Well hi there, E. Let's talk. Hi, James from www.engvid.com .
I know what he's saying. He's talking about today's lesson. What we want to study are - well,
what I want to introduce you to are five questions that you can use when you first meet somebody
to develop a bond, and a bond means sort of a relationship that you can carry on later on.
If you - a lot of people will suggest watching movies for learning how to do conversation, and
I agree and I've mentioned it in several videos. But let's be honest, what we need is in depth
involvement. What I mean by that is you need to immerse yourself in language. And when you're
immersing yourself in language, you want to do something like talk to people. Now, the problem
with talking to people, many students say, is that you can't really get a good conversation.
Today's lesson - I'm going to teach you five questions and opening lines or bridging questions
that will help you to create natural conversations which will get people to come back to you.
So, I'm going to start by coming over here and explaining how conversations are like essays,
and do a small comparison before we get to the questions and what those questions can possibly do
to help you open up a conversation and naturally make it flow, alright? So,
we're not talking about language apps, we're not talking about movies. They're all - they're good,
they're great to start off with. But if you don't get enough natural input from people to know
the ebb and flow, or how conversation goes, what pauses mean, which means stop in the conversation,
you're going to have what we call a stilted conversation where it seems more like an interview
or an interrogation where one person asks questions and the other person says "Yes" or "No",
but you don't go any further. And without further ado, or not waiting anymore, let's go to the board
and start our conversation lesson, shall we? Now, conversations are like essays. Now, a lot of
you guys are doing essays in school right now, so you're learning how the five paragraph essay, or
how to write because you want to go to college or university in Canada. Or you're writing a business
letter and you want to sell a product to somebody. Not quite an essay, but you'll get the structure
that I'm talking about. When you write to someone, especially an essay, you need an introduction.
An introduction can be the thesis, the three major points, and a - sort of a conclusion that leads to
the body where it sums it up, saying this is my argument, right? This is what we're looking at
for our introduction for an essay. When we move from an introduction to an essay to the body,
we explore the subject. What that means are things that we started to talk about here,
we go in deeper here and try to explain why this true, why this isn't true. We finally go
from exploring the subject to the conclusion, where we say, "Well, this is what I believe,
because of what I've said.", or "This is how I've disproved something someone else has said."
And it motivates the person to follow up, because if you write a really good essay, or if you're
doing a really good sales letter, somebody's going to follow up, meaning they're going to want
to find out more by contacting you or reading for themselves. So they get a deeper understanding of
the subject and/or they understand what you were writing. You motivate them to learn, basically is
what I'm saying. That's what we do for essays. So, how does this compare with a conversation?
Well, when you meet somebody, because with an essay, if you've - if they've never read
the topic, you are meeting. The essay is their introduction, the first time they're meeting the
subject. When you have conversation, we have what's called an icebreaker. Icebreakers are
something we don't have now, but in the old days, they would actually have frozen ice and they'd
have to break it into pieces, because they would make, you know, they'd have an ice bucket at the
door and whatnot, I can't remember exactly. But they'd get big ice and they'd have to smash it
and keep it. It wasn't like today where you can get ice out of your fridge by pressing a button.
So, you need an icebreaker, something to - when we say "break the ice".
When you don't know someone, it's cold, you might say. Two people can be frosty or ice-like.
To break the ice is to warm up to communication to getting to know each other.
So, you need a sentence besides, you know, "Hey baby, how you doin'?" Not a great ice breaker,
by the way. But something that makes somebody - will open up and turn towards you to say, "Ok,
hi, hello", or whatever the next thing is. People usually go from an icebreaker to
open ended questions. You notice I have something in here, I'm going to
come back to this in a second. But similar to the essay, they go to open ended questions.
That's like to explore the subject. Exploring the subject is getting to know you. Who are you, what
do you like, what don't you like, who am I, do we even want to get to know each other better?
Then we move to conclusion. I mean, I'm lucky I'm doing videos so I can talk all night long. But
fortunately, you have a job, you have a place to go. You have to go home, you have to go to school.
So, in a conclusion for a conversation, if the conversation has had a good introduction, you have
asked good questions to motivate interest, when you conclude and you get to know a bit,
you end the conversation. You wrap it up, but in a way that you can talk again later.
Maybe by email, maybe by Skype or Zoom or maybe on Facebook, but you'll continue the conversation and
get to know each other, right? Okay. So far, so good. They're very similar,
except I added here, bridging questions. Well, what is a bridging question? Well,
people and essays and books or sales letters aren't the same. When you're talking to someone,
and this is where I said a movie or an app isn't quite the same, it's real life, it's
happening now. There are things that are going to happen between your body language, time of day,
whether we're hungry where we are. That's going to change that conversation. The speed of it,
the words coming out. If I'm listening, you might slow down to make emphasis. It's real.
So, you can't just go from an introduction to open ended questions, because,
you know, "Hi, my name's James, do you want to go to dinner and get married?" Woah, where
the hell did that come from? You kind of got to bridge, and what I mean by bridge is you're here,
this person's here. You've done your introductions so you can see each other and wave, but how do
you get over here so that you can take time to get to know each other? Bridging questions.
So, I'm going to give you five questions that you're going to ask that's going to give
you the power to be able to get to know someone, but I'm also going to give you the bridging
questions you should ask first that can lead from introduction to a question that makes sense,
so your next question, which is an open ended question where they won't say yes or no, but
they'll give you information, will work nicely, neatly, and lead to great conversations. Or,
sorry, great conclusions - so, for further conversations. So, if you're ready to explore
that with me, get ready, and let's go. Okay, so you did all the work to understand
what or how a conversation, a book or an essay or a sales letter can be similar and how they match
up, and I threw in that concept of, you know, linking something or leading with something,
yeah? So, we're going to go over to the board and I'm actually going to give you the five questions
that I think can generate an amazing conversation with someone. I've not only done that, I've added
with that what I call leading questions, something you will start with to get to that question that
will develop a beautiful conversation. And - you don't think I just stopped there - I'm going to
try and give you some background on why you might want to use this question or what makes this
question special. So you're not just going to say, "I'm going to ask this question in any situation."
You might want to know if I use this question if I want to learn this about a person.
Kind of good, right? Okay, cool. So, let's go to the board and we'll take a look.
Question number one, okay. Before we - what we want to ask is, "If you could only eat one meal
for the rest of your life, what would it be?" So, that's the question. And we can even go further
with that question, it would be like, "Where did you first have that meal? Who made it for you?"
And get some, you know, we can get a - have a little bit of fun with it with a person. Because
food is something we all love. So, this is a question about having fun.
Now honestly, you can't walk up to someone and say, "Hi, my name's change. So, if you could only
eat one food for the rest of your life, what would you eat?" They'll look at you and back up and go,
"Back up, you're crazy, you're crazy!" So, how do I get in there? Well, imagine walking down
the street, I see you and I walk up and go, "Hi", and we're talking a bit, "My name's James. Oh,
your name is Valerie or Valyeria, yeah, Valyeria, great." "Hey, are there any good restaurants
around here?" And she might go "Yeah, down the street there's a good Italian restaurant. You
might like it." I go "Really, cool. That sounds fantastic. I've got a funny question for you. If
you could only eat one meal for the rest of your life, what would you eat?" And they might go "Good
question." As you're thinking about it, you could ask, "Hey, is that restaurant around here that
sells this kind of food?" And all of the sudden, you've opened it up for a conversation, see?
Now, when I'm giving you these leading questions, don't think that you have to do this with that
exactly. Think of context. Where are you? You could be sitting eating dinner with a friend or
someone you've just met at a party and you're not going to say to them, "Is there any good
restaurants", or "Are there any good restaurants around here?" That's just not paying attention.
But while you're eating, you could say, "This food is amazing. Do you enjoy it?" And they might say,
"Yeah". And you go, "Hey, you know what? If you could only eat one food -" there you go,
there's that question. And it's a fun question, this icebreaker. It gets to get - you know,
you get to know the person by asking things like, "Where did you first have it?" Maybe they were on
vacation. "Who made it for you?" Maybe it was a family member. So, this is a "getting to know
you" question. And it's done over a fun way that's not too invasive, which means it's not too strong.
Food - we all eat food, we all love food. You can even change it to,
"What food could you not eat ever again for the rest of your life?" Why not? And they might go,
"Oh, liver! I hate it! Oh, my mom made it, it's disgusting" and it's a great conversation.
Question number two, you could say - okay, question number two is "What was your first job?"
and you want to know why? Once again, this is a fun question. Nobody ever has a great first job,
well, very few of us have great first jobs. Some of us, like I delivered newspapers as my
first job at 6:00 in the morning. It was cold, it was wet. But I learned the value of - ahh,
see, you got to know about me. Because I told you about my first job. It wasn't a great job,
but I learned something from it, or I was able to buy this because of it.
How do you get there, though? How do you get there? Because walking up to someone and asking
about their first job, unless it's a business or a job interview, is not a good question to ask.
But we could start off with, you know, like, "Weather's pretty good, dadada. Hey,
what do you do for a living?" "Well, I'm a salesman." "Well, how do you like your job?"
Person's going to ask, "I love it!" or "You know, it's okay, it's a job." I go, "Yeah, I know what
you mean. Remember when we were kids? Remember your first job?" "Yeah, I sold ice cream."
Remember I said to you at the beginning, the best kind of way to get better at conversation is to
have natural input. These conversations lead to natural input that you can't just practice
like, from movie scripts or language apps. You need to be able to get something that's real,
that touches us that would naturally touch you. And notice how we're talking about childhood here,
and these are fun and light because sometimes, you just want to, as we said, break the ice.
We've broken the ice with a "Hello", we've led in with a good question that is not too strong.
Then we can go for a deeper question that helps them to reveal themselves
without feeling that they're forced to. Okay. Question number three, let's go over here.
"What is a relationship deal-breaker for you?" Now, this
changes. This isn't a fun question. This is a question to find out someone's morals or what they
feel is morally right or wrong. What they will tolerate, what they will not tolerate, right? So,
tolerate means you'll say it's okay. I don't like it, but it's okay. And if you don't tolerate it,
you say it's not okay. I will not stand for this, or I won't take it. It's over. So, a deal-breaker
in a relationship can be do they lie? Do they cheat - have sex with somebody else? Will they
say bad things to you? These are things that you're saying these are the things I stand for
and I will not let someone do to me, okay? So, a deal-breaker, because when you break a deal means
the relationship will be cut or broken if this happens.
This also tells you what behavior, even if you're not a girlfriend or boyfriend, husband or wife,
that if you do these behaviors, they won't be your friend either. So, if they say a deal-breaker is
someone who is always late, you better be on time. Whether you're their girlfriend,
boyfriend, or just whatever. You understand? Alright. Because that could be a deal-breaker.
Now, that's a hefty question. You cannot and I am telling you, do not walk up after saying,
"Hi, my name is James. What's a relationship deal-breaker for you?" Because right away,
they might be thinking, "But you want to date me? I don't even know you. Who the hell are you?"
That could be the first thing going through their mind, or you might just seem crazy.
But how would you ever get there? You could have a casual conversation, like "Hi,
my name's James", dadada, you're talking. And you could turn around and say something like,
"Hey, have you ever had a bad relationship?"
The answer to that is a yes/no, and I know here these are not supposed to be yes/no questions,
but in saying yes or no, if they say they have had one, you don't have to get too
personal but you could say, "What was the deal-breaker in that relationship for you?"
And now they're answering that question for you, see? If they say no, they've never had
a bad relationship, which is unusual, then you can say, "That's funny. So, what would be a
deal-breaker for you?" Woah, yep. We went around. They say yes, no, we got you, tap, boom. Alright.
Remember though, I'm joking around, but this is a serious question and it's going to lead to someone
telling you what they morally think is right or wrong. So, they're going to take it seriously.
You might want to share - and I should say in all of these questions. To make the conversation
continue, you want to share. You want them to talk, because then you will probably, most likely,
if they're good conversationalists, ask you, "What about you? What was your first job?" Or,
"What food do you think would be the one you'd want for the rest of your life?" There you go,
you've created a bond. And then, something like this, what are deal-breakers. When they ask you
that question, they're going to be looking at you and finding out from you, what are important
issues to you that you would break a relationship over? So, see, we're having fun in the sun,
but now we're moving down to serious stuff that you can actually use in real life situations.
Next, question number four, "Would you want to live forever?"
Now, I asked this question just now and you might be thinking to yourself, "Oh,
I've never thought about that. Hm, that tells me a lot about you." People with imagination,
creativity - I'm not saying it's a bad thing, but a lot of people, if they think "If I could
live forever..." it's like "Why would you live forever?" These are philosophical questions,
so it gives you insight to somebody. If they said, "Yeah, I do, because I want to drink and
party all the time!" it tells you yep, that's all you need to know. Right? That'll give you
information whether or not you want to go deeper into a friendship with this individual. And you
might find out something really deep about them, like they want to find out how life evolves on the
planet and where it goes from there, and so on. And you're like "Woah, I didn't see that coming!"
but it gives you deep insight into them. So, how do you get into a question like that
without, you know, how do you start there? You might want to say something simple like this,
"If you had an unlimited amount of time to learn a skill, what would you want to learn?" Notice
this is not the same as living forever. When you're saying this one, you're saying "Hey,
what would you want to do if you could, like, if you had enough time to do it?"
Because we all have jobs and relationships and obligations, but I'm saying in that question,
the lead in question, well, if you had the time, what would you want to learn?
Play guitar? They might say, "Yeah man, play guitar, do some art, and I would like to travel
to Mars!" And then you go, "Okay, now, what if you could live forever, what would you do?"
"Oh dude, you know what I want?" And all of the sudden, you've got them excited and you're getting
insight into who they are. Maybe they're artists. Their job might not be that way, but the way they
think is that way. Or maybe they'd want to, you know, explore. They're explorers, you don't know.
If we have forever, it changes what you might want to do in life versus when you're limited
and you have to make money. So, this is a great way to get insight into people. Alright?
Now, question number five. "Who is your celebrity crush?" A crush - okay, you may not know,
but a crush is when you have like, romantic feelings towards someone. Like, okay, I know. He's
getting older, sorry, Tom Cruise. There was a time you was the man. I don't know who the man is today
anymore. But there was a time, Tom Cruise was considered like, the heartthrob. People loved him,
and many women loved him because he was dangerous. He was adventurous. Some people
liked Harrison Ford because he was mature, like as in Indiana Jones. Intelligence and bravery.
Some people had a crush on Arnold Schwarzenegger, because Mr. Schwarzenegger was just very huge.
You know, he had the muscles. Anyway. So, that told you a lot about what they found
attractive. So, when someone tells you their celebrity crush is somebody, they're telling
you I find this attractive in a man or a woman. And you've got to go, "Okay, how do I use that?"
I told you you're not here just to learn English. It's a vehicle, okay.
So, how do you go there? Because that's kind of like a funny question to ask someone you've
just met. But something that's not so funny and is very interesting is, "Hey,
is there any famous person you'd like to meet?" Most people have somebody that they want to meet
in life. Now, that's not a sexual question. Like, you might want to say - a person might want to say
Barack Obama. Maybe not him, maybe Boris Yeltsin. He's dead - no, I'm joking. He's a Russian leader.
I don't know. Who is your - like, Thor. Chris Hemsworth. Ah, that's the new heartthrob, forgot.
They might want to meet him. But it doesn't mean they have a crush on him. They might want to
meet him because he's got a great body and they want to look like him. But you can lead for that
question into something about celebrity crush, because they're about the same. They're parallel.
You're talking about famous people, ones you want to meet because they're famous and
interesting. And then the other one because maybe you're physically attracted to them.
That one leads to, as I said, attraction. Now, somebody helped me coin this phrase, I'm
going to use it. If you master questions like this - and now remember, I didn't tell you you had to
use exactly this. I'm giving you ideas that will give you the time to sit down, maybe write out,
come up with your own lead in questions and you use these questions. You can get insight,
attraction. You can get morality. You can get fun with these five questions
while talking to someone. And they can go from five minutes to five hours.
Now, I'm going to call you guys future native speakers. Why? Because if you
master questions like this, you will become a native speaker. Because this
is the kind of thing we would ask each other. In fact, I'll tell you the truth. Most people
don't ask questions like this. These are questions that will put you above that so even though your
English - English isn't your first language, it will make it seem like it's your first language.
And that's a power we all want to have in the end, right? The ability to communicate well
in any situation with any person. So, hope you've had fun with that. Before you go,
I've got a couple of things. Because we always have a bonus, that you've stuck around to do this,
I'm going to give you the bonus question. Then we'll talk about your homework, okay?
Bonus question number one. I think it's funny because you're going to say "What's your name?"
is like, of course. Everybody asks people their name. I go yeah, but we are - as I said, future
native English speakers, and you're going to do something different. You're going to say, "Hey,
so what's your name?" And they're going to say "My name is Mr. E." And you're going to say, "Sorry,
so that's Mr. E, right?" And they go, "Yes, Mr. E." Then you'll say, "So, Mr. E, I was wondering,
are there any good -" what did I do? I used the name three times. One, I asked them to say it so
I'd listen to it. Then I repeated it back to them to make sure I said it to get it in my memory.
And then I used it right way in a sentence to help it stay in my head. Why is this important?
You know this is true and I'm going to tell you right now. You've been in a conversation. Somebody
said their name, said "Hi, my name is James." And their name dropped to the floor and you forgot it.
And you spent the next ten to fifteen minutes trying to remember their name. Not listening
to what they said, because you were afraid you wouldn't say their name. They would say - so
you'd have to introduce them and you wouldn't know it. And that's embarrassing. It's happened to me;
it happens to everyone. So, by trying to get their name said at least three times right
at the beginning of the conversation, and of course, try to say it again in the conversation,
you'll find you will remember their name so you can focus on what they're saying to you.
It's a small hint but a big one. Try it out. Now, here's a question you should not ask, okay?
Do not ask people any body-related questions. If you say to somebody, "Hey, are those real?"
Don't ask, okay? Body-related questions are things that are personal to people and
unless you know them well, even in beginning conversations, they don't want you to ask.
One question you should not ask a lady, and this is a great example of body-related question is,
"Are you pregnant?" or "When are you due?" Don't ask that question, don't ask it.
There are several reasons why a woman might - a woman's body might have changed. Don't ask
that question, or any other question about - you look at the guy's hair, you go, "Is that real,
or is that a wig?" What do they call them? I can't remember, it's wigs? A man's wig - men
wear toupees. It's been a long time, nobody wears them anymore. They shave their head off,
right? So, don't ask those questions about body-related issues unless you really know
them or you're family. Don't, even then. If it has to come it, it will come up in its own way.
So, for the last two questions. "What is your name?", and the rule there is trying it three
times. Ask their name, repeat their name back to them, then ask the next question starting with
their name. And by the way, we all love our names, so it's not like they're going to get upset by you
saying it. And repeat it as many times you can in the conversation in a natural way so you don't
forget it, so you can focus on the conversation. Don't ask any body-related questions.
Okay? This is a North American thing. I don't know every culture in the world. Maybe there are
cultures where it's okay to ask certain things. In North American cultures or Western cultures,
generally it's not allowed or not acceptable. Especially beginning conversations.
And what's our homework? Well, you know you've got to have homework. You know you've gotta
have homework with me, alright? Because I love these conversations that we have. They're one
sided because I do all the talking and you do the listening, but I want you to practice this stuff,
not just take it from me. You know, I say it to you and you believe it.
Go out in the real world, come up with your own lead in questions. And in order to do that,
you've got to understand what the question is your asking, or what question to want to ask next.
So, I have three questions here. Each question is worth 1000 points because underneath the
comments here, you're going to write in the answer, whether you think it's morals or fun,
insight/attraction, ask or don't ask. And people will vote on it, and every thumbs up
you get - if it's on YouTube, you're going to get 1000 points. If it's on www.engvid.com , they'll
make a comment in the comment section there. So, make sure you go to www.engvid.com , we'll
talk more about that in a second. And your three questions are the following.
Remember I told you each question and I kind of went over and said this question gives you this
into somebody. Is it insight? It tells you about their morals. I want to see how well you were
listening, because a conversation is two parts. It's listening as well as speaking. So, if you
listened, you know the answer to this. This is silly, silly question. They are silly questions.
If you weren't, watch the video again, listen carefully because I explain each one to you.
So, the first question we want to do for your homework, and that's in the comments below us:
What is a relationship deal-breaker for you. Is this a question based on finding out somebody's
morals, or is this a fun question? Just getting to know each other? Think about it carefully,
don't forget to write in the comments section. Who is your celebrity crush? Does this give you
insight into the person, or is it finding out about their attraction, what makes them attracted
to a person, or what is attractive to them? And the third one is, is this a question you
should ask? Are you pregnant? Should you ask this question, or you don't ask this question? Okay?
Listen, I had a lot of fun. And I've run out of questions for you, but I'm sure you have some
for me. Leave them in the comment section and before you go there, I want you go to go a very
special place where you can do a quiz and find out more about the questions that are there.
You go to www.engvid.com , do the questions there. Meet some wonderful teachers, and if
you liked this lesson and you learned anything from it. You were like, "Wow, I didn't know that,
that was interesting." Subscribe. But don't just subscribe, ring the bell.
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Anyway, it's been fun being with you. You have a great day, evening, or afternoon,
wherever you are. And we'll see each other again soon. Ciao!