Name: What to say in uncomfortable situations
Uploaded: 2025-07-23T18:22:48.000Z
Duration: 8 min 16 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...

And believe me, I know that it can be embarrassing and uncomfortable.

You feel like maybe you've forgotten something in situations, or there's just...

I don't know, something's just really, really uncomfortable.

But you are not alone, because even I, someone who's a native speaker of English, feel uncomfortable sometimes.

Do you have an elevator or a lift, if you live in the UK in your building?

And I never know if someone's gonna get on the elevator with me.

I pray that nobody ever gets on the elevator with me.

So, what do you say to people on an elevator?

In English, we have something called small talk.

Small talk is basically you talk about unimportant things for a short period of time, and then leave.

Examples of small talk, probably the most popular topic of small talk is the weather.

So, if you don't want to be the weatherman or the weatherwoman in the elevator, there's other things you can talk about.

If the person has a pet, maybe a dog, pet hamster, cat, taking their pet hamster for a walk, you can ask some questions about the dog.

Anything that you can say about something else will help you.

Look around the elevator, like, oh, there isn't much...

If there's a kid on the elevator or a baby, people love to talk about their baby and their kids.

Another technique is to compliment someone on something.

So, just make sure it's genuine, which means real.

For example, you wouldn't say to me, like, oh, hey, Ronnie, I love that shirt you have on today.

So, make sure that what you're complimenting people on is actually genuine and real.

You could say to me, like, oh, Ronnie, you're wearing glasses.

My, you know, as I get older, this is a very important thing.

If the person on the elevator wants to talk to you, they will respond and give you more information.

So, if you said to me, for example, Ronnie, I like your glasses, and I go, thanks, and I don't say anything, this means I don't want to talk to you.

It doesn't mean that your English is bad.

It doesn't mean that you cannot speak English.

Maybe I'm having a bad day, or the person on the elevator just doesn't want to talk to you.

Don't ever think that your English is bad because the person does not respond to you.

Hopefully, the elevator ride is not long.

I know nowadays we have super fast elevators.

So, basically, anything that you want to talk about is okay.

Try not to get too personal, like, oh, what happened to your leg?

You don't want to kind of dive into personal topics right away on an elevator.

Maybe you're waiting at the bus, waiting for the subway or the train, and there's a person you see every day at the train station, and you want to practice your English.

A really great thing to say is just to introduce yourself.

You can walk up to someone and say, hi, my name's Ronnie.

If the people want to talk to you, they'll say, oh, hi, my name's Joe.

And then you can bust in with a small talk, like, oh, I see you at the station every day.

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What to say in uncomfortable situations

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