Hello. This is 6 Minute English from
BBC Learning English. I’m Sam.
And I’m Neil.
Recently I met up with an old school
friend who I hadn’t seen for years.
We talked for hours…
It sounds like you had a good chinwag –
a long and pleasant conversation between friends,
which is great because in this programme
we’re talking about talking. We’ll be discussing conservations –
the exchange of ideas, thoughts and feelings
that happens when people talk to each other.
And as usual we’ll be learning
some new vocabulary as well.
With the rise of Twitter and social media,
which encourages us to give our opinion
on a subject without always listening in return,
some think the art of conversation is being lost.
But luckily, there are still millions of us who
love to talk, chat, chinwag and chatter away.
In fact, in 2012 a competition in Latvia broke
the world record for the longest telephone
conversation. So, Neil, my question is this:
how long did this record-breaking conversation last? Was it:
a) 24 hours and 4 minutes?
b) 54 hours and 4 minutes? or,
c) 84 hours and 4 minutes?
Hmmm, I’ll guess a) 24 hours and 4 minutes,
after which they probably fell asleep!
OK, Neil, I’ll reveal the correct answer later
in the programme. During a long career, DJ
and BBC radio presenter, Nihal Arthanayake,
has had conversations with hundreds of people.
Now he’s used these experiences to write a book
entitled, ‘Let's Talk: How to Have Better Conversations’.
Here Nihal tells another radio presenter,
Michael Rosen, of BBC Radio 4’s, Word of Mouth,
about the influence of his mother who
also loved talking to people in her job as a nurse:
Well, it gave me the sense that you are enriched
by listening. And this was of course, pre-social
media which has of course encouraged us to
project - to transmit - more than receive.
So it meant that I guess I was conscious of
experiences of others, and wanted to try and
understand them. Also, partially, Michael,
it was a survival instinct because I was a little
brown boy in a predominantly white school,
a state school in the 1980s.
For Nihal, good conversation involves listening
as much as speaking. By listening we find out
things about the person we are talking to which,
in turn, help us understand ourselves.
This is why Nihal says we are enriched by listening –
we are improved by having something else added.
As a British Asian boy growing up in a white community,
Nihal also thinks conversation was a way for him
to make friends and find protection. He says
having conversations was a survival instinct -
the human instinct to do something in a dangerous
situation that will keep them safe from harm.
Nihal sees an important difference between
‘listening simply to reply’, and ‘listening to understand’.
When we ‘listen to reply’, we are thinking about
the next thing we want to say more than trying
to understand the other person’s point of view.
‘Listening to understand’, on the other hand,
helps build bridges - improve relationships
between people who are very different
or do not like each other.
Here’s Nihal again in conversation
with BBC Radio 4’s, Word of Mouth:
So conversation can build bridges,
and it is proven through history that
conversation has, and that conversation
can be seen as an art form, and that's one
of the things that I want us to understand –
it's not just tittle tattle, it's not just shouting
at each other on social media, it's not two
politicians talking over each other.
Good conversation brings people together,
unlike tittle-tattle - talk about other people's lives
that is usually unkind, disapproving, or untrue.
And good conversation involves taking turns,
not talking over someone – trying to silence people
by talking more loudly, forcefully,
and persistently than them.
Hopefully, Nihal’s tips can help us all have
better conversations, encounter new ideas and
make friends. So, Sam, did you do any of these things
when you met up with your old school friend?
I think so. We both listened to each other,
there was no tittle-tattle but a little bit of gossip.
Before we knew it a couple of hours had passed -
but not as much time as those record-breaking
telephone conservations I mentioned earlier.
Ah yes, in your question you asked how long
the world’s longest telephone conversation lasted.
It guessed it was an incredible
24 hours and 4 minutes… was I right?
Well, Neil, I’m afraid that was… the wrong answer.
In fact, the record-breaking conversation lasted
54 hours and 4 minutes - about the same as
540 programmes of 6 Minute English!
Wow! OK, let’s recap the vocabulary we’ve
learned from this programme on the art of
good conversations, starting with chinwag –
a long and pleasant conversation between friends.
When something is enriched, it’s improved
by having something else added to it.
The survival instinct is the basic instinct in
humans and animals to do something in a
dangerous situation that will keep them alive.
If you build bridges, you improve relationships
between people who are very
different or do not like each other.
Tittle-tattle is talk about other people's lives
that is usually unkind, disapproving, or untrue.
And finally, if you talk over someone, you silence
or drown them out by talking more loudly than them.
That’s the end of our conversation, but remember
to join us soon for more trending topics
and useful vocabulary. Bye for now!
Goodbye!