Shadowing Practice: Why I Had to Learn Small Talk - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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So today we're gonna talk about small talk.

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So today we're gonna talk about small talk.

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How you do it, why you need it, and everything in between.

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Today I'm in a different location.

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I'm in Vienna right now in this beautiful park.

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I decided to just come for a walk and make a video, why not?

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So I come from a post-Soviet Eastern European country called Moldova and we don't really have small talk there.

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If you ask somebody, how are you?

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They're either gonna tell you all their medical history and their personal life issues or they're just gonna look at you like you're crazy.

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And honestly, I've always thought that small talk is kind of stupid, it's a waste of time.

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But when I moved to Canada, I very quickly realized that small talk is necessary and that I need it and that it doesn't matter what I think about it.

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So today I'm gonna tell you, or I'm gonna try to explain why it feels awkward, why it is important, and what expressions and phrases and questions you can have in your back pocket in case you need small talk.

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So it becomes a bit more fun and interesting rather than a nerve-wracking experience.

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But before I dive in, make sure to check my website, theforeignsun.com.

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I have my upcoming speaking clubs there, my newsletter.

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You can sign up and get a free PDF guide with 20 of my favorite English idioms.

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I post all of my resources, my recommendations there, so make sure to check that out.

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And if you'd like to support my channel and help me create more free content for you, I just launched Memberships.

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So by signing up, you are showing your support and you're helping me get my coffee fix every week or every month or every day.

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You become a friend of the channel and I'm able to create more lessons and more educational videos for you Ok, let's start with what the hell is small talk?

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So in Moldova, small talk is rare.

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We go straight to the point, you ask a question, you give the answer according to the question.

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The answer has to be honest, has to be accurate, and has to be actual, has to be up to date to the reality, to the current time.

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And for us, it's not a problem to start with negatives and tell you that my cat is sick or my back hurts or I have so many things to do and I'm so stressed out.

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That's part of our small talk.

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But in English speaking countries, small talk is like social glue.

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You show your friendliness, your approachability every time you meet someone new.

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So small talk is a cultural thing.

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You don't have to love it, but you need it if you want to connect with people outside your country and get that networking going.

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So why does small talk feel awkward?

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It's because we overthink it.

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What do I say?

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How do I say it?

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Am I boring?

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Does that person want to know this?

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Do they want to hear me out?

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Are they interested?

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So many different questions in the moment.

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But here's the truth.

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Small talk is not about you saying what you need to say.

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It's about making the other person comfortable and you showing interest in them.

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So I never really thought that small talk is so necessary until I moved to Canada and I started working as a restaurant manager where I had to communicate with my team, customers, guests, executives, trades people, like so much more communication than I would normally do.

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And every single time they would either call someone or contact someone or meet someone, they would have this small interaction at the beginning of their conversation before they moved into the professional business topics.

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And because I was around, I was actually paying attention at how they're doing it.

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And I realized that for those first few minutes of small talk, people get to feel a little bit more relaxed around each other.

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So when it comes to doing business a few minutes later, they have this rapport going on already.

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And it's not just like, okay, open the door or call and we go straight into business.

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I don't know you, you don't know me.

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We haven't exchanged a single question or answer or sentence and let's get down to business.

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And when the time came for me to interact with all these people, I realized how much easier the connection was happening, was forming when I had a little question ready or a little joke or I was showing real interest, genuine interest in that person.

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That person was already much more open and willing to talk to me about pretty much anything.

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So when the time came for me to start these conversations, I realized that having something in my back pocket or up my sleeve, some little questions, some casual light jokes, some fun greetings or something helped me so much to break the ice, not only for them, but also for me.

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So instead of that first interaction being stiff and awkward because it was the first contact ever made with that person, we gave each other this space to become a little bit more relaxed.

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So based on my personal experiences, I learned that small talk was not just fluff.

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It was an actual real tool to build trust, to open doors and to make sure that I'm able to create those connections and network the way native speakers do.

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On top of that, every time you have a first interaction with someone, this is your chance to create a first impression, right?

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And people don't really remember exactly what you said, but they remember how you made them feel.

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So if in that little small talk portion of your conversation, you are friendly, you are open, you're approachable, people feel relaxed around you, so they want to be around you more.

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They wanna work with you, they wanna be friends with you, they wanna interact with you.

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So imagine you're at a networking event, at a conference or something, and the person right next to you could be your potential new client or your potential new partner or colleague.

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If you don't say anything, you miss that chance.

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And trust me, the other person thinks the same way.

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They're probably also nervous to say something.

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They're probably also overthinking what they want to say or are about to say.

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So one of you has to take the first step.

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So why not be you?

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Consider small talk like a little bridge over to bigger conversations, more serious conversations.

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For example, if you're in an elevator, you have a very short amount of time to create this connection with someone, right?

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So a simple hi, how are you or hi, how's your day is enough.

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If you are standing in line at a coffee shop, right?

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You can ask things like, have you been here before?

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Are their pastries any good?

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Do you like this coffee?

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Can you recommend anything good here?

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Literally anything for those couple of minutes that you're in line together so the silence isn't awkward.

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And you never know, that could literally be your neighbor and you would have never known.

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So here's a little secret.

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Small talk is actually not fake.

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Small talk is an empathy exercise.

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You are saying to the other person indirectly, I see you, I care enough to ask you something.

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I care enough to start a conversation with you.

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So how do you actually get good at small talk?

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Rule number one, don't try to be interesting.

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Try to be interested.

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People love talking about themselves, so you have to let them.

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You have to be there to listen more than to talk.

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You can ask questions, you can notice little details, maybe about their outfit, you can compliment them, and you always have to finish your sentence with another question because you're passing the mic to the other person.

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And if you're a little bit shy or you're a little bit introverted, that's totally fine.

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What you need to do is just to have a few questions ready to go whenever you need them.

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For example, how is your day going?

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What brings you here?

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How do you know the host?

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What's your role in this company?

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Literally anything connected to the area, the circumstance, the environments that you're in.

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Oh my God, there's a squirrel.

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So if you want the conversations to keep flowing naturally, you just have to finish your sentence with another question.

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And then if they know that, they will finish their sentence with another question.

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So questions are the magic trick.

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It just takes the pressure off of you and lets them talk.

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And because that person likes talking about them, you just ask them another question, and then another question, and then another question.

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This way you find out a lot more about that person and you don't have to do a lot of work.

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Another point here is to match the other person's energy.

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This is called the mirroring.

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You ask a question, if that person is showing signs that they want to answer, they want to talk to you, you continue talking.

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If that person is very short and kind of like maybe turns away a little bit and is not asking you a question back, you match that energy.

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You don't really continue, you don't really push that conversation too far, but at least you've tried and now you know.

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And this brings me to another point, which is facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language.

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When you are a little bit stressed out, you kind of lose track of your face, your body, and you're just focusing on what to say, how to say it, and the fact that you need to say it, right?

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But before you even start saying something, you're already communicating through your body language, through your facial expressions.

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And then when you start talking, you have the tone of voice and your words.

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So a lot of us, when we're stressed out, our faces kind of go like this, because we're thinking and we're analyzing and we're processing.

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And the other person cannot read our minds.

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They don't know that we're just trying to make up a sentence.

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So your body language, your facial expressions, and your tone of voice can make a simple, hi, how are you, sound very aggressive and cold, or very warm and friendly.

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Hi, how are you?

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Hi, how are you?

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A little bit different.

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You need to always remember you want to sound warm, friendly, welcoming, and approachable.

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Either one of these.

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Yeah, sure, you can be serious, but you can be approachable, right?

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Somebody who is an executive and it's your boss and whatever, if they know the art of small talk, they will give you a smile.

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They will make themselves look approachable to you, so you can start talking to them and not be afraid.

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I know different countries, different cultures, they perceive this very differently.

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Whoever has a status will never smile.

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People in general don't really smile a lot, right?

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So this is something that you need to learn.

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This is something that you need to adopt, because this is very important and it's a very big part of small talk.

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And communication in general.

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And again, I understand coming from different cultures, coming from different countries with different ideas and different mentality, this could sound like a waste of time, like a waste of energy and kind of silly.

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But trust me when I tell you, it is not.

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The social aspect of communication is so, so, so important.

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I'm going to give you a very quick example from when I was a manager at this restaurant in Canada.

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Because I was a manager, I was also part of the recruiting team, so I was doing interviews for candidates for certain jobs.

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And when these candidates would come in, the first thing that I would look at is how they made me feel and how they would connect with me literally from the first second.

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And because it would have been extremely awkward for us to sit and for me to immediately start, so tell me about your previous job, right?

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That feels a little too straight to the point.

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So we always had some sort of interaction, like a couple seconds, couple questions here and there.

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And be like, did you find us easy?

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How was your day?

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How was the commute?

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Like anything really.

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And then based on my question, I would see how the person would react.

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Are they sharp enough to give me the right answer?

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Are they using the correct facial expressions?

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Are they funny?

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Are they cracking a joke?

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Are they responding well to my question?

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Or they just get super terrified to say anything because they just rehearsed the interview questions and that's all.

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So the fact that I would feel a certain awkwardness if they weren't able to reply to my small talk question would tell me how they would behave in any unexpected situation at work.

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You have to present yourself as friendly and welcoming and approachable to your colleagues, to the guests, to your bosses, to everybody around you.

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And if that doesn't really work, then your job is going to be extremely, extremely difficult.

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And then my job will be extremely difficult following up on the other person's job.

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And why is it difficult?

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So if I were to choose between somebody who has a smile on their face, are comfortable, are responding well to my small talk, are pleasant, they're making me feel relaxed, they're approachable, they're friendly, they're sociable, and another person who has a lot of experience but is not able to make me feel like that, I would hire the person with zero experience because you can teach technical skills, you can teach the job, but you cannot teach personal skills and I don't have the time to teach them small talk skills too.

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So if you're interested in this topic and you'd like me to give you exact specific examples of what to do in what situation, what to say, what not to say, leave a comment down below and then I will post a video with a lot more specifics because if I do that in this video, the video is gonna be an hour long and I don't think you have the patience, so please let me know if you wanna learn more about small talk.

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Make sure you subscribe, you like this video, so I know you want more and if you have a friend who hates small talk, send them this video.

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Thank you so much for watching, see you next time, bye.

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Shadowing Practice: Why I Had to Learn Small Talk - Learn English Speaking with YouTube

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