Easy SMALL TALK tips in English English Speaking Practice
Hi, I’m Vanessa from SpeakEnglishWithVanessa.com.
Can you have natural small talk?
Yes, you can.
Let’s talk about it.
Even native English speakers feel uncomfortable
or awkward sometimes having small talk.
Small talk means that you’re not just saying,
“Hi, see you later, bye,” instead, you’re
having a short, light conversation, usually
with someone in passing or before you’re going
to have a more in-depth discussion.
When you see someone you know at the grocery
store, when you have a quick conversation
with a coworker as you’re eating lunch, or
maybe when you’re just wanting to make a new
friend, you need to have good small talk skills.
Today, we’re going to cover some of the most
common small talk questions and answers so
that you can be a professional small talk
expert.
Let’s go.
The first topic is weather.
Weather is a very simple, noncontroversial
neutral topic, unless you’re talking about
climate change, in that case it’s a little
more serious to talk about, but we often use
this as an ice breaker.
And ice breaker is a common expression we
use when talking about introducing a conversation,
you’re helping it to become less awkward.
You’re having some icebreaker or small talk
discussion, and then you can relax and have
a normal discussion.
Some common weather questions you might ask
are, “Isn’t it a gorgeous day?
Can you believe how rainy it’s been?
Is it hot enough for you?”
This last one might seem a little strange,
but it is a silly or humorous way to address
how extremely hot the weather is, or maybe
extremely cold if you say, “Is it cold enough
for you?”
You’re joking about the extreme temperature
that you’re experiencing and it’s a light
way to introduce a conversation.
Notice that all three of these questions are
not open-ended questions.
They are only yes or no questions, and this
makes it a very simple way to introduce the
conversation.
The other person doesn’t need to think about
some kind of answer, they can just say, “Yes,
it is a gorgeous day.
Oh yes, it is so rainy.
Yes, it’s really hot,” very simple and it
makes for a comfortable introduction.
If you would like to learn some more ways
to talk about the weather, I made a lesson
completely dedicated to the weather, a hundred
expressions for talking about the weather.
You can watch that lesson up here to expand
your weather vocabulary.
Our second small talk topic is where you’re
at or your location.
Now, you need to think about this, of course,
in an understanding way.
If you are at a hospital, you might not want
to ask these questions, because if you say,
“Do you come here often?” and they’re at the
hospital, it might be a little bit too sensitive
to talk about.
But you can use these questions for any type
of location like a park, the zoo, a library,
a museum walking down the street.
You can use these for most daily life situations.
Let’s imagine that you see someone who you’ve
met a couple of times, but you don’t know
that well.
You might talk about where you’re at and you
might ask, “This place is great.
Do you come here often?
How long have you been coming here?
Do you live near here?”
If you’re at a dog park, these are pretty
common in the US, people bring their dogs
and their dogs can run freely together, well
great, you already have something in common
because that other person probably has a dog,
or if you’re at the library, you both have
an interest in books.
You have something in common, your location,
and you can ask these questions.
“Do you come here often?
How long have you been coming here?
Do you live near here?
Do you live in the area?”
Great.
Let’s say that you’re somewhere that’s not
a regular hangout, like a coffee shop or a
library or a park.
Let’s imagine that you were at the zoo or
a museum, these kind of a special-occasion
places, you could ask, “Have you seen the
DaVinci exhibit?
It’s really cool,” or, “Which exhibit do you
like the most?
Have you seen the monkey exhibit?
It’s amazing.”
You can use this to talk about the location
where you’re at.
What if you’re in transit somewhere?
Maybe you’re at an airport, you’re at a train
station, you’re waiting for your subway to
show up.
Well, what are some questions you could ask
to someone who maybe you don’t know and you
want to start a conversation with?
You might ask, “So, where are you headed?”
Headed is a verb that we often use to say
which direction are you going to.
“I’m headed to the office.
I’m headed to San Francisco.
I’m headed to some place.”
This is a great question to ask, and I just
want to let you know that if you ask someone
this and say, “Oh, so where are you headed?”
and they say, “To work,” okay, maybe if they’re
not open to conversation.
They just gave you a one-word answer, two-word
answer, that’s completely fine.
Not everyone is going to be open to conversation,
but I’ve started a lot of great conversations
and even friendships by trying to just give
it a try.
Try to speak with someone else who you feel
like might be open to having a conversation
and also respecting other people’s distance
if they’re not interested.
When you have established that the other person
might be interested in talking, if they say,
“I’m headed to San Francisco,” you could ask,
“Are you traveling for business or pleasure?”
Business is kind of obvious for work, pleasure
might mean they’re visiting family or they’re
doing something for fun, for vacation, something
like this.
This is a good way to continue the conversation.
Of course, you have to be aware that if someone
is traveling for a sensitive reason, for example,
they’re going to a funeral, don’t push the
topic too much.
You can just shift your questions accordingly
so that the other person also feels comfortable.
Our third topic for small talk conversation
is to talk about your plans.
You can talk about the past, in the present,
in the future.
In this first scenario, you run into someone
who you kind of know but you maybe don’t know
too well, or you haven’t seen them in a little
while.
You can ask them, “Hey, how are you?
What have you been up to?”
You don’t need to ask, “How are you?”
but it just feels really comfortable and it
introduces the conversation instead of being
like an interrogation, “Hey, what have you
been up to?”
Instead, when you say, “Hey, how are you?
What have you been up to?” you can smoothly
introduce the conversation.
If you haven’t seen this person in a while,
you might say, “We have so much to catch up
on.
What are you up to this weekend?”
This is asking about the future, this future
weekend, “What are you up to?”
Now, of course, if you’re asking this, it
means that you would like to get together
with the other person and catch up.
This phrasal verb, to catch up, means that
you are learning about what has happened to
them in the past.
Maybe you don’t know, you haven’t seen them
since elementary school, so you have a lot
to catch up on, you want to know what’s going
on in their life.
If you ask this, be prepared to make some
plans and to have some availability, that
way you can follow through on your question.
You can also ask the informal question, “Do
you want to grab coffee?
Do you want to grab a drink?
Do you want to grab lunch, brunch, dinner,
and catch up?”
To grab something, usually we use this in
a very informal situation so that it doesn’t
seem like you need to sit there and talk for
five hours.
Instead, you’re just going to grab a coffee,
maybe a 30-minute conversation, one-hour conversation,
very informal and spontaneous.
It’s also potentially an easier way to not
make someone feel uncomfortable if they say
no, because it’s not so serious.
Just a little note.
If you are a guy asking a girl or any combination
I imagine, if you say, “Do you want to grab
coffee with me?”
make sure that you say this very lightly if
you don’t want to ask them on a date, because
for me, if a guy tells me this and says, “Hey,
do you want to grab lunch later?” and they
don’t know me or they don’t know that I’m
married.
Then I will feel really uncomfortable because
is it a date?
Is it not a date?
Do I want to just talk with them?
Make sure that if you are in this situation,
you just ask in a very light and happy manner.
Of course, if you do want to ask them on a
date, this is a good question to ask.
Finally talking about your plans, we have
two very safe questions you can ask.
The first one is, “I can’t believe it’s already
time for,” some kind of holiday, whatever
holiday is coming up.
“I can’t believe it’s already time for Thanksgiving.
I can’t believe it’s already time for Christmas,
for the New Year, for spring break.
Do you have any plans?”
This is asking them about the future, “What
are you going to do for the holiday season?”
Or you can simply ask, “Do you have any plans
for this weekend?”
Ask it very lightly so they know that you
are just simply asking, “Hey, what are you
up to this weekend?
Do you have any plans for this weekend?”
Great small talk.
Our next small talk topic is a job.
Even if you’re talking with someone who you
work with, you can alter these questions slightly
and still talk about your job with them.
In fact, it might be the best option because
it’s something that you already have in common.
If you’re talking with someone you’ve never
met before, this is a great question to ask,
“So, what do you do?” or, “So, what do you
do for work?”
Sometimes we leave off the last part, for
work, and we simply ask, “So, what do you
do?”
This might seem a little bit vague for English
learners who’ve never heard this expression
before, but it is extremely common.
I want to make sure that when someone asks
you, “So, what do you do?”
you might say, “What do I do?
Well, I eat breakfast, I wake up, I breathe.
I like to run.”
No, no, no, this is talking about your job,
what do you do.
Next, you could ask them, “How long have you
been doing this job?
How long have you been an architect?
How long have you been a nurse?
How long have you been a builder?”
Well, this is great, you’re trying to ask
some more details.
If they haven’t done that job for very long,
you can follow that up with, “So, what did
you do before this?”
What did you do before this, this means this
current job, what was your previous job, or
maybe you were a student or maybe you were
traveling, what did you do before this.
You might notice that I’m starting a lot of
these questions with the word so.
It just provides a smooth entrance to your
question so that it doesn’t sound like an
interrogation.
“What do you do?
How often have you done this?
Where are you coming?
How often do you come here?”
If you ask questions like this, the other
person will feel uncomfortable so we often
add these filler words, like so, to make it
seem more casual and just more natural.
“So, what did you do before this?
So, how long have you done this job?”
Great idea.
If someone really likes their job, you could
ask, “So, what made you get into architecture?
So, what made you get into teaching?”
If someone is a teacher, I’m sure they’d love
to share about how they became interested
in teaching.
That’s what the essence of this question is,
“So, how did you get into teaching?”
Especially if you have an unusual job, like
my job, which is to teach you English online,
a lot of people ask me this question, “How
did you get into teaching English on YouTube
and online?”
I tell a little background story about teaching
English in the classroom, and then I was searching
online for how to teach English in the US
and I found out I could teach English online
and I just started to dive into it and give
it a try.
This is a little background story to talk
about how I became interested in my current
job.
Not everybody likes their job though, so if
someone doesn’t seem that excited about their
job and you want to learn more about them,
you could ask them this fun question, which
is, “If money was no object, what job would
you do?”
This means if you didn’t need to make money
or you didn’t care about how much money you
had, what kind of job would you have?
This is a classic question and it really gets
to the heart of someone’s passion.
Maybe they love horses, but they just don’t
think they can make a career out of loving
horses.
They might say, “Oh, I really wish I could
be a horse trainer and teach people how to
ride horses.”
Well, great, all of a sudden you have a treasure,
which is a piece of information about the
other person.
They love horses, great.
You want to make sure that when you learn
something interesting about other people you
store that away, because it’s a great way
to continue conversations or to bring up something
interesting with them.
What if you’re talking with someone who you
work with, how can you talk about your job?
Because you can’t ask them, “What do you do?”
Well, I guess, unless you don’t really know
what part of the company they work for, but
in general, we want to ask more specific questions.
Let’s imagine this scenario.
You are in the lunchroom, most offices in
the US have a break room or lunch room with
some tables and a microwave, maybe a sink,
so that you can heat up your food or wash
some dishes, and you are waiting for your
food to heat up, you brought some leftover
soup.
This is a very detailed scenario.
You brought some leftover chicken noodle soup
and you put it in the microwave to heat up,
but you’ve got two minutes and there’s somebody
who works with you, standing beside you.
What do you do?
What do you say?
Don’t worry, I’m here to save you.
You can ask these three questions.
If you know which department they work in,
you might say, “Hey, what’s new in the marketing
department today?” if they work in marketing.
Or if they work in management, you might say,
“Hey, what’s new in management today?”
Cool, great, you know a little bit about them,
but you’re just having some small talk.
Or if you know they’re working on a project,
you could say, “How’s your project going?
How’s your project going?”
Or if you have no idea what they’re doing,
you might say, “Do you have any fun or exciting
projects coming up?”
You’re asking about the future, what kind
of things they’re planning for.
Not everybody is great at small talk so they
might just say, “Nope, not much.”
Okay, not everybody is willing to have small
talk, but who knows, maybe they’ll say, “Yeah,
we’re working on this really cool initiative.
We’re working with a charity and we’re going
to try to raise some funds for this organization,”
and maybe they’re excited about it and will
want to share it.
Maybe they’d just been dying to share this
with someone and you are that opportunity.
It’s worth a try, you never know, give small
talk a shot.
Before we go, I want to give you four tips
for excellent small talk.
These are general ideas about conversation,
but they are essential for connecting with
someone else.
Number one is put your phone away.
This seems like a basic thing, right?
But sometimes we don’t realize how often we’re
opening our phone, checking our messages,
there’s a little buzz and you open your phone.
This is disconnecting you from the person
you’re talking with.
When you’re trying to have small talk, keep
your phone in your pocket, keep your phone
away.
If you have an emergency or urgent phone call,
you can just say, “Excuse me, I’m sorry.
I have to take this,” and that means you have
to talk with that person.
“I’m sorry, it’s my boss.
I have to talk with them, I’ll be back.”
You have to take that emergency call, but
in general for small talk, keep your phone
away.
My second tip is to be curious about the other
person.
This is one of the great joys in life, I think,
is getting to know other people and being
very sincere about getting to know them.
You’re not just a robot, blindly asking questions.
No, you want to get to know another person,
even if it’s just for one minute while you’re
waiting for your food to heat up in the microwave,
that chicken noodle soup, so you can get to
know someone else.
Be curious.
A great way is to ask why or how questions,
“Oh, why did you decide to get this type of
dog?”
Or, “How long have you had this dog?”
Wow, this is a great way to ask further questions.
Of course, don’t interrogate them.
“Why did you get this dog?
How long have you had him?”
No, you can just be friendly, be yourself,
but these open questions with why and how
show the other person that you are sincerely
interested in their choices in their life.
My third tip is what I just mentioned, which
is do not interrogate to the other person.
Instead, just be genuine and interested in
them.
If you feel like you’re asking too many questions,
do you know what you can do?
You can share about yourself.
This is something that’s also essential to
do, but not easy for everyone.
If someone says that they are a math teacher,
you might say, “Oh, you know what?
When I was in high school, I had an awesome
math teacher who was a really special person.”
Okay, that’s really short, but you’re sharing
some kind of connection from your personal
life and this helps you to not interrogate
them.
Instead, you’re also giving.
You’re not just taking their answers, instead,
you are giving from yourself as well.
My fourth tip for great small talk is to avoid
your personal favorite topic.
If, for example, you’re really into gardening
and growing vegetables, but you have a feeling
that the other person has no experience with
this, well, you want to keep the conversation
balanced.
Of course, you can say, “Yeah, I’m really
into gardening and I’ve been working hard
to be able to grow lots of kinds of vegetables
in the spring.”
Okay, that’s great, but if you keep talking
on and on and on about it, well, that’s not
a balanced conversation.
Of course, you can share what you’re interested
in, but make sure that you don’t get carried
away lecturing the other person about your
favorite topic.
All right, well, there you have it.
These are 23 great small talk questions and
four hot tips for how to have great small
talk.
Now I have a question for you.
In the comments below, let me know what question
you’re going to ask the next time that you
have small talk in English.
You can do it, I believe in you.
Thank you so much for learning English with
me.
I’ll see you again next Friday for a new lesson
here on my YouTube channel.
Bye.
The next step is to download my free ebook,
Five Steps to Becoming a Confident English
Speaker.
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confidently and fluently.
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for more free lessons.
Thanks so much, bye.