Welcome to the Listening Time podcast.
Hey everybody, this is Connor and you're listening to episode 136 of the Listening Time podcast.
Thank you all for listening.
I hope you're all doing well.
I hope your year is starting off well and that you're motivated to keep on practicing your English, and In today's episode we're going to talk about conversation.
We're going to talk about how to have good conversations in your own language, and I'll also talk about some tips about how you can have better conversations in English when you're speaking this foreign language.
So I think this will be really interesting and relevant to all of you, because I think all of us want to be better conversationalists in our own language.
And, of course, as language learners, we want to get better at speaking to people and having a conversation together in our foreign language that we're learning.
So I'm sure you'll like this topic.
And before we start, remember that if you need my help to understand native speakers when they speak fast, then make sure to join my membership so you can get my specialized listening training.
And specifically, if you become a family member, you'll get my advanced podcast episodes where I speak at normal speed.
And if you feel ready, then make sure to sign up for my US Conversations podcast as well, so that you can practice, with real conversations, me speaking with other people from around the country.
So if you're interested in either of those, then the links are in the description below this episode.
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All right, let's get started.
Are your ears ready?
You know what time it is.
It's listening time.
Okay, let's talk about having good conversations.
First of all, let's start with having conversations in your own language.
So just being a good conversationalist in general.
Let's go over some tips.
These are things that I have noticed and that I've tried to develop over over the years, especially as an english teacher, because i've talked to many people hundreds and hundreds of different people from all over the world for thousands of hours.
I constantly have conversations with different people from different backgrounds, different cultures, different personalities, etc.
So this really trains you to become a good conversationalist, because if you're in my position, you need to talk to tons of different people and manage conversations well.
Navigate the conversation.
This is really important if you do something similar to what I do.
So I'm going to talk from experience here and hopefully these tips are useful for you.
So the first tip I have one of the most important things when it comes to having a good conversation is to ask questions, okay.
It's really simple.
If you know how to ask questions and ask good questions, then your conversations will usually go pretty well.
Why is that?
Well, it's because in general, people like talking about themselves.
So when you ask someone a question about them, then they have the chance to talk about themselves.
People really like that.
So when you ask questions, you put the focus on the other person and you allow them to talk.
And this makes them feel better than if you talked the whole time about yourself.
Right.
People prefer to have the chance to discuss their thoughts, their opinions, their story, and they want to feel like they're getting the chance to talk and talk about themselves right.
So if you ask a lot of questions, if you ask good questions, this will definitely help you.
And, in my experience as a teacher, the number one reason why I can have so many conversations and have successful conversations and everyone feels good about the conversation is usually because of my ability to ask questions, because I'm constantly getting the other person to talk.
If I stopped asking questions, then the other person would be put in a position where they have to ask me a question, or they have to develop a new train of thought, or whatever, and that's giving them the work.
By the way, when we say a train of thought, your train of thought, We're talking about the way that your thoughts are developing, the direction that they're going in.
So in this case I'm saying that I don't want them to have to really make a lot of effort to develop their train of thought and ask me questions, especially if they're a student and I'm a teacher.
Of course, it's great when they know how to ask questions as well, but in general, most people don't really have this skill.
I've had tons of experience talking to different people And most people are not great at this.
So if you do this well, then you will have more successful conversations and you'll make it easier for the other person.
And similar to this tip is my next tip, which is to listen.
So you ask questions and then you actually listen.
You listen to what the other person is saying and you actually care about what they're saying.
OK, people can tell if you're listening.
Most people can get a feeling about whether or not you're actually listening to them or if you're thinking about something else while they're speaking.
So actually care about what the other person is saying and listen to them and don't just be anxious for your turn to speak.
I'm sure you've had this situation before where you're talking to someone And it feels like they're just waiting for you to finish what you're saying so that they can talk because they want to share their idea.
And all of us do this.
This is natural for all of us.
I'm not saying that you should never do this because we all have this tendency.
We all want to share our thoughts.
And so we wait for our turn to talk.
Yes, we do that, but don't be too anxious to do that.
When you're too anxious to do that, it shows.
The other person can tell that you're just waiting for them to finish or you're trying to interrupt them, or something like that.
And that's not good.
We don't want to make the other person feel like they can't complete their thought, because we want to talk.
So actually listen, actually care about what the other person is saying, and that will make the other person feel cared about and it will make them feel like they're having a good conversation when you listen to them.
Another tip that I have for you is is to practice with your body language.
What is body language?
This refers to any non-verbal language things that you do that communicate something to another person.
And when I say non-verbal, I'm saying something besides just the words that you say.
So we communicate with our words, but we also communicate with things besides our words.
It could be with your tone of voice, if you have a certain tone that can communicate something.
It can be the way that you move your body or your position, how you're positioned, or it could be whether you're smiling or nodding those types of things.
The word nod means that you move your head up and down to say yes to someone.
So if someone asks you if you're okay and you nod, this means that you're moving your head up and down to say yes.
So nodding is a type of body language that, And agreeing while the other person is talking.
Maybe you go yeah, while they're speaking, for example.
That could be something that communicates a message to the other person that you're listening to them, you're engaged in in what they're saying, right?
So all of these things are important.
However, I will say that you want to also make sure that you're reading the other person and, based on their cultural background or maybe their personality, it's good to adjust your body language accordingly.
When I say accordingly, what I'm saying is according to this situation in an appropriate way, given that situation.
So you want to adjust your body language accordingly, because some people will respond better to certain body language and some people will respond worse.
So some people might not like when you agree and kind of interrupt them a little bit when you say yeah yeah, while they're talking.
Some people might not like for you to do that really frequently while they're speaking.
However, other people might expect that from you, right?
They might even ask you you know, you understand, you get it, just to make sure that you're agreeing and understanding them.
So if you give them the proper advice, body language cues, then they'll see that you're listening.
By the way, the word cue refers to some signal that communicates a message to someone.
So a body language cue would be some movement or something that you do that communicates a message to the other person.
So just be aware that people respond differently to different body language.
But that's another important thing to incorporate into your conversations.
Another one, another tip that I have is to practice with your segues and transitions.
A segue is a transition between one thing and another.
In this context of conversations, it would be a natural way to transition between topics.
So this tip isn't absolutely necessary.
You don't always have to have good segways and transitions between topics.
However, it does make the conversation flow better.
If you are someone that can naturally transition between different topics and make the conversation seem like it's flowing naturally and make sure that you don't have really abrupt transitions, then the conversation feels better.
By the way, the word abrupt means something that just happens all of a sudden.
That is not very pleasant usually.
It's not smooth.
It's a transition in this case that is not smooth and that does not flow well.
So if you're talking to someone about their job...
And then you run out of things to say or questions to ask.
And then you just suddenly change topics and say, what do you do for fun?
It can seem a little bit abrupt if the other person isn't expecting that.
And it's okay.
Like I said, this isn't absolutely necessary, but it helps if you can make the transition smoother.
Instead of just saying, what do you do for fun?
You can say something like okay, and when you're not working, what do you like to do in your free time?
So you see how that transition included the previous topic.
We were talking about work, and then I use that to segue into the next topic.
When you're not working, What do you like to do in your free time?
You see how that transition is very smooth.
Again, you're not always going to be able to do this.
And this is definitely a skill that you have to develop over time.
However, if you have more of these natural transitions, the conversation will feel better.
And one other tip that's very similar to the last one is to try to avoid awkward silences, meaning you don't want to have these moments where both of you are silent and you don't know what to say and both people are waiting for the other person to say something.
That can be uncomfortable and it can make the conversation feel Like it's not flowing well.
So this is something that's also really hard to always get right.
You're going to have to practice with this and it's going to take a lot of experience and time to develop this skill.
But I think it's worth it to try to develop this ability to practice.
Make sure there aren't any awkward silences or that there are only a few of them in your conversation.
And a way you can do this is to get better at asking questions.
So asking follow up questions.
So when you ask one question and the person finishes talking, you don't want to just stay silent there.
You probably want to ask a follow up question, right?
Another question. to go into more detail or to ask them something related to what they just said.
And it helps the conversation to continue to flow without uncomfortable silences in there.
And if you ask a question, it also gives you a little time to think about your next question or your next transition, etc.
You don't want to think too much about this because you want to listen to the other person, of course, but you can buy yourself a little bit of time with a question to think of your next transition, So that when the other person stops talking then you can be ready to transition and ask a different question or talk about something else or whatever.
So if you can not have these awkward silences, that will really help the conversation feel better.
All right.
Now let's talk about having better conversations in English when this isn't your first language.
Number one, you have to realize this.
Understanding is much, much more important than speaking.
I've said this many times before, but it's worth repeating.
Your ability to speak well is not nearly as important as your ability to understand the other person.
When I'm talking to a student, I don't really care how well they speak.
That's not a big deal for me.
However, I do care about how much they can understand when I'm speaking.
Because if they can't understand me well... then the conversation just doesn't go well.
I have to repeat a ton of things.
I have to look up translations sometimes.
I have to think of different ways to say things.
I have to say things really slowly or spell them for the person.
And it's just not smooth at all.
OK, so if you're talking to someone who's not an English teacher, it would be even worse.
Right.
That person does not have a lot of experience changing the way that they speak to help someone else understand them better.
So they're probably not going to be very patient in that situation.
That's why I say that understanding is much more important than speaking, because So, number one, in order to have a good conversation in English, you have to be able to understand.
Don't worry as much about the speaking, okay?
First, be concerned with actually being able to understand people, okay?
And when you don't understand someone because that will happen sometimes, even if you have a good level of listening when you don't understand the native speaker when they're talking to you.
Make sure that you apologize and you ask politely for them to repeat it.
Don't say repeat, please.
Don't ever say that.
Right.
First, apologize.
Say, I'm sorry.
And then ask them.
Don't command them.
Say, could you say that one more time?
Or could you repeat that?
Something like that. in a nice way.
You apologize, meaning you accept responsibility, and then you ask them to repeat.
In that case, they don't feel bad.
They don't feel offended.
If you just say, say that again more slowly or repeat that, they're not gonna feel good.
They're probably gonna have a bad reaction if you command them to do something.
Okay, so apologize, ask politely for them to repeat it, and poke fun at your English sometimes.
When I say poke fun at something, I'm saying that you joke a little bit about something.
Just maybe laugh a little about the fact that you couldn't understand something or whatever.
Don't make it awkward.
And don't overly denigrate your English.
The word denigrate means to unfairly criticize something.
Don't denigrate your English and say, my English sucks.
I'm sorry.
My English is terrible.
People don't like that.
Okay.
However, you can poke fun at your English and just lightly joke about the fact that you made a mistake or whatever.
Laugh a little bit.
Don't make it really serious or negative.
Make it funny because if you can acknowledge the fact that you made a mistake and or that you didn't understand something or whatever, it's not uncomfortable for the other person because you're acknowledging it, you're laughing, so the other person will feel like they can also laugh and they're not offending you or whatever.
So have a smile.
Laugh when you make a mistake that's exposed or things like that.
Right, don't act really frustrated or ashamed of your english.
No one likes that.
Okay, just have fun with it.
Poke fun at your english, but don't denigrate it.
Okay, And don't be overly focused on accuracy, okay.
Sometimes I have students that focus on every word that they're saying and the conversation is really slow and uncomfortable or boring because they don't want to say things naturally.
They don't want to just talk and accept that they're probably going to be making some mistakes.
They focus on the structure of every sentence that they say and they speak really slowly.
And this is not fun for the other person.
So don't focus on accuracy.
Just try to speak naturally and understand that native speakers don't really care that much about mistakes that you make, as long as they can understand you well.
So If you're understandable and you make mistakes, the other person is not just gonna focus on your mistakes.
They're gonna be engaged in the conversation.
They're gonna be thinking about the actual topic that you're talking about.
They're not gonna focus on the grammar errors because the other person isn't thinking about the language.
They're thinking about the topic.
You are probably thinking a little bit about the language, because you're speaking a foreign language, but the other person isn't concerned with that.
They want to talk about the topic and focus on what you're discussing.
So native speakers don't really care about your mistakes as long as they can understand you.
And more importantly, as long as you can understand them.
Again, that's the most important thing.
And then besides that, just focus on speaking naturally.
It's better to speak a little more fluently than to speak a little bit more accurately.
The native speaker will normally prefer to hear you speak more naturally and normally, with a few more mistakes, than to have to be really patient with you while you stop and slow down and correct yourself and think about all the words that you're saying before you say them.
That's much less pleasant.
So don't do that.
Focus more on your fluency and, of course, try to be accurate, but don't focus on that too much, okay.
Because that can ruin the conversation as well.
All right, those were my tips.
I hope that you found these tips useful and I hope that you can incorporate them into your own conversations, whether it be in your own language or in English, and hopefully these can help you.
And remember that if you want my help understanding native speakers, make sure to join my membership so you can get my listening practice seminars where I show you the different patterns that are hard for you to understand and I help you understand them.
So if you're interested in that, the link is down below in the episode description.
That's patreon.com slash listening time.
And if you feel ready to practice with real conversations where multiple people are speaking to each other, then you can sign up for my US Conversations podcast.
The link is also down below in the episode description.
That's patreon.com slash usconversations.
And if you like this podcast, please share it with anyone else you know who's learning English, and give it a five-star rating and write a review.
All right, thank you for listening to this episode and I'll talk to you on the next episode of Listening Time.
