Name: 5 questions to get the conversation going!
Uploaded: 2021-06-01T18:40:08.000Z
Duration: 25 min 50 s
Description: Thousands of YouTube videos with English-Chinese subtitles! Now you can learn to understand native speakers, expand your vocabulary, and improve your pronunciation...

Well hi there, E. Let's talk.  Hi, James from www.engvid.com .  

To-infinitive

I know what he's saying. He's talking about  today's lesson. What we want to study are - well,  

Modal verbs - A2

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  

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5 questions to get the conversation going!

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