How to start a conversation | 3 important questions!

Oh gosh,

how do you start a conversation with a colleague at work?

What should you talk about?

How can you be cool and calm and funny

and not make a fool of yourself?

Starting conversations in English is something

that my mmmEnglish students worry about.

I've got some really useful tips to help you

start a conversation with someone at work.

And most importantly,

you'll practise starting a conversation with me

towards the end of this video.

So if you thought you were just kicking back

to watch this lesson,

no, no, no, no.

You are going to practise starting a conversation with me

later on.

Now, I know that many of you feel comfortable

and are capable of talking about your work

and your area of expertise.

That means the general area in which you have specialised

skills or knowledge.

But it's when you have to chat casually

about other things not related to work, when it gets tricky,

when you start to feel stuck

because you can't think of anything

interesting or funny to say?

That is what we're going to practise today.

I'm going to go through three extremely common topics

to help you start a conversation with your colleagues.

I'll share the questions that you can use

to start the conversation.

I'll talk about the possible answers and

show you how to follow up with a question

or your own experience

to help keep the conversation going.

The first one is absolutely essential.

What did you do over the weekend?

What did you get up to over the weekend?