Name: How to use W5 questions for more interesting conversations
Uploaded: 2016-10-20T01:43:57.000Z
Duration: 12 min 4 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...

No, I'm not. I'm James. This is engVid. This is David Beckham.

Past simple

But you might be thinking right now some interesting questions, as to: Why did I say I was David

Beckham instead of James as normal? Well, I wanted to get your attention, I wanted to

start a conversation. And a lot of times we do this through asking questions. This lesson

is about how to change your questions, because many people learning English like to ask questions

with the answer "Yes" and "No", and frankly, it's quite boring. It puts me to sleep. Okay?

So I'm going to teach you in this lesson how to use W5 questions in order to make a conversation

much more interesting, to learn more about the person, and they can learn about you.

And when I'm done with you, you're going to be an excellent conversationalist. That's

a person who is good at making people like them. Are you ready? Let's go to the board.

Here's E. "Boring. Blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. Yes and no." Do you think the weather

is nice? Yes/no. Do you like your food? Yes/no. Blah, blah, blah. These lead to questions

in which people answer "Yes", and you are forced to continually ask questions, and it

sounds more like you're being interviewed, like a police interview:

-"Where were you at last dah-dah-dah?" -"Oh my gosh!" And then there's these colourful ones. See these nice

little balls, all happy and nice? These are W5 questions, because not only are you asking

a question, you're asking about me and asking for my opinion and I want to give it to you,

which means I'll talk to you longer and you'll get the opportunity to become a better listener

and speaker. All right? Let's go to the board.

Okay, first things first: "W5 Questions for More Interesting Conversations". What is W5?

Because I've said it about five times, and some of you will know right off, and some

of you are going: "I don't understand." W5 are information questions. They... These are

the things that we use in English to get information, so you cannot say "Yes" or "No" to these things,

you actually have to explain. And by explaining, you give more information which makes it much

more interesting for me, the listener, and for you, as the speaker, because you get to

W5, we start off with: "Who?" These are the people. Who are you speaking to? Who are you

speaking about? People and persons. Okay? "When?" This is the time. What time did it

happen? 12 o'clock, February, 2001. September 11th, ring a bell, anyone? Makes a difference.

Okay? "Where?" This is the location. Where did it take place? In my house, at work, in

Ireland, in Jamaica, in Japan. "Where?" changes everything. Right?

that we're having this conversation? Why did you do it? People have reasons, and if you

ask them, it's amazing what they'll tell you. Most of the times we look for "Yes" or "No"

because we want information, but the reason behind somebody did it might explain why the

"Yes" or the "No" much clearer to you, and sometimes to them, actually. And: "What?"

What are we talking about? What is the subject of the conversation? It's not always about

people. It could be about money, health, politics. "What?" is important to us. All right? The

And here's one in orange, because it's not really "W"; w, w, w, w. Maybe at the end,

but: "How?" "How?" is really useful. I put there is W5, because it's the method. How

did you get there? Like, tell me the steps that you got there. Not your reason, but the

way that you did it. Okay? So, why did I go to Japan? Because I love the country, I love

the people. How did I get there? By airplane, and then by boat because I wanted to go to

So, if we put these together... And you're going to ask in a second: "What do you mean?"

because I've told you we're going to be great conversationalists, we'll go through a sample

conversation in a second. Here's this. Okay? These are often used in English writing. That's

why I'm giving it to you now, because we use it in writing because, in writing, you're

speaking when you write, but there's... You don't know your audience. So, a lot of people

use these things in their writing to actually get to know who their audience is and maybe

make it much more interesting for a person that they don't know who's going to read their

So, why don't we take this idea-okay?-and use it? Because it will help make our topic

clear-okay?-when we're speaking to somebody. It will help finding out who our audience

will be, not just who we're speaking to, but who it might be in the future or who we should

be speaking to. Okay? And what method we should use in speaking to someone that will get the

best result, because by using these questions, people give us the information we need to

make the conversation for them. And once it's interesting for them, trust me, it'll be interesting

for you. You'll get a lot of conversations.

Okay, so as I said here: "Do this in conversation and it will be amazing!" So, why don't we

have a sample conversation now to give you an example of how to use W5, because I know

you've heard many people say it before, but why don't we show you how to use it and see

how you can actually change dull, boring, mundane-these all were words that say non-interesting,

okay?-conversation into one that's exciting and interesting. Are you ready? Let's go.

Okay, so we talk about colour, making conversation colourful through W5 questions. You noticed

here, it was black and white and boring, you don't even know, it's just: "blah, blah, blah",

and all of this colourful stuff here brings your eye, just like it brings the attention.

It's not that conversation is all about you, but when you need to practice it, you do need

people to speak to you so you can work on your listening skills and your ability to

get your information to other people. Right? Let's go to the board. Actually, I'll go on this side.

Now, if you notice, soon as I moved away, you probably saw this here, but then your

eye went down there because it was so much colour. Let's look at the type of questions

that we're asking, and you'll understand why this is in colour and more interesting to

you than this. Let's change the conversation.

Here's a simple conversation of three sentences. I walk up and say to you:

"Hey. Do you celebrate Christmas?" You're going to say: "Yes" or "No".

say again: "Okay. Well, do you celebrate it, if you do, on December 25th?"

because there's actually an Orthodox Christmas that's in January or February, I can't remember, but it's a

different time, so you might have to say: "Yes" or "No". Once again, the conversation

is dead. And to bring it alive, I'm going to say: "Hey. Do you buy present"-[laughs]-"presents

at Christmas?" You know, do you provide presents for your family and friends? Some people do

and some people don't, depending on their religion. And so, once again, the answer is:

"Yes" or "No". This is a terribly boring conversation, and I don't want to keep asking 50 questions

just to have you go: "Yeah. No. Maybe. Yeah."

Let's make it interesting. The same type of question with a W5:

Maybe I go: "Well, I don't cele..." Now, notice I didn't say: "Yes" or

"No", I go: "Well, no, I don't celebrate Christmas." I actually have to answer your:

"Do you celebrate Christmas?" I go: "No, I don't celebrate it." And I might say: -"No? Why is that?"

-"Well, in my country, we don't have Christianity. We have a Shinto religion, and", dah-dah-dah.

Now I'm learning about you through asking a question, and within one simple question,

I've got you giving me maybe five, six, seven sentences which will help me to find out other

questions to ask to get more information. Because once I'm talking to you and I have

some knowledge on you, we can have an exchange, and that's what we want. Remember, we talked

at the beginning? The whole point of learning this is that, at the end, you'll be able to

learn to listen better to people, and actually be able to give information, but to exchange