English Conversation Skill Secrets THIS is what GREAT speakers do

[Music]

hello everyone and welcome back to

english with Lucy today I have a video

for you on conversation and how to be an

amazing conversation partner all of this

is what amazing speakers do what amazing

conversation lists do I think we should

get straight into it the first tip I

have for you is ask hypothetical

questions you might notice a trend here

we are going to be trying to avoid

yes/no questions they are the devil when

it comes to starting conversations and

maintaining good conversations asking

hypothetical questions and talking about

imaginary scenarios and situations is a

really good way of getting to know

someone better and getting them to open

up as well and it’s not too difficult to

do even if you aren’t very advanced at

English all you have to learn is the

conditional tenses maybe I should make a

video on the conditionals let me know if

you’d like one but really good questions

are questions like if you could have any

job in the world

what would it be that’s a really good

one because you get to know someone’s

biggest desires and they get to really

open up to you so for example if you

were to ask me that question if I could

have any job in the world what would it

be I would say I would love to be a

reconstructive plastic surgeon

that is what I always wanted to do

unfortunately have to go through the

whole medicine route which wasn’t quite

for me but I wanted to help people

rebuild their faces after accidents and

trauma fun fact about me or another

question if you won the lottery what

would you do what would you buy first

that’s a good one so if you ask me that

what would I do if I won the lottery and

the first thing would be to pay off my

parents mortgage and then I would go

about doing secret deeds I wouldn’t tell

anyone

I’d won the lottery but make sure that

the money goes to good places this

brings us on to our next point our next

tip which is to emphasize similarity so

you could respond to some of the things

I’ve said and emphasize how similar we

are because we like people who are like

us emphasizing similarity improves

social relations and in fact sales

people use this a lot and they do it in

physical ways as well it’s a known

technique that salespeople will mimic

hand gestures and body language and that

can actually improve sales without the

buyer even realizing it now we don’t

want to do that we’re not necessarily

salespeople well you might be saying you

can use that but when we are having a

conversation we want to find points of

connection points of mutual interest if

you hear your conversation partner say

something that you really relate with or

that you can add to you need to let them

know so for example with that first

hypothetical question about if I could

have any job what would I do if that

related to you at all you could say

phrases like yes I totally agree with

you or we’re really similar on that or

we think similarly on that or I’m on the

same page as you

those are really good phrases you can

use to show connection and the fact that

you are similar to someone now the next

tip tip number three is slightly strange

but it’s really important it is to be

aware of the sounds that you make whilst

you are thinking now you might not be

totally aware of the sounds you make

whilst you’re thinking and more

importantly how different they are in

different cultures in some cultures and

in some languages it’s totally and

utterly normal to make really loud open

mouth sounds when you were thinking of

something and I noticed this in Spain I

lived and taught in Spain for quite a

while I had a Spanish partner I lived

with his Spanish family I really did

integrate into Spain

Society and one thing that surprised me

at the beginning was the sounds they

make when they think and it was

something like this hey it’s just so

different to what we do I think in

British culture it’s considered rude to

have your mouth open in front of someone

it’s not like a written rule but in

general we’re very very conscious of

eating with our mouths closed of not

talking with food in our mouths and just

not going so when we are thinking we are

more likely to say with our mouth closed

so we still make that sound we still

take that thinking time let me know in

the comments below what sort of sound

and mouth shape you use in your language

and culture when you are taking a break

in a conversation and thinking and then

maybe think about tweaking that if

you’re going to be speaking to native

British people or Americans as well just

English speakers in general because it’s

different to us we would be maybe

slightly surprised if someone went hey

now tip number four this is another one

about filling in gaps but it’s a more

general one it is improve fluency to

avoid having gaps it can be really

embarrassing and frustrating when you

keep getting stuck mid conversation it’s

something that all language learners are

scared of a great way of improving your

English conversation skills is to aim

for fluency you can learn to speak

fluently at your own pace from the

comfort of your own home 24/7 thanks to

lingo de the sponsor of this lesson

segment and their new more flexible

offer it’s the language marathon

challenge which you can choose to do for

three months six months or 12 months you

can learn English business English

French German or Spanish in interactive

virtual online classes with native

speaking

qualified teachers you’ll also get a

free Cambridge certificate exam at the

end I’m very happy to bring you this

offer because I have tried out a variety

of lingo de lessons and I had an

excellent experience you can choose from

over 500 structured lessons that include

all important aspects and skills such as

grammar sentence structure vocabulary

speaking and it costs much less than

regular offline courses from as little

as just 6 euros per class and as an

extra motivational push you can earn up

to 400 euros cashback if you attend over

90% of your lessons so now you have two

options for this offer you can use my

code Lucie 15 or you can claim a 7-day

free trial choose wisely as you can only

pick one the link is in the description

box the best of luck and let me know how

it goes right number five this is a tip

that I wish I had learnt a long long

time ago it’s useful for you as learners

of English and it’s also useful for

native speakers of English it is be

sensible with how you word potentially

sensitive questions so imagine I ask

someone how is your job at Google going

and they respond with I was fired thanks

for asking or what do you do for work

and they respond with I’m employed and

desperately searching ah it’s such an

awkward situation when you ask someone a

question trying to make positive

conversation and they just knock you

down

and it puts a downer on the whole

conversation and it makes you feel bad

and it makes them feel negatively

towards you now there are good ways of

rewording these questions so that it

gives people some escape room ways to

avoid difficult topics so instead of

asking someone how’s your job going you

could say something like fill me in on

your life since I love

saw you or catch me up on what’s

happened since I’ve last seen you if you

asked to be filled in or you asked to be

caught up that’s a good way of asking

someone to update you on everything

that’s going on or instead of asking

something like what do you do for work

what is your job what do you do for a

living you could ask a more general

question like so what keeps you busy

it’s a little nicer than what do you do

it’s funny because in British English

what do you do is quite a common

question it means what do you do for a

living what do you do for work but when

I went over to America and I asked

people what do you do they were a bit

confused maybe they were just being

difficult I’m sure they understood me

but how do I ask the question like what

keeps you busy maybe they would have

been more chatty with me now number six

is a great one if you have a lower level

of English but you want to keep

conversation going it is ask open-ended

questions and again this is part of

avoiding yes/no questions so if I ask

someone do you like London they could

say yes or no and then that might be it

and then I’m stuck searching for

something else to say however if I ask a

question like so what do you like most

about London what do you like least

about London that gets the person

talking they’ve got no way out they have

to say something a bit broader and then

you can expand on that so questions

using what and how are really good for

keeping conversation going and then you

can use all the other tricks like

emphasizing similarity if someone

dislikes the same thing as you I’m with

you on that one I can’t stand queuing

queuing came to my mind because we’re in

lockdown at the moment because of the

coronavirus and I don’t like the queues

outside the supermarkets now number

seven is ask for advice and I’m not sure

if I have a video on asking for advice

and if I don’t I should definitely make

one because it’s a big topic and it’s a

great tool in conversation so when you

ask someone for their advice or for

their opinion but more advice

showing that you trust them that you

respect them it makes them feel

knowledgeable and it just improves the

connection between the two of you if you

shared a problem and you feel like

you’ve spent quite a long time talking

about it and you want to pass the baton

to send it over to the other person for

their response you could say something

like so what would you do in my

situation what would you do if you were

me and that’s a really nice way of

asking for advice and asking for opinion

without saying what is your advice what

is your opinion another great way is to

say I’ve always wondered about why there

are so many pigeons in England why do I

always end up talking about pigeons I

think my first ever video I spoke about

pigeons maybe it was my second anyway

I’ve always wondered why there are so

many pigeons in England maybe you could

offer some insight in that then they

could give their opinion as to why there

are so many pigeons what a ridiculous

example so in general the majority of

these tips have been about making sure

that the other person has lots of

opportunities to speak in general people

enjoy talking more than they do

listening you can use this to your

advantage if you are a learner of

English I have some extra little mini

tips these could be considered obvious

but I think they’re quite important and

these are more specific to learners of

English a big one is don’t be afraid to

ask for repetition a really good tip

that I provide to my students is just

don’t use the same asking for repetition

phrase over and over again have a couple

up your sleeve

oh sorry what was that oh could you

repeat that would you mind saying that

again what does that word mean different

ways and maybe brief the person say or

do you mind if I ask you a couple of

questions about the language you use

because I am learning and I really like

the way you speak that we’re offering a

compliment making them feel good they’ll

feel flattered that you like the way

they speak and they should be more than

willing to help you this brings me on to

my next little tip which is offer

sincere compliments I’m not talking

about physical compliments in general I

find that physical

can actually make people feel

uncomfortable unless they’re really

genuine say I have two people come up to

me one says oh my god you look great and

the other one says wow I really enjoyed

our conversation it was so interesting

to talk to you I would find the

compliment about my personality and

about an experience that we’ve shared

much more flattering and much more easy

to digest than a compliment or physical

appearance but everyone’s different but

I do feel like in general offering

sincere compliments that aren’t about

looks can be a really good way of

bonding with someone it’s like in the

comments section of my videos I don’t

necessarily respond to comments about

the way I look but I do often respond to

comments about the quality of my lessons

especially open-ended questions with

what how and why but if someone just

says I like your top today I am I don’t

really have much to say apart from thank

you and the last little mini tip is talk

about emotions and make sure that you

know how to talk about emotions there’s

lots of obscure vocabulary related to

emotions and lots of little nuances

especially to do with the negative ones

there are lots of idioms attached to

them as well I have done a video on

happy happiness related idioms which i

think is a really good one because when

people say things like oh I’m absolutely

over the moon or I’m on cloud nine it

can be really really confusing and you

can you know wonder if they’re being

positive or negative I mean even I

sometimes get confused I used to have an

American boss and I remember she said

can you come in and help with a

co-workers presentation because she’s

absolutely bombing it and I thought

bombing it like whew bomb like

absolutely she is the bomb I was like

great what she need help with and she

was like I need you to take over and I

was so confused but it turned out that I

just didn’t understand the idea she was

using so yes the one on happy

expressions would be really useful for

you and fun fact that was a video I

filmed after going on a first date with

my fiancee I think I was in a really

happy

and I decided to write a happy video and

I remember all the comments like oh my

god you’ve drunk a lot of coffee and the

funny thing was that I hadn’t drunk any

coffee

I was just I’d met a really great man

and we’d been on a date finally so yeah

if you want to see giddy Lucy who’s just

fallen in love and has just realized

that she’s met the man of her dreams and

you can watch that video I’ll link it

down below I’ve done another video about

ways to express disgust because that’s

an emotion that I’ve never really seen

lessons on that in school but I thought

it was a really important topic to cover

for my students let me know if there are

any lesson topics on emotions and

feelings that you think that I haven’t

covered that you think I should cover

that would be interesting for you I

think if that brings me to the end of

today’s video I hope you enjoyed it and

I hope you learned something don’t

forget to check out lingo de they’ve got

their new marathon language challenge

you can get up to 400 euros cash back

and also the access to the Cambridge

Certificate exams is pretty phenomenal

actually when they told me about that

new feature I was really excited for my

students don’t forget to connect with me

on all my social media I’ve got my

facebook my Instagram and my Twitter and

I have my personal channel which is now

turning into my vlogging channel who I

do vlogs of my life here on the farm if

you don’t know I am marrying a farmer we

live here on a farm

and we have a very quiet and peaceful

life especially in lockdown well I

really enjoyed filming this video for

you I’ve got lots more planned but do

put your recommendations down below I

will see you soon for another lesson

[Music]

[Music]