Hi. James from engVid.

I was just thinking to myself, Well, I know it's very difficult to practice English because

you don't get a lot of practice with English speakers, but if there were a way I could

teach you how to get past "Hello" to make the conversation grow and perhaps have the

other person come back and talk to you, that would be a great value.

So this lesson is about how to get past "Hello" and make a beautiful conversation flow.

All right?

I'm going to use Angelina to help me later on when I do an example, but for now I will

tell you more.

See? He's like, "Tell me more. Hmm. I'm interested."

And so am I.

All right, so let's go to the board, shall we?

I'm going to give you five conversation openers.

You've said, "Hello", where do you go?

Personally I hate this because I teach and I hear people say,

"Hello. My name is James. I am from Japan, Tokyo."

The conversation is essentially dead.

Dunh-dunh-dunh-dunh.

Don't know if that's the wedding theme or the theme from Star Wars.

Doesn't matter. You understand.

It's killed.

Nobody cares.

You've said everything that they need to know and then they're done.

So why don't we do something that actually gets them to open up and want to tell you information?

Okay?

So the first one we're going to do is this one.

I like this one.

It's so easy, it's so true.

Look for something that someone is wearing or has that you actually like.

You're not going to steal it, so don't think about that.

But what I mean is you like.

You like the t-shirt, you like the jeans, the ear rings or something, you're like, "Cool",

because that would be sincere.

"Sincere" means that you really mean it and the person can feel that from you, so they'll

want to share with you because you're being honest with them.

All right?

So we look here, number one, walk up and say...

So it's like, "Hello. Love your __________ (jacket, t-shirt). That is so cool."

Yeah?

"Where did you get them?" or "Where did you get it?"

Notice I didn't say, "Where did you buy it?" because some of the coolest things someone's

going to be wearing won't be from this country.

It might be, "Hey, I was in India and I picked up these beads.

Yeah, it was really cool.

I was outside this ashram and..."

And now you've got a conversation you didn't even know.

Or it might be, "Oh, I was in the downtown in the hippie section, you know, and it was really cool, there was all this art."

You've started a conversation.

If you say, "...buy them?"

"At the gap."

Finished.

So, "Hey. Where did you get them?"

Let them say "buy". Don't bring that up.

Okay?

Follow that up with right away...

As soon as you say, "Where did you buy them...?"

It's true...

It might not be true right now, but it could be true, you say,

"Because I really have to get a cool present",

or, "...an interesting gift for my nephew/my brother/my sister/my friend."

Right? Or girlfriend, whatever, or your wife.

By saying that you're saying, well, one thing, you have other friends.

But number two, you're giving them, "Cool".

You're saying whatever they're wearing is interesting, cool, different enough that it

stopped you to talk to them.

By example or by extension, that means added on you're saying,

"You're kind of cool, too, because you're wearing it

and I think it's cool, so it's got to be cool and only a cool person would buy it."

Right?

This is why it works, you've given them two compliments.

Who doesn't want to be complimented?

First you're saying I'm wearing something cool, then you're saying,

"I need to get something cool, and clearly what you have is cool."

I'm probably going to talk to you and go, "Well, you know, thanks for saying that.

I liked it because..."

And conversation started, and now you have an opportunity to maybe later on talk more,

and that's how you get your practice.

Number two, how about this one?

"Wow, you are __________ (tall)"

or, "You have __________ (really bright eyes)",

or something that has to do with the physical body.

The first one was about things. Physical.

Now we want to talk about physical.

And you followed that up with, "What do you do?"

Huh?

Example, you see someone, you go,

"Wow, you have amazing skin. What do you do to make it so clear?"

Okay?

Hmm.

Or, "Wow, you're tall. What do you do?

Do you play sports or anything like that?"

Okay?

You follow it up.

This is the follow up, as I said, "What do you do?"

But why does this work?

Now, notice this is green and I have green up here.

You probably noticed it but didn't understand why I skipped it.

I live in North America and basically I could say this is true for a lot of Western society.

We prefer you give compliments on positive things.

Being tall is a positive thing in our society.

Alex, if you've ever seen him, he's a giant, but I wouldn't call him a giant because that's

not necessarily positive.

But saying he's very tall, he'll be,

"Yes, I am. I'm very tall."

Saying, like, "You're this big huge thing", not good.

So don't talk about things that might be negative.

If someone is very big in weight, but not muscle, fat, you can't say that.

They won't like it.

Even if you think it's delicious, they won't like it.

If you think they're too short, like, "Wow, are you ever small.

you are so small I could..."

Not a compliment.

Okay? So tall is good, bright eyes, good skin, lovely teeth, great hair.

You know? All these things.

Now, this is physical.

Because this is a compliment about someone's style, number one; number two is a compliment

about them personally.

Now, the reason we don't say negative is you can't do things...

If you've got a negative feature in your life, like you're not tall or you're fat, you maybe

can't do anything about it, so that's not nice to talk about.

But positive stuff-I know, your parents make you tall, but people don't think of that-it's

always good.

Or good skin, right?

Or nice hair style.

Okay?

Why it works, because you've complimented the person, which is good.

You've said, "Look, physically, there's something beautiful about you."

But you've also, by saying, "What do you do?" if you talk about their skin, you're saying,

"You have a talent" or, "You have a skill".

Or if they're tall, you say, "You've got to be playing sports or something."

So you're actually saying, "You have actually worked on something."

So you're not just saying, "You're beautiful", you're saying,

"You're beautiful and you've worked on something."

That is good.

Okay?

So let's go over here, number three.

So we got the compliment, we got, you know...

We're suggesting you got a talent or a skill.

Number three, "I'm loving the cold/the rain/the sun."

Duh, James that's the weather, everybody does that.

You're right.

Everybody talks about the weather.

I'm asking you to say something different, especially if you're waiting for a bus or

in an elevator.

When you say the opposite...

Huh? The opposite of what you would think.

It's a bright, sunny summer-okay?-but the last two days, three days it's been raining.

Nobody wants rain in the summer, but you say, "How you loving the rain? I'm loving it."

They're going to go, "Ugh, I wish it was sunny."

You go, "Not me.

I'm a gardener.

I have a garden, and I need the rain.

My garden is beautiful."

They're like, "Gardener?"

You're like, "Yeah, I've got roses..."

Conversation started.

You've brought in the unexpected.

In the winter, people don't like the cold.

Right?

But you go, "Oh, I can't wait, so much snow."

They go, "Snow, it's so bad to work in."

You go, "I ski, man, I love to ski and I love going downhill.

It's amazing for me. I love skiing."

So by suggesting the opposite about the weather, how good bad weather is.

Huh?

How good bad weather can be, you will find that it makes people go, "What?"

They're curious, and then you get to tell them.

Now, why it works here is you're sharing something.

When we share with each other, we open up to each other.

You're telling me something about yourself that isn't:

"Hi. My name's James. I'm from Japan."

It's like: "Hi.

I ski."

Woo, that's cool.

But if you just said to me: "Hi. I ski."

I'd go: "Get away from me, weirdo.

Don't talk to me."

But by saying something about the weird, I'm like...

The weather, which is just weird, I'm like: -"Why would you say this is good weather?"

-"Well, I'm a skier."

-"Oh, you ski."

-"Yeah, I love to ski and this is the perfect weather."

Now I've told you I've got a good personality, I'm positive, and I do things.

I've shared information and I can ask you to do the same.

Cool?

Well, if that's all you think...

If you're like impressed by this, we've got two more.

Are you ready?

[Snaps]

Well, so we were at three.

Let's do four and five.

Are you ready?

Oh, but before I do I just want to add a little aside.

An aside is a comment that's not directly related to the topic, but in this case it

has something to do with it.

There are two parts of conversation, speaking and listening.

I was giving you...

Or I am giving you some hints or tips on how to be better at conversation.

But if you're really good at the talking and not the listening, it will die quickly.

So what we really want to do is emphasize: You're learning English, so you want to learn

how to listen.

And here's a couple reasons why.

You start the conversation, but you should listen more to get a better understanding of English.

Because we may not...

Well, we don't.

We don't speak like the grammar or the vocabulary books that are out there.

So for you to listen to English speakers, you start getting on how we're thinking and

how you should present the information to people.

Okay?

So you'll get a better understanding of English.

So when it's coming in because you're hearing, you go: "Oh, they don't say that.

They say other things, like: 'Whatda ya'", and there's a video I got on that

so check that out.

"Whatda ya mean? Whatda ya say?" Okay?

The other thing is to catch the other person's interest and

have the other person be able to have another conversation.

If you do all the talking, I'm going to think I've heard all I need to hear and I don't

need to talk to you anymore.

You told me everything.

But if you're actively listening to me and asking questions because you're listening

that have to do with the information I'm giving you, I'll probably say:

"Hey. This was really cool.

Let's have coffee later or let's meet up another time."

Right?

And that's what we want to do.

So we're here: Have...

Okay, have another conversation, ask questions, listen more than you speak.

Listening more than you speak is a skill most of us don't have.

I'm guilty of it.

But if you actually get this skill you can become actually a better conversationalist

and learn a lot more.

Right?

Cool, so I've just given my little speech for listening.

Now let's go back to what you really came here for, conversation.

Right?

Number four, you can walk up and say:

"Hmm. Hi.

Tell me: How would you finish this phrase? I want to be the very best..."

Now, a friend of mine said: "Okay, dude, that's really, really corny." "Corny" means not cool.

"Nobody's going to do that."

I went: "Ah-ha, but the surprise..."

See? Surprise.

No one does it, so when you do it, you can say anything after that, like: