Hello, this is Jack from tofluency.com.
Now, in this lesson, I'm going to talk about
a really powerful way to overcome your fear
of speaking English or your shyness
when it comes to speaking English
especially when you meet new people.
So imagine the situation.
You are at a party in your native country
and in walks this group of people who are English speakers
and they come over to you to say hello,
to introduce themselves and you know, okay,
now I have to start speaking English.
So this is when you panic
or this is when you start to feel really nervous,
you start to feel very stressed about speaking.
Well, I've got a quick tip
that's going to help you overcome this fear
to make you feel more confident
and comfortable in these types of situations
and I'm also going to teach you the type of language
you can use in these situations too
so that you're ready to start speaking English
and then watch until the end because I need your help too.
So I'll have a question for you at the end
that I want you to answer.
Before I talk about the little trick here,
know that this can often be quite awkward or uncomfortable
when you're doing this in your native language.
Meeting new people can be uncomfortable for a lot of people.
So know that this happens
when you're speaking in your native language too
and that it happens to English speakers at the same time.
It's a normal thing to feel but the trick is this.
Ask questions.
So you be the one who asks the most questions
and this helps you in a few ways.
Firstly, it gives you an opportunity
to get used to the situation
because you can ask one question
and then the other person starts speaking
and it gives you a chance
just to get used to this new situation that you are in.
So it gives you some time to overcome your fear
but also it gives you an opportunity
to learn the English you need to know
in order to have a conversation with this person
because if you ask this person a question,
they're quite likely going to ask you the same question
and when they're answering, you can listen for key phrases
that you can also use because when you speak to people,
it's not just about practicing your speaking,
it's about listening for key phrases,
it's about learning English in context
and also improving your English too.
So when somebody is answering the question,
you can steal little phrases from them.
You can imitate the way they speak.
You can take the phrases that they use
and use them when you're speaking too.
So with that in mind, I've got a few questions for you
to have in your arsenal, to store up your sleeve
or without using an idiom, to store in your brain
so that you can use these questions and ask these questions
when you find yourself in these situations
and finding yourself in these situations is quite common
if you put yourself out there if you are in an environment
where there are other English speakers around.
So things like when you go to parties,
when you go to events, when you go to language exchanges
or even when you go to weddings.
So learn these questions, commit them to memory
and go to my website to learn more
about how you can store these sentences in your brain.
The first one is this.
So how do you know and Paul and Sarah?
How do you know Paul and Sarah?
This is when you're trying to find common ground
because if you're at a party or an event or wedding
or something similar then somebody's hosting this,
the host, the hostess or the hosts.
So you can say how do you know Paul, how do you know Sarah,
how do you know Paul and Sarah?
So you're trying to find that common ground
and this is a question people ask all the time
in these situations.
People ask me this at parties and weddings.
So when you're sat next to somebody at a wedding
who you don't know, you can say,
oh, how do you know the bride and groom,
how do you know Paul and Sarah
and again, when you're listening to the answer,
you can use some of those phrases
to then answer for yourself
and it also gives you a bit of time
to think about how you're going to answer too.
Another common question to ask is about their job
and a very common way to do this is just to say,
what do you do?
What do you do?
When people ask me this
when I'm meeting them for the first time,
I tell them that I'm an online teacher and then usually,
there are a a lot of followup questions here
like how do you teach,
do you teach for yourself or for a company,
what is YouTube like, how do you find your students?
So this is when you need to be a little bit flexible
and think about some followup questions
but a common one is to ask do you like it
or do you find it enjoyable?
So you can ask them if they like their job
or if they find it enjoyable
but don't ask them about their salary.
It's quite rude to ask people how much they are earning
although I do find people want to know
if how much I'm earning when I talk about what I do.
The next one is something you learned a long time ago
but the followup question is something
you probably don't know.
So you can ask people where are you from?
Where are you from?
And in these types of situations
when you're talking to somebody who isn't from your country,
they're going to tell you the country.
So they'll say I'm from the UK, I'm from England,
I'm from Australia, I'm from America, et cetera
but you want to be more specific here.
So you can ask whereabouts in England
or whereabouts in Ireland?
So this is when you're getting more specific
about the city or the region
and again, this happens to me all the time.
Where are you from?
The UK.
Whereabouts?
Near Manchester.
So people ask me this all the time
and then it's time to use the present perfect
because you can either say oh, I've been there
or I've never been there, what's it like?
So this is when you can start using the present perfect
and if you have been to the place that this person is from
then you can be more specific.
You can say, oh, I was there in 2009, I used to teach there
or I went traveling there for a couple of weeks.
So this whereabouts, whereabouts in Spain,
whereabouts in the UK, whereabouts in England
is a really good followup question
and then you can ask somebody
how often do you go back to the UK,
how often do you visit your home where you are from?
This is again a question that people ask me all the time.
So it's a really good question to have.
How often do you go back home?
How often do you go back to the UK?
People are going to answer I go back every six months
or I go back about once a year.
So people are going to say I go back
and then use some type of time expression.
Now, before I give you some more questions,
you can also just give statements, make observations
and a good one that I like
when you are at a party or an event
is this is such a good spread, this is such a good spread
and this means that you think the food is really good.
I think this might be quite a regional expression
so be careful when using it.
Instead, you might want to say the food is fantastic
or the food is really good
because when you're having a conversation with somebody,
there are times when it goes a little bit silent
when no one speaks and this is just a good way
to continue the conversation.
So you can say the food is fantastic
and then that person is going to say,
oh yeah, I love the chili, I love the macaroni and cheese
or that broccoli and dip is really good
and then you can start talking about food from there.
Another statement you can make is about the weather.
People love talking about the weather.
It happens all the time.
So just saying things like it was so cold this morning
or it's gone cold, hasn't it
or I don't think this weather is going to last
or do you know if it might rain later?
So that's a question you can ask.
Now, to learn lots of phrases
to help you better talk about the weather,
check out the videos that I've made on this subject.
I'll leave them in the description.
You can also just make statements about the party
like this is a great party, this is a great wedding
or if you're at a wedding, the ceremony was fantastic
or if you're at the party, you can just say
I love this song if it's playing.
Just simple statements keep that conversation going.
I'm not sure why these next questions can be awkward
but asking people about their hobbies and interests
isn't the easiest thing to do.
I don't know why.
It just sometimes seems quite strange
to ask what hobbies do you like
or what do you do in your spare time?
What do you do in your free time?
And I know these are the types of questions you learn
when you're learning English through a textbook
but it can just sound a little bit strange.
Having said that, that doesn't mean you shouldn't ask them
and as an English second language learner
because English isn't your native language,
you can get away with asking questions
sometimes in an awkward way.
So don't worry about this too much
but I like to say things like so what are you into
or if you think that this person is into sports,
you can say so do you have a soccer team
or do you play any sports around here,
those types of things.
So people know that I'm from the UK
and when they find out I'm from the UK, they can ask me,
they usually ask me about football or soccer
like do you have a team in England or do you play soccer?
So you can start thinking about where they're from
or the information you already have
and then ask them something like that
or you could just simply ask them like what are you into?
So what are you into?
So what do you do when you're not working?
Ask something like that because that can open up a new topic
and you can find some good common ground there too.
Now, speaking about a question that could be awkward,
let's say that you really hit it off with this person
or you connect in a really good way.
Now, I'm not talking about romantically
although I'll leave a question for you soon with that
but let's just say you want to be friends
and you want to meet up.
You can just say something like hey,
would you like to grab a coffee sometime?
Would you like to grab a coffee sometime?
It's just a way to say let's meet up in a casual way
because we have this new friendship,
we could be friends maybe.
Would you like to grab a coffee sometime?
Or you could ask them would you like to hang out sometime?
Would you like to hang out sometime
and then you can get their number or their Facebook profile
and then get in touch with them at a later date.
Now, you can also ask these questions
if you are interested in this person romantically too.
So these questions still work
like would you like to grab a coffee sometime
but you might want to invite them out to a date
by saying would you like to go out sometime?
Would you like to go out sometime?
Anyway, it's been a long time
since I asked somebody out on a date
so I'm probably not the best person to ask here
and then finally,
I've just got a really good question for you
which you can use in lots of different situations.
So before, we talked about your job, okay, and jobs
or asking about jobs and then followup questions
and you can ask things like
how do you like working at the hospital,
how do you like working for that company
but you can use this how do you like for almost anything.
For example, how do you like going back home,
how do you like playing for that soccer team?
So it's a really good question for you to ask
if you want to know more information
about what someone has said.
All right, so those are the questions you can ask.
Those are the statements you can give as well
so that you have things to ask and say
when you meet someone for the first time.
So having that knowledge, having those common questions
and also knowing that asking a question
allows you to feel more comfortable with the person
and also allows you to steal the language that they're using
means that you can overcome your fear of speaking English
using these tips.
So my question for you is this.
What other questions can you ask in these situations?
Leave these questions below
and I'm going to comment on some of those posts
and let you know if it's a good question to ask
or if you need to change it slightly.
So leave those comments below.
If you are new to this channel, welcome.
My name is Jack from To Fluency.
You can find some really good resources in the description,
things like my book, The 5-Step Plan For English Fluency
and also my To Fluency program.
So check those out, subscribe if you're new
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Thanks again for watching and I'll speak to you soon.
Bye bye.
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