This is an Allers English Podcast episode 20 to 18.
Got conversational whiplash? How to avoid it.
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Have you ever ended up in a conversation where you move between topics too
quickly without going deeper? It's unsatisfying and a major
missed opportunity for connection. Today, learn how to avoid this
and get the vocabulary you need.
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Hello, Lindsay. How are you?
I'm doing great. How are you? How's everything going?
I am great. I have a question. Do you ever get conversational whiplash?
That's a good question. I feel like I got a little bit of this on Monday night.
I went to a like a networking event for other entrepreneurs.
So people starting businesses or running their own businesses in Denver.
And I definitely kind of felt like back and forth.
I was being kind of whipped across topics and at times it went fast.
There was no sense of calm.
There was no depth to what we were going into.
It was just fast back and forth different topics.
Yeah, this happened when you're wanting to cover lots of different things.
And or I feel like this happens a lot if you're in a social situation and someone's nervous.
So instead of asking follow-up questions, they're changing the topic.
So this came up recently.
Lindsay, you had mentioned this in the Saturday June 8th episode.
It was called How to Connect Over Vision Changes in English.
Talking about how your vision changes as you get older.
This is interesting to talk about.
And you brought this up about how sometimes if we don't ask us follow-up questions,
we don't get deeper.
We can have this conversational whiplash.
It can also happen.
It happens to me sometimes when I reconnect with an old friend that we don't talk that often.
But we feel like we need to get all the topics in how our parents, how our siblings,
how you know how's work, how's your partner.
And it's like, whoa, we're not going into any depth.
And it doesn't feel very satisfying.
Do you know what I mean?
Yes, absolutely, right? We've all been there.
And sometimes it's okay.
And then you might even call it out.
And be like, oh, wow, okay.
We've been really catching up quick now.
Now I'm going to ask some follow-up questions and get a little deeper.
Yeah. And before we go into it today,
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All right. So we've talked about the situations in which this might happen.
You're nervous.
You're catching up.
You're staying surface level.
Maybe you're at a networking event.
Okay.
Should we do a roleplay to demonstrate what this feels like?
Yes, right?
This roleplay is conversational with Blasch.
You guys are going to recognize it.
Oh, so I'll start us out, ready?
Okay.
Oh, that's interesting.
Did you hear the Italian place on Second Street is closing?
Oh, no, I hadn't.
Yeah, I joined a running challenge.
Have you ever done one of those?
No, but that sounds fun.
What are you making for dinner tonight?
I need some inspiration.
Boom, boom, boom.
And I'm exhausted and I'm going home and I'm just going to like
you would have a headache.
I have a headache.
Especially the Whiplash is such a good metaphor for this
because you would probably expect me to ask a follow-up question
about the Italian place or the running question.
And I'm not switching topics.
I'm moving to something else.
I'm sort of surprised.
I'm like, oh, it's not what I expected.
Right.
Or I should have asked a follow-up question too.
Right.
So you said, oh, that's interesting.
Oh, that must have been about something else before.
Did you hear the Italian place on Second Street is closing?
No, I hadn't.
Why do I should have said, why do you think it closed
or what happened?
Any idea what happened and you switched to your running
challenge?
Yeah, that could help too.
Right.
If you asked that follow-up question, but I intentionally sort
of cut you off and went right away because that's
often what happens.
Right.
I didn't even give you the space to ask a follow-up question.
I moved right into something else.
OK.
So maybe today we're focusing on that person
that's driving the conversation into 20 different directions
and how we can realize we're doing it and try not to do it.
So we give someone, like, so that people have something
to connect with.
Right.
And I do find myself doing this sometimes
if I think of something and I'm excited to ask.
And then I feel it like, ooh, I should have let
that topic run its course asks, follow-up questions about that
before moving on.
We all do it.
We do it 100%.
And sometimes it's totally innocent.
We're just excited about something.
Exactly.
We're excited about a lot of things.
We're really.
I joined the running challenge.
I'm going to bring it up even though it's like, oh, wait.
I was going to talk about the restaurant.
We're living life. We're living life.
But there's nothing then to go deeper on.
So let's get into some tactics of how not to do this.
Right.
Yes.
We're going to share three really good tips
so that you kind of void that conversational with-lash.
And then we're also going to share some phrases.
So the language functions we use in order to do that.
OK.
There we go.
So first tip, Aubrey, what can we do
to make sure we don't drive the conversation
into this feeling of, we should
define actually with-lash, shouldn't we?
Yes.
That's a good point, right?
We use this anytime if your head is just whipping around.
We often talk about car accidents if you're
hit from behind and your head whips forward.
And you get an injury on your neck.
It's called whiplash.
Right.
Exactly.
So have you ever had whiplash, Lindsay?
I don't think I have.
I don't think I have either.
I've had a sore neck, but that doesn't qualify.
No.
This is where you see people wearing the neck brace sometimes.
I know you were in a car accident.
That didn't happen to you when you were in your car accident.
No, I was in a very serious car accident.
And I rolled my car, but I didn't get whiplash.
I was lucky to survive, actually.
It's a kind of miraculous.
I wasn't thrown from the car.
But I did not get whiplash.
But yeah, this happens most often
if someone's re-rendered from behind.
Right.
Right.
OK, so anyways, this is getting re-rendered
in a conversation, right?
Right.
All right, so number one tip.
What is it up right again?
What do we do?
So it's to ask follow-up questions.
If you look at that role play we did,
when I asked you about this Italian place closing,
this is an interesting topic, right?
I could ask you if you've been there,
why do you think it closed, right?
It'll just interesting follow-up questions.
Why bring it up if you're then immediately
going to change the topic?
So really either of us could have done that, right?
Totally.
Either way.
So this is kind of both sides are taking responsibility
for avoiding this and making sure we...
It doesn't mean we have to have this whole huge,
deep, unbelievable connection.
It just means go a little below the surface, right?
Yeah, I'm gonna get an interesting conversation.
And if I had given you the space,
yeah, maybe you would have.
So that's part of it, right?
Is to make sure that you're having a back and forth
a conversation, even if you're sort of the one
that leads a conversation, give space to make it a back and forth.
Yeah, and I think this starts with a pre-step
which is just simply being curious.
Because where I would take that conversation would be,
huh, okay, so what are the trends in the Denver restaurant scene?
What's going on?
What's who's being successful?
Who's not having success?
Why is this about a, about wages?
Economy.
This about the economy is this about the trends in food.
There's so much we could do that's gonna be more satisfying
than moving to the next thing.
So curiosity has to be, I agree, right?
You're not asking follow-up questions just because you feel
like you have to in the conversation.
Because you're curious about the person you're talking to,
you're curious about the world around you,
and that makes for more interesting conversation.
Exactly.
I went to a brewery last Thursday night, and it was so sad
that it was a closing night.
The brewery is having to close.
And so we got into a conversation of,
what do we think happened with this brewery?
It was one of the first best breweries in Denver,
and now it's closing.
Is this something about private equity taking over breweries?
Is this about people's taste changing,
moving more towards mixed drinks or other non-alcoholic?
Or what is it?
There's a lot of issues.
Right, it wasn't there marketing.
Right.
There are lots of questions there to wonder.
Yeah, there's a lot here.
This is the good stuff.
This is what we want to be in.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Number two.
Yes, number two, don't be in a rush, right?
Even if you are curious.
If you're rushed in every conversation,
you're not going to take the time to ask those follow-up
questions.
And that really sends a message that maybe you don't value
the relationship, you don't value their opinions.
Yeah, for sure.
And sometimes it's just taking a breath, right?
To not be in a rush, maybe you're nervous, right?
Yeah.
I'll be right at any other reason we might be in a rush.
I mean, sometimes you're going to be in a rush
with a conversation.
But if in that example, roleplay, for example,
if I were really in a rush and had to get somewhere,
I wouldn't ask these questions in the first place.
I wouldn't be bringing up the restaurant
and talking about this running challenge, right?
It would be like a greet.
And then, oh, I'm so sorry, I have to run.
Exactly.
So I think a lot of it could be based on insecurity
or maybe in the case of our listeners,
so as we're learning a new language,
there may be a fear that we won't have the vocabulary.
Once we get to that point and have a feeling,
because for me in Spanish, many times, there was that fear
that maybe, okay, I could ask if this has to do
with city politics, but do I have the word for the mayor
in Spanish?
I don't think I do.
So instead, I'm just going to stay surface level,
move to the next topic, which I know how to talk about.
Yes, this still happens to me often, right?
I'm kind of staying surface level
because I'm confident with that vocabulary.
So we can feel that we need to challenge ourselves
to be adding that vocabulary,
having practice conversations with speaking partners,
that's really going to boost that confidence
and make that vocabulary part of our active vocabulary.
Ooh, I love it.
Okay, Aubrey, is there a third tip that we have today?
Yes, and we've kind of mentioned this, right?
That the goal should be to get deeper,
not to stay surface level.
So we've kind of talked about the way to do that,
but if that's not your goal,
if you don't really value the connection,
you might forget to ask follow-up questions
to make sure you're not in a rush, right?
What is your actual goal?
Okay, and we're going to take a quick break
and then come back and think to ourselves,
to our listeners, okay, how do we do this?
How do we say these things to go deeper, right, Aubrey?
Yes, exactly.
Nice.
Okay, so I bet our listeners are wondering,
how do we do it?
What's the vocabulary?
There are kind of two things we need here, right?
There are the structures to ask those deeper questions,
grammar-wise, and then there's the vocabulary.
Like I said, how do you say mayor?
You know, how do you say all these,
where's it are going to now come up?
The political divide, all these key things.
We have to learn vocabulary on the side too.
Exactly.
And when it's an informal conversation,
they're not going to be these very formal phrases, right?
It's going to be little chunks.
Like a really good one is just what about blank?
So you talked about this brewery closing, right?
When you have that conversation,
what about marketing?
What about the economy?
You're sort of throwing out these ideas
and then you're going to dive into it from there.
What about the cost of real estate
in that neighborhood in Denver, right?
Did they, yeah.
So what about, I think I like this, Aubrey,
because we're not asking you to come up
with this fancy grammar construction, okay?
The most important thing is your question.
It is not how you wrap it up in grammar, okay?
Right?
Exactly.
That's such a good point, right?
And of course, it's not going to be what about,
it asks you something, and then we stop there.
That's giving us a springboard.
This is the way we dive into the conversation.
We're just throwing out the topic with this phrase.
Hmm, this is good stuff.
So another thing we could say is what do you think about X?
So this is a follow up question, right?
Transitioner to that deeper topic?
Yeah, okay.
So for example, I brought up that writing challenge, right?
You know, what do you think about competition like this?
Does it help motivate you?
So however, whatever you're talking about,
you're going to fill that in with the context.
Hmm, I love it.
Interesting.
And then another one, I wonder if, very common.
And this shows your curiosity.
Exactly, right?
I wonder if this has to do with the economy.
I wonder if they could have marketed more.
This is a great way to start a phrase where
you're not saying that you know everything.
You don't have all of the answers.
You are curious about, you know, what those answers are.
Yeah.
And I've had this exact conversation about another restaurant
that I used to love in Denver.
It shut down in the pandemic.
They tried to do, you know, take away food at the pandemic.
It didn't quite work.
It totally shut down.
But then the pandemic went away and it never came back.
And we're all waiting for it to come back
because we love that restaurant.
It's a real neighborhood staple, you know?
Oh, I hope they're able to open up again.
Yeah.
And I've had this conversation with neighborhood friends,
you know, what's going on with Vine Street?
You know, I wonder if it's about wage issues.
I wonder if they didn't have enough of a market for their beer.
All these questions that you could dive into,
it'd be more satisfying to sort of hypothesize, right?
Yes, exactly, right?
And these are both pretty informal, right?
These are for conversations with friends.
But they can come up, you know, it can be more formal as well.
So it's interesting that these conversation starters
will work anytime, just to get deeper, dive deeper.
Don't say surface level, use these to open up the conversation.
Yeah.
And you can learn a lot about the person
that you're talking to by doing that.
That's the point, right?
Yeah.
OK, role play time.
Yeah, let's do it.
So you and I are chatting over coffee in this role play.
All right, here we go.
So you said you like mysteries.
Any authors you'd recommend?
I really like Freedom of Fadden.
She always includes a plot twist that you don't see coming.
I wonder if people read as much now as they did in the past.
Good question.
I know my kids don't read as much as I did.
It's hard to keep them off electronics.
Oh, yeah.
And what about biographies and the classics?
You have to have quite the attention span for some of those.
Nice.
I love this.
So we used our phrases here.
You started with, I wonder if people
read as much now as they did in the past.
I love going this direction, right?
We're talking about the books we like,
the genre that we like to read.
And then we start branching out,
getting a little more philosophical
and talking about society.
It's just more satisfying, at least for me.
I don't know.
Maybe this is a personality thing,
but I think this is part of living life
on a deeper level is connecting through conversation.
Finding out, do we have something in common with this person?
How does this person see the world?
Right?
Exactly.
Yes, I agree.
I think it makes every conversation more interesting.
We're not just like do you like this?
Do you like this?
Do you like this?
Let's wonder about these things.
Let's question, right?
You said, yeah, what about biographies
and the classics?
Do, are these still red?
Is this still a thing?
It's a good question, too, right?
Like our kids, our kids,
I'm wondering, are kids still reading Shakespeare in school?
Are they still doing the plays and everything now?
You know, my daughter is in an AP English class.
And so for that, they read a few of the classics.
She read Frankenstein by Mary Shelley
and great expectations by Dickens.
But before that, she hadn't, she hadn't read any of them.
And I had recommended a few and she was like,
no, why would I read that?
Oh my gosh, I wonder even the hundred years.
They're all going to be gone.
Oh, no.
Oh my god.
Sorry.
No, good stuff.
So what's a takeaway?
I feel like there's a deep message today for our listeners.
For sure, right?
To avoid conversational whiplash.
You want those deeper connections.
And you won't be able to get them.
If you're jumping from topic to topic,
it will create sort of awkwardness
and will send the message that either you're not curious
or you don't care as much about the opinions
of the person you're talking to.
Yeah, it's kind of like making a decision, guys,
to not take the easy way out with a conversation.
And you know that that easy way out
is not going to lead to any real connection.
It's just going to be that whiplash back and forth.
Four topics in one minute.
No, we can't do it.
Yes.
And I love what you said, Lindsay,
you might be tempted to do this if you're not
confident about the vocabulary on these topics.
So that comes back to learning that vocabulary,
making it part of your active vocabulary.
So you are ready and confident.
Exactly.
I mean, one thing that comes to mind that we can
recommend to our listeners is getting the iOS Android app
that we have here at all.
There's English because what you get over there, guys,
is you get the real time human created transcripts.
But then you get to tap five to seven keywords
that Aubrey has chosen that will deepen your level.
You save them to your power list.
So it's not like you just hear it on a podcast episode
and then you never hear it again.
You actually have it in your back pocket
because it's in your list that you can study every day.
Right, Aubrey?
Yes, we do the work for you, right?
And then you can work on using those and then remove them
from your list once you have them mastered
and feel like you can add them to conversations.
You ask, you want to be strategic about how many words
you're adding to your vocabulary list
and how you are doing this so that you can actually use them.
Yeah, it's so cool.
So that's one thing you can do right now
to make sure you have that vocabulary.
We need the structures, but then we need the vocab.
If we're going to go into these deeper conversations
that are more interesting.
So go to all airsenglish.com slash app.
You'll be able to choose between iOS and Android.
All right, Aubrey, good stuff.
Awesome.
Thanks, Lindsay.
That was a fun one.
All right, talk soon.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
Bye.
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