Learn English Small Talk to use at Work and with Friends, Family and Strangers
As you learn English you'll want to get really good at something that we call small talk.
Small talk is a kind of conversation where the topic is very light, where it's very simple
to have a conversation with someone.
So in this video I'm going to help you learn a little bit about small talk that you can
use with people you don't know, small talk that you can use with people at work, and
small talk that you can use with friends and family.
Hey Bob the Canadian here and we're going to talk about small talk today but before
we get started if this is your first time here don't forget to click the subscribe button
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Really small, simple conversations that you can have with either people you don't know,
people you work with, or friends and family.
Let's start with people you don't know.
I'm going to imagine that all of you have spent time in a line, like at the grocery
store, or in a waiting room, like at the doctor's office, where you are either standing with,
or sitting with people that you don't really know.
And it's nice to have a little bit of a conversation with them.
There's really two things that you can talk about if you are at the grocery store or in
The first form of small talk would be talking about the weather.
Isn't it gorgeous out today? or Wow, it's really coming down out there!
- If it was raining for instance.
So the weather is number one topic to, to engage in small talk with people who you don't
know.
The second is just to talk about the situation.
So you could say in the doctor's office, "Have you been waiting here long?" and someone might
I've only been here for a few minutes."
Or in the grocery store you might just start by commenting on how long the line is.
So you could say something like, "Wow!
This line is really long today!"
So that’s the first kind of small talk.
Small talk that you would have with people who you really don't know.
It's a good way to open up a conversation or to start a conversation.
The second situation you might be in where you want to use small talk is at work.
So sometimes you work with people and you don't know them that well, but you do see
them every day, and I have five topics, five things that you could talk to people at work
about in order to engage in a small conversation or to have small talk.
So if you are living in Canada for instance, and you are working with people, you can always
I'm sure if you're living in another country there is another sport that everyone has as
their favourite sport, but the number one thing at work that you can talk to people
about is a recent sports game.
So you could say, "Did you see that game last night?"
That would be an excellent way to start a little bit of small talk about sports.
The second thing that you could talk to people at work about is the news.
So maybe you have watched the news the evening before or maybe you have read the morning
paper and you see a recent news item.
You could say to someone at work, “Did you hear about the accident downtown yesterday?”
So recent news, second most common thing that you can talk about at work as small talk.
The third thing that you can talk about with colleagues, those are people you work with,
Especially at my workplace, we like to talk about the weekend.
We either talk about the weekend that just happened or we talk about the weekend that’s
If you were going to ask someone about their past weekend you could say, “How was your
weekend?”
And if you want to talk about the weekend coming up you could say, “Do you have any
plans for this coming weekend?”
So that’s the third thing you can talk about at work, the weekend.
The fourth thing that you can talk about with someone at work to have a little bit of small
talk is something to do with entertainment.
So you could ask someone, “Have you seen the latest Avengers movie?”
You all know that a new Avengers movie just came out, so that would be an excellent topic
at work if you were to have some small talk.
Have you seen the latest Avengers movie?
Or, “Are you going to see the latest Avengers movie?”
So that would the fourth thing that you could ask someone at work.
And the fifth thing that you can always talk to people about, especially at work is food.
So you might ask someone, “Have you been to the new restaurant downtown?”
So those are five things, five small talk topics that you can use at work.
Let’s move on to small talk topics that you can use with friends and family.
So obviously when you’re talking to friends and family the small talk conversations can
You can still talk about the weather and you can talk about movies and you can talk about
sports, but you also may want to talk about family.
So you might wanna ask questions like, “How are your mom and dad doing?” or you might
want to say, “How are the kids?”, if you know someone has small children in your family.
These are topics that you wouldn’t necessarily talk to with someone at work, you might, and
you definitely wouldn’t ask someone in the doctor’s office or in the line at the grocery
But if you are talking with friends and family you might ask about their family.
The other thing that you might talk to friends and family about is travel.
Maybe you know that they are going to go on a trip in the future or you know that they
And so it would be pretty normal if you’re having some small talk with a friend or someone
in your family to say, “Are you looking forward to your trip to Paris?”, or, if
they’ve already gone to Paris you could say, “How was your trip to Paris?”
The third thing you can talk to someone about when having a small conversation if it’s
someone you know well is things that you already know they like.
So maybe you have a friend who really likes to read, or for instance I know my mom really
likes to read so I could ask her if she has read any good books lately.
So you can ask about hobbies or interests that you know they have.
Maybe you have a friend who really enjoys going running.
You could say, “Are you still running daily?
Are you still going for a run?
Are you still going to those yoga classes?”
Those would be all great questions because they’re people you know a little bit better
than the people at work and obviously a lot better than people you don’t know so it’s
polite and nice to inquire about things that you know they’re interested in.
If you know that a friend or family member is taking a class or studying something it
would be very common to ask about that as well.
So, if I was to ask you, “How is your English learning coming along?”
That would be a great question to ask someone that you know well.
Maybe you have a friend or a family member who plays sports.
You could say, “Are you still playing in that football league?”
And those would all be great topics.
You can see how we went from really simple topics like the weather to really common topics
like movies and those sorts of things and sports for people we work with and then finally
some more familiar topics that you would ask a good friend or a family member.
So, hopefully that helps you a little bit.
Small talk is very common in all languages and that was just three situations and some
ideas for the things that you could talk about with people.
I think that’s almost the end of the video.
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