No big talk without small talk

Small talk, also known as casual conversation, polite light talk or chitchat.

1. Why is it important?

2. Why don't you like it?

3. How can you become good at it in English?

If you're a professional, you know your big talk: it's your bread and butter, it's what you deal with and talk about 5 days a week for 8 hrs a day or more.

Again, it's your bread and butter. Not mine, not your audience's.

1. So why is small talk important?

I imagine you'd like me to be interested and engaged in your big talk. Learn about, appreciate and act upon your advice and suggestions. You want your big talk to have some sort of impact on me, your audience.

For that to happen,

you need to get to know my state of mind first.

You need to collect as much information as you can to understand how open I am to listen to you. And that will very much depend on whether I'm tired or well rested, anxious or relaxed, quiet or in a rush.

This will tell you how best you can give your big talk:

how you can best present information, what associations you can make, how much you should delve into each point, how much you should interact with me. I know you've prepared a nice PowerPoint presentation and want to get through it all, but

you should resist the temptation to simply read out your slides,

if you want your words to have some sort of impact on me.

"I get your point, but I just don't like chitchatting. I've never been good at it, always felt awkward and tried to avoid it." - You might be thinking.

2. But why don't you like it and avoid it? 

It's not because you're a hands-on pragmatical person, who doesn't like to waste time on petty things. All that might be true, but it's not the real reason why you feel uncomfortable and don't want to engage in small talk.

The no.1 reason is because it is unpredictable and the pressure to impress is high.

We don't know how to start the conversation without falling into stereotyped remarks or questions. And we don't want to come across as boring.

We don't really know how to react to other people's emotions of happiness, sadness, fear, anxiety, worry. And we don't want to come across as indifferent.

We don't know how to follow up and influence the flow of the conversation. And we don't like not being in control.

What if we could reframe all this:

What if we didn't want to impress anymore? But were curious.

What if we didn't have to react to everything? But listened.

What if we didn't talk that much? But asked questions.

Small talk would actually be much easier and enjoyable.

With this new frame of mind,

3.  let's see some practical ways to make small talk in English and enjoy it.

You are attending a company event in English. There are clients, colleagues, some of whom you know, some others you are meeting for the first time.

You grab a drink, walk up to someone you don't know

Introduce yourself and start a short conversation

• Hello, I'm Daniel, how are you?

• What brings you here?

• What do you? (profession)

• Who do you work most with?

• What do you work most on?

• Do you know many of the people here?

• What’s been the highlight of your evening so far?

• Do you have a business card?

• I'm going to grab another drink. Shall I bring you one?

• It's been nice talking to you.

• I suppose I'll see around. Enjoy the rest of the evening!

Now, grab another drink, walk up to a colleague you already know and

Say hello

• Hey, long time no see! How's life?

• Haven't seen you in ages! How's it going?

Answer back

• Not too bad. | Not too shabby.

• Pretty good!

• Doing great!

Ask catchup questions

• What have you been up to lately?

• What have you been busy with?

• What's been keeping you busy?

• What have you been working on?

React and show empathy

• How lovely!

• No way!

• Definitely! | Absolutely! (show strong agreement)

• There you go! (voilà!)

• Looks like you've got a lot on your plate at the moment.

• That must not be easy to handle. | That must feel overwhelming. (make a supposition about the present situation)

• That must've been challenging. | That must've felt overwhelming. (make a supposition about the past situation)

• That must be pretty exciting! | That must be quite tough.

Show you're listening

• I see...

• Right...

• Is it? | Did you? | Have you? (instead of really?)

Show interest in knowing more

• Tell me more.

• How come? (why + a bit of surprise)

• What made you do/say/decide that?

• How do / did you feel about that?

• What did it feel life?

Ask a Yes/No question

• to know about a past experience: have you (ever) seen/done...?

Ask more open-ended questions

• to know details about that past experience: How did you do / get ... ?

• to know about future plans: What | How are you going to do /get..?

Change topic

• How about...?

• By the way, what ... ?

Make suggestions

• Let's get something to eat, shall we?

• Shall we get a drink?

End the conversation

• Do you know most people here? Who do you suggest I should meet?

• So glad we've got the chance to catch up!

• It's been great talking to you! Enjoy the rest of the evening!

Now, knowing these set phrases is not enough to be able to make small talk in English. To make sure you can use them naturally and spontaneously you also need to build up pronunciation and intonation confidence. So you need to train out loud. A lot.

You can do it alone or with me. You can watch the video and train with me.

Enjoy the journey and make English part of your Routine.