Shadowing Practice: 5 Easy Small Talk Questions for Conversations about Travel in English - Learn English Speaking with Video

Hi, I'm Annemarie with Speak Confident English and welcome to your Confident English Wednesday lesson. So it is September and I'm so excited to be here sharing a new Confident English lesson with you today. If you've been part of my community for more than three weeks then you know I've been on a little bit of a summer break. Like many people where I live, I went away for part of the month of August. In Europe (where I live), most people take a summer vacation in August and then they come back to work in September with new energy. They feel relaxed, they had time to enjoy the sun, maybe go to the beach or go to the mountains and enjoy hiking. So, I'm back after a three-week vacation and I'm so excited for today's new Confident English lesson.

I'm curious, when you go on vacation when you take a break in the summer or the winter or maybe during a special holiday in your country, what is the very first thing that you talk about with your colleagues when you go back to work?

Or with your neighbors when you return home from a vacation? Yes! You talk about your vacation. You ask each other questions to find out what did they do, where did they go, how did they spend their time. But if you have to do this in English? If you need to talk to English-speaking colleagues when you come back from vacation or your English-speaking friends and neighbors, do you know what questions to ask? Do you feel comfortable asking them about their vacation, their time off? If not, then today's lesson is perfect for you because we're going to talk about five common questions that native speakers use for small talk and just chatting when they come back from a vacation or a long holiday. These are the same questions that I use with my friends, my family and people that I know professionally when I haven't seen them for a long time. So if you often feel nervous starting a conversation, asking questions in English, participating in small talk but you really want to know about someone's holiday or the vacation, then let's take a look at these five questions. Now very quickly, if this is something that always makes you feel nervous, you are always stressed when you have to start a conversation in English, I do have a another lesson for you that I want you to watch after you finish this. Last year I shared a lesson on how to start a conversation with anyone in English and I shared three strategies to help you be more prepared and feel confident, ready to start that conversation. So if this always makes you feel nervous, I will leave a link to that other lesson just below this video so that you can visit it as well and know exactly how to feel more confident the next time you want to ask a question and get a conversation going in English. So our first question for today's topic, one of the most common ways to ask someone about their vacation when they come back is, "How was your summer break?" How was your winter break? How was your holiday break? In that question, I'm using the word break and in English we use that when we want to say that we had a time where we paused going to work. Maybe we went away, we traveled somewhere or we just took time to be at home, to be relaxed but we stopped working for a long weekend, maybe a week, or two weeks. Maybe even a whole month if you're lucky. But we often use the word break. A summer break. A winter break. A holiday break. Or a long weekend break. Now the second common question that we might ask is, "Did you get away for the summer vacation?" Did you get away for the holiday? Did you get away over the winter break? In those questions, I'm using the phrasal verb to get away and in English that phrasal verb means to escape or to leave a place. Sometimes we really want to escape work. Maybe it's just so stressful. We have a massive deadline. We're exhausted. So we get away for the weekend. Maybe we go to the countryside to relax. Many people during their summer or winter vacations get away to go to the beach or the mountains to go skiing. So when you have the opportunity to take a vacation, do you get away? Now our third question for asking about a vacation or time off is focused on where they went, where did they go for their vacation? So you could say something like, "Did you travel for the summer holiday or did you stay close to home?" Did you travel for the winter break or did you stay close to home? So the difference between asking someone if they traveled or if they stayed close to home is how far did they go. Did they get on a plane to go to another region, another part of the country, or a different country? Or did they just go to a city, a town, or the countryside nearby? Somewhere that's easy to get to by car or by train. Now those first three questions are all great questions to start a conversation with someone in English about their vacation, about their holiday. The next two questions are perfect questions to keep the conversation going, to follow up. So if someone has traveled to another place for their vacation or they stayed close to home - but again they went to the countryside or they went to a nearby lake or a river - then you could ask, "Have you been there before or was this your first time?" Have you been there before or was this your first time? And this question is really just a way to get more information, maybe hear some interesting stories about their time away. And just getting to know them. Find out what they did, how did they spend their time, why did they choose that place. And our last question is my most favorite question from today. It's a question I always ask when someone comes back from a vacation or from some time away. I always ask, "What was the best part of your trip?" Or what was the best part of your vacation?

Everyone loves to talk about the things that they enjoy, so this is a super easy question to ask. And almost everyone will be happy to answer it. And with that you have 5 really easy questions that are polite to ask when you want to start a conversation with an English-speaking colleague or someone that you live close to and you want to find out more about: where did they go, what did they do, and what did they like about their last vacation? So now I want to hear from you. I want to know where was your last vacation? What was your most recent time away? Where did you go? And yes, what was the best part about your trip? You can share your answers with me in the comments section just below the video. That is the best place to get practice and feedback from me every week. As always, thank you so much for joining me. I love having you here every Wednesday. I look forward to hearing from you in the comments and I'll see you next week for your Confident English Wednesday lesson.