Well, if you want to learn some natural English small talk

so that you can start conversations easily,

you're in the right place.

(upbeat music)

Hello, this is Keith from the YouTube channel,

English Speaking Success, and I also run the website,

The Keith Speaking Academy.

And I'm here, why am I here?

Oh, yes, I'm here, well, not only to help you study English,

but also I really want to help you speak better English

and become a better communicator in English.

Yes, that's what I would like to help you with today

and the days coming.

And I think that's why small talk is important, right?

Because when we meet people,

we often talk about unimportant things.

What we call trivial, things like the weather, right?

And this is just a way to break the ice,

or it's a conversation starter.

It's a way to get to know the person better sometimes,

sometimes it's just a way of saying hello, right.

Sometimes it's just one sentence and then bye-bye,

other times you wanna get to know the person better

and find some common ground

that you can talk about and discuss.

So I wonder, what do people in your country talk about

when you meet somebody, or you meet a new person

for the first time?

Let me know, leave me a comment down below.

So in this video,

we're gonna be talking about three typical situations

where you might use small talk,

the common topics that you might talk about,

and I'll show you some natural,

easy to use phrases that you can be using

and putting to action, well, right away.

Also, I have a bonus at the very end of the video,

because, you know, I think around the world,

by and large, people talk about the same things

in small talk, however,

it does depend sometimes on the culture and the country,

there are certain topics that are more popular

and there are certain topics

which are taboo, taboo just means

you shouldn't talk about them.

So the bonus is at the end of this video,

I'm gonna tell you some of the taboo topics

for British people, right?

The things that you shouldn't say to British people

when you're engaged in small talk.

And just before we move on,

I'd like to say a big, big, thank you to Cambly,

who are sponsoring this video.

If you don't know Cambly,

it's an online platform where you can learn English

with qualified native English speaking teachers,

very practical, very easy to use,

fantastic way to practice your English

and become a better communicator.

I'm gonna tell you more about that later in the video

right now, let's get into that first situation

where we may be using small talk.

Okay, so the first scenario

if you like is parties and social events.

So maybe it's a birthday party or an office party,

Christmas party, social events, you know,

it could be a wedding, could be a conference,

a networking event, that kind of situation

where you're meeting people

and you want to start conversations

to get to know them better.

Now, there may be different things you can talk about.

And I think you can talk about location, about food,

about people, about travel and hobbies

to name a few, probably others,

but let's have a look at each of these in turn.

So first of all, the first one,

when you're kind of wanting to break the ice,

the location can be a good thing to talk about.

Location can be either where you are now

or where you're from.

So for example, I mean, if you're at a conference,

for example, have you been here before?

It's a classic sentence, right?

A classic question, and also, what brings you here today?

Which is nicer than, why did you come here today?

Which sounds a bit, why did you come here today?

Sounds a bit strong.

What brings you here today is much softer and polite.

And of course you can ask about where people are from.

So where are you from?

Where are you from?

And just be careful with this one.

Because sometimes people say, you know,

I come from, well, for example,

I come from China and the other person says,

oh right, I met a woman one from China, Mrs. Wang,

maybe you know her?

It's like, come on, seriously?

And I think what happens is people are so eager

to find this common ground and keep the conversation going,

they say rather silly things, right.

It's much better sometimes just to say, well,

if you've never been there, right, well, oh,

I've never been to China, what's it like?

And that's great because then you give them the opportunity

to talk about where they're from.

People love talking about where they're from

and their hometown.

Okay, location, next food.

If you're at an event where they have put on some food

or they've given you some food or a dinner

or a buffet or a finger buffet,

of course you can say, how's the food here?

How's the food here?

Great, or even, it's a nice spread, isn't it?

It's a nice spread, isn't it?

A spread is a meal because you spread the food on the table.

That's a meal, typically like a buffet.

It's a nice spread, isn't it?

Isn't it is a very high level of English.

This, we call it a question tag.

It is a nice spread isn't it, is quite difficult

to use and many learners of English

find it very challenging to use naturally.

If you can, great.

You'll show you've got a high level.

If not, you can just say, right.

It's a nice spread right.

Next, people.

So you can talk about the other person

or you can talk about yourself

or about other people at the event, okay.

The first thing I always do when I introduce myself

at parties is I keep it super simple.

Hello, I'm Keith.

And I say, my name,

I say my name really slowly.

And that's it because people are not gonna remember.

I mean, you'll be lucky if they remember your name,

but some people go, hello,

my name is Keith's, I'm an English teacher.

I'm from Manchester, and at the moment I'm living in Spain.

and all the other person hears is, and that's it.

That's all they get, so keep it super simple.

Hello I'm, right.

Now, if it's for example,

Matthew's party or Matthew's wedding,

you could say, so how do you know Matthew?

Nice question, and then if you're digging deeper

to get to know the person better, and what do you do?

Even deeper, how did you get into that?

How did you get into that?

Meaning how did you start that work

or that job or that activity?

People love to tell their life story

about how they started a business

or how they started working in a certain field.

That's a great question, how did you get into that?

And if things are going well and you're digging even deeper,

right, you could say,

and what are you working on at the moment?

What are you working on at the moment?

Notice the stress, what are you working on at that moment?

Try.

Yeah, that's great.

And again, people love to tell you

about the projects they're doing,

or what's keeping them busy at the moment.

It's a really nice way to dig deeper into the conversation.

Now you've talked, that's going quite deep.

You may at times want to switch and make things lighter,

a bit more lighthearted, right?

So you could talk about travel for example,

and you could say, been anywhere nice recently?

Been anywhere nice recently?

Great, good.

Been is been, it should be,

have you been anywhere nice recently or lately,

but actually in natural spoken English,

we drop the, have you, and just say, been,

been anywhere nice lately?

Been anywhere nice lately?

You'll see this more as we go through this video,

or maybe you could talk about hobbies, right.

And a nice question for this is,

what do you get up to when you're not working?

What do you get up to when you're not working?

To get up to is to do something in a relaxed way

if you like, right, great question.

Not what is your hobby,

which sounds a bit bookish and formal.

What do you get up to when you're not working?

Try it, that's it, lovely.

So all of these topics can be great things to talk about

when you're at a party or social event.

Right, the next situation is not quite as serious

as the first one.

This is actually much more the kind of conversation

where it's a hello, goodbye.

Right, very, very brief, small, really small talk.

So this may be when you bump into your neighbor,

bump into means to meet by chance or by accident,

when you're maybe queuing in line or queuing in line,

waiting in line or queuing,

maybe at a shop, in the supermarket, at the bus stop.

We love queuing at the bus stops in England, honestly,

maybe it's with a taxi driver or a shop assistant,

just something very brief to be friendly basically.

So the classic here is to talk about weather, right?

So you could say nice day, isn't it?

Nice day, isn't it?

Remember the, isn't it, you could just say, right.

Right, nice day, right.

And notice, instead of saying it's a nice day,

we drop that and just say nice day, nice day, right?

Nice day, right?

Lovely day, right?

Very simple, right.

Or if you're in England, looks like it's going to rain.

It looks like it's going to rain

or drop the it, looks like it's going to rain.

Very simple weather, classic.

You can't go wrong with weather.

More generally, and a very easy question to ask,

but can open up simple conversations.

How's everything?

how's everything?

How's everything?

which is better than how are you,

because how are you, people just say fine.

And that's it, how's everything?

Maybe you're asking about the business.

If they're a shop assistant,

or if it's a neighbor about things in their life

and maybe they want help with something, how's everything?

It's just gonna open up a little bit more

the conversation if you want to.

So that's it, that's brief encounters

for really, really small talk, let's move on.

I would just like to take a moment

to tell you more about Cambly

who are sponsoring this video.

Cambly is a fantastic online platform where you can find

native English speaking teachers who can help you learn,

encourage you, correct you, give you feedback

and really help you become a better communicator in English.