Name: English Topics - English Conversation Strategies
Uploaded: 2018-10-09T16:22:21.000Z
Duration: 8 min 41 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...

My name is Alisha and I'm joined again in
the studio by…

Alisha: And, today we're going to be talking
about English conversation strategies.

What is your first strategy for keeping an
English conversation going?

You hear this all the time from second language
English learners or non-native speakers.

It's one of the first things you learn in
an English class.

It's easy, it's good, it's a basic foundation.

Because, to me, when I meet a foreigner and
they come up, and if they say, “Hey, how

And it's almost robotic because I've said
it so many times, and when I hear that, I

And, inside, I'm just going to be really polite
and say, “Hello,” and talk slowly and

try to get out of there as quick as I can.

To really impress the foreigner, in my opinion,
I think the best way to do it is say something--

Use a big word or just like a slang word.

And I'm really excited,” and then I've had
great conversations because of that.

Alisha: That's a really good one, and actually,
I think on this YouTube channel, from a couple

years ago, there's a video all about better
answers to the question “How are you?”

And you?” or if someone says, “Hey, how
are you?

But try to actually use a phrase that a native
speaker would use, and then that's a clue

to the native speaker that, “Oh, maybe this
person is ready for a conversation beyond

This strategy, in general, is just “ask
the other person a question.”

I'm guilty of this too when I'm learning another
language.

Somebody else is always asking me the questions,
and then I forget myself to ask the other

One question that I like to ask or a variation,
any kind of “WH” question is good, like

a “who” question, “what,” “where.”

Something like this, if you've been paying
attention, you can use anyway to transition

You can ask something like anyway up to anything
fun this weekend.

This is a pretty casual, conversational question
that you can ask just about anybody, whether

you've just met them or whether you've known
them for a while, but just get in the habit

Don't wait for someone else to ask you the
question.

So, that's one strategy that I tried to use
to keep things going.

I agree, and I'm going to say, “samesies,”
because actually, two of my questions were

I'm really guilty of this, English, non-English,
whatever.

And, the other thing is ask deep, open-ended
questions.

If you ask a yes-or-no question, just like
what Alisha was saying, it just dead ends.

You can't just say, “Do you like cheese?”

You would want to say, “What do you think
about cheese?

And kind of open it up to something else and
let it just kind of snowball.

I guess I'll just continue on because it kind
of relates to what you're talking about.

He's saying always ask questions, always ask
deep open-ended questions.

Don't ask a yes-or-no question because yes
or no ends with the “Yes” or the “No.”

One of the things that I'll do is use a pattern
similar to this, “Hey, did you see...?”

or “Hey, did you hear about blah, blah,
blah?”

So, you can use this little “blah, blah,
blah” as your--you can ask about the news.

You can ask about something funny you saw
on the Internet.

You can ask about something that you heard
from another friend of yours, whatever.

It's just a way to check in with the other
person and say, “Oh, did you also experience

That might be another question that you can
use with people.

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English Topics - English Conversation Strategies

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