- Wanna have non-awkward conversations in English?
Never ask this kind of question.
(upbeat rock music)
Good morning, good afternoon, or good evening,
depending on what part of this big,
wide world you happen to be in right now.
I'm Julian Northbrook, and this is Doing English.
We all know that when meeting and speaking
to someone for the first time,
asking questions is a great strategy
to keep the conversation flowing.
But did you know, there are good questions to ask,
great questions, and then questions
that you should avoid like the plague
unless you want your conversations
to become stagnated and awkward.
Now, don't jump to conclusions,
'cause I know what you're thinking.
You're thinking, aha, yeah Julian,
I already know this, I know exactly
what you're gonna talk about in this video.
You're gonna tell us not to ask questions
that might be considered rude.
Things like asking, are you married,
how old are you, what's your salary.
Or you're gonna tell us not to ask about
controversial issues, religious beliefs,
political views, et cetera.
Not so fast, my (speaks foreign language).
Although those questions are ones
that yes, you should certainly avoid
when talking to someone for the first time,
although it does depend on the situation,
context, and the person you are talking to.
No, those are not the kind of questions
I want to discuss in this video.
The kind of questions I wanna talk
about here, are far more subtle,
far more dangerous for your conversations.
And, I can unfortunately say,
you probably do actually use these questions.
You probably do ask people these questions
not even realising that they are
making your conversations awkward.
I know this, because most people actually learn them
and get taught them in basic English courses.
Okay, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Julian, Julian, Julian,
stop beating about the bush, will you?
What are these questions that
we should avoid in conversations at all costs?
I'm glad you asked.
Let me illustrate with a story.
Go back an entire lifetime ago,
to when I was a lonely art student at a British university.
One day I was in my studio doing some work,
and I twisted my back in a funny kind of way,
and I quite badly pulled a muscle,
and it was really, really painful.
So I went to the doctor's, and the doctor recommended
that I go to one of these sports injury
massage clinic places, whatever you call them.
Have you ever been to one of these places?
Generally speaking, they're run by people
who are heavily into sports, and may have been some kind of
sports athlete, doer of sports in the past.
That was certainly the case with the place where I went.
I opened the door and step in,
and I'm greeted by this big, burly guy
who looks like a P.E. teacher.
So I go in and he asks me what's wrong,
and I explain to him.
So he lies me down on the bed and he starts doing his thing.
That was fine, but what wasn't fine
was the conversation that came with it.
It's like when you go to the hairdresser's,
and the hairdresser feels like
they have to make conversation, chit-chat,
small talk with you as they cut your hair.
But, it's like, you know, they've got their hands
in your hair, and they're cutting it.
You can't exactly get away, you are a captive audience.
And you can't exactly ignore them either,
because again, they've got their hands in your hair.
So you kind of are forced to make
chit-chat, conversation with them.
Well, this situation was exactly like that,
except, instead of having somebody cut my hair,
I had a big, burly guy running his hands up and down me.
That might seem like an appealing situation to you,
but I can tell you, for me, I did not want
to be making conversation at that time.
I just wanted him to shut up,
get on with it, so I could go home.
But, oh no.
He felt like he had to make small talk.
So what football team do you support, he asks.
Um, I don't, I have about as much interest
in guys kicking a piece of leather
around a field as I do of cutting my own testicles off.
Okay, so what sports do you do?
At this time in my life, I was skinny, malnourished
art student with a bright green and pink mohawk.
Do you really think I was out playing tennis,
living it large on the cricket pitch every weekend?
Hell no.
Not one to be deterred, Mr. P.E. Teacher tries again.
Who's your favourite musician, he asks.
Okay, so we're getting a little bit closer now.
At least I look like someone who would be into music.
And indeed, into music, I certainly was.
But here's the problem, I've always been someone
with very, very eclectic taste when it comes to music.
I'm into techno, electronic music,
but I also like rock, and on occasion,
I like to stick a bit of classical piano on the stereo.
I don't, however, have a single favourite musician
that I would consider myself a massive fan of.
I remember the conversation so clearly
like it was yesterday, because I answered
the question with, Peter Murphy.
You know, the guy who fronts Bauhaus.
Oh, what, you don't know?
Well, no, neither did he.
End of another conversation topic.
The big, big mistake that Mr. P.E. Teacher made
was that he asked the wrong kind of question.
He asked a kind of question
that we call an absolute question.
An absolute question is a class of question
that asks for an absolute, a very, very specific answer,
and leaves no flexibility, no leeway
to answer outside of the confines
of that very, very narrow specific question.
Think back to the questions he asked me.
What football team to do you support
makes an assumption about me.
It assumes that I like football
and I have a team that I support.
Realistically, this question can only be answered
with the name of the team that I support.
But when you don't support a team,
when you don't even like football,
what it actually does is make you freeze.
Because you have no ready answer,
no simple answer that you can give in return.
The next question was the same,
what sports do you do assumes that I do sports,
and that I have any kind of interest whatsoever in sports.
Clearly, like the previous question,
this question is all about him,
his preferences and what he's into.
If I asked him, what football team do you support,
what sports do you do, he would probably
be able to answer, boom, boom, boom.
No problem whatsoever.
But I don't like football, I'm not into sports,
I have no answer that I can give.
When we are put in a position where we cannot
give a quick, clear, simple answer
talking to someone who we don't know,
we feel bad about that, we feel guilty inside
that we can't answer them, and we feel
like we are ruining the conversation.
We panic, basically, and the result is that we freeze up,
and the conversation loses momentum,
it becomes awkward and we start to feel stupid.
This was the same with the question,
who's your favourite musician.
At least now Mr. P.E. Teacher had switched the focus
from himself onto me and what I look
like I might be interested in, but the question,
who's your favourite musician is again, an absolute.
It calls for a very, very specific answer,
and most people when put in this kind of situation
actually don't have an absolute favourite musician.
It's the same asking somebody, what's your favourite food.
Well, shit, I like lots of different kinds of food.
How am I supposed to pick just one among everything?
Especially when my mood and my tastes change
from minute to minute, hour to hour.
Hell, my tastes change from second to second,
millisecond to millisecond.
Again, the result is that we freeze,
we go into panic mode, we don't know what to say
and we end up feeling stupid.
This kills the conversation dead in the water.
The next logical question, haha, excuse the pun,
is of course, what questions should you ask in conversation
to make the conversation bounce along
in this lighthearted fun kind of way.
Well, that is something we have no time for
for today, but we are going to cover
an immense detail in Small Talk Superhero,
the advanced English masterclass live in London on June 9th,
from 1 PM to 4:30 PM in the afternoon.
We're not just gonna talk about questions, of course.
I've got a list of about 36 advanced English conversation
techniques and points that we're gonna discuss.
But asking questions in conversation,
whether it's with someone who you have just met,
for example someone who you are meeting in business,
a client, someone who is visiting your office,
or perhaps someone who has just started working
in your office, or people who you already know.
Whether it's social situations, again business situations.
We're gonna talk about asking questions in conversation
to keep the conversation flowing smoothly, bouncing along.
We're gonna talk about what the
best kind of questions to ask are.
What other kinds of questions you should really avoid.
And, what I believe to be the ultimate question
to ask in conversation, if you wanna guarantee
a fun, lighthearted, interesting conversation.
For more information about Small Talk Superhero,
click on the link in the description
or head over to SmallTalkSuperhero.com.
With that, this is me, Julian Northbrook
signing off from another video.
If you found this helpful, go ahead
give it a nice big ol' thumbs up.
If you thought this video was crap,
and God knows why you bothered to watch till the end,
but give it a thumbs down anyway.
If you're new to the channel, subscribe.
And regardless, I will see you this time tomorrow
in the next exciting video, goodbye.
(upbeat rock music)
That human beings need conversation in their lives
is obvious, but what is not quite so obvious is why.
Why do we chat, why do we need conversation?
If you've ever wondered about that question,
watch this video here where I answer it in some detail.
And if you want my top five tips
for more more advanced English conversation
check out this video here.