past experiences, whether that's in the workplace or an experience
that you've had in your life, or it may just show something as simple as
your reaction to a particular topic.
If you're looking to connect in conversation, your answers should give some details that
enable the other person to find something in common
or something you can continue to talk about.
The next essential element of a strong answer to a question is that it invites the other
person to share their own experience.
Like I said, when you are responding to a question that the other person asks you, you
want to share your own experience so that you can find something in common.
When you're responding to a question, you also need to find a way to encourage them
to share their own experiences too.
This is what's going to enable you to connect.
When you're responding to someone's question, you want to share a little bit about yourself,
but also show interest in the other person.
You may want to ask them questions or turn the question around saying something like,
do you know what I mean?
Or have you been there too?
Have you ever experienced that?
Anything that will enable them to continue the conversation
and share a little bit about themselves.
It doesn't have to be complicated.
You don't have to keep the conversation going by asking really in-depth questions.
You just want to turn the question around so that they have a chance to respond.
Last but not least, when you're responding to questions,
you want to leave the conversation open.
You want to leave space for their conversation to evolve in a natural direction.
This means that you don't want to finish your answer with some sort of saying like,
That's all I have to say about that.
That's all I'm going to share about that.
That's all I think.
That's all I'm going to say.
All of these expressions finalize the conversation.
They don't enable it to evolve.
Instead, you want to leave a little bit of detail that the other person can ask you about.
You may not want to reveal every detail of your story
or share every single bit of your answer.
A lot of non-native speakers tend to give a lot more information upfront because they're
afraid that the other person's not going to understand them, but you actually want
to become more comfortable with letting the other person ask you more questions
and furthering the conversation.
If the other person is the one asking you questions, they're going to be the person
asking additional questions so you can leave the conversation some space to evolve.
You don't have to share every single detail up front.
You want to understand that the person can and should continue to ask you more questions.
This is also important to understand in job interviews or other professional situations.
You don't need to share all of the details right at the beginning.
The conversation will evolve and if you leave a couple of details unsaid that gives the
other person something that they can ask you.
Most of the time, people are not looking for a very thorough, very complete answer.
They want the conversation to evolve.
So let's review the three elements to creating a strong answer to questions in English.
Number one, a strong answer enables the other person to learn something about you.
Number two, it invites them to share their own experiences.
And number three, it leaves the conversation open so that it can evolve naturally.
Now that you've learned these three elements to a strong answer, I encourage you to review
my free guide to making more interesting small talk and think about
how you would respond to these questions.
Think about how you can create strong answers to these questions
that include these three elements.
This will really help you make better small talk and have better conversations in English.
I hope you found this tip helpful and I look forward to hearing your feedback.
Once again, I'm Kim from englishwithkim.com.
I'm your guide to the essential conversation skills you need to sound more natural in English.
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Have a good one - goodbye!