跟讀練習: Why I Had to Learn Small Talk - 通過影片學習英語口語
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So today we're going to talk about small talk, 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.
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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 going to tell you all their medical history and their personal life issues, or they're just going to look at you like you're crazy.
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And honestly, I've always thought that small talk is kind of stupid.
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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 going to tell you or I'm going to 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, theforensun.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,
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my recommendations there so make sure to check that out and if you'd like to support my channel and help me create
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more free content for you I just launched memberships so by signing up you are showing your support and you're helping me get
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my coffee fix every week or every month or every day you become a friend of the channel and I'm able to create more lessons and more fun educational videos for you.
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Okay, 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,
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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,
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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 rapid 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,
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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,
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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 the 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 am 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 want to work with you, they want to be friends with you, they want to 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, 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?
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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 there 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 and you never know that could literally
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be your neighbor and you would have never known so here's a little secret small talk is actually not fake small talk is an empathy exercise you are saying to the other person indirectly, I see you.
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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.
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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 this girl!
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So if you want the conversations to keep flowing naturally, you just have to finish your sentence with another question 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 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 okay This is called mirroring.
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You ask a question.
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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.
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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 and then
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when you start talking you have the tone of voice and your words so a lot of us when we're stressed out our faces kind of go like this
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because we're thinking and we're analyzing and we're processing and the other person cannot read our minds they don't know that we're just trying
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to make up a sentence 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.
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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 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
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kind of silly but trust me when i tell you it is not the social aspect of communication is so so so important and i'm going to give you a very quick example from when i was a manager at
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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
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interviews for candidates for certain jobs and when these candidates would come in the first thing that I would
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look at is how they made me feel and how they would connect with me literally from the first second and because
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it would have been extremely awkward for us to sit and for me to immediately start so tell me about your
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previous job right that feels a little too straight to the point so we always had some sort of interaction like
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a couple seconds couple questions here and there um and be like did you find us easy how was your day
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um how was the commute like anything really and then based on my question i would see how the person would react 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 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,
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are responding well to my small talk, are pleasant, they're making me feel relaxed, they're approachable, they're friendly,
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they're sociable and another person who has a lot of experience but is not able to make me feel like that,
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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
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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.
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So please let me know if you want to learn more about small talk.
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Make sure you subscribe.
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You like this video so I know you want more.
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And if you have a friend who hates small talk, send them this video.
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Thank you so much for watching.
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See you next time.
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Bye!
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為什麼通過這個影片練習口語？
在學習英語的過程中，小談話（small talk）是一個非常重要的社交技能。尤其在英語國家，小談話被視為社交的“粘合劑”。通過這個影片，您可以瞭解如何自然地進行小談話，從而提高與他人溝通的能力。在影片中，演講者分享了自己在加拿大生活中遇到的小談話，並強調了其在建立聯絡和促進交流方面的必要性。通過跟隨影片中的對話，您不僅能夠提升自己的英語口語能力，還能夠學習如何在不同場合中加強與他人的聯絡，為您的社交網路打下良好的基礎。
語法與表達的應用
在影片中，有幾個關鍵的語法結構和表達方式對學習者尤為重要：
- How are you? - 一種簡單而常用的問候方式，適合用於開啟對話。
- What do you think about...? - 這種表達能夠引導對方分享他們的觀點，適合增加互動。
- I'm feeling... because... - 用於分享個人感受，有助於建立情感連線。
- Did you hear about...? - 用來引入話題和建立共同興趣，保持對話流暢。
這些表達不僅對提高英語發音 提高英語發音 助益良多，還能幫助您更有效地進行 英語口語練習 與 shadow speak。
常見發音陷阱
在影片中，有一些詞彙和發音可能對學習者構成挑戰：
- Awkward - 這個詞的發音為 /ˈɔː.kwərd/，在快速對話中容易發錯音。
- Social glue - 該短語的發音需要注意重音位置，以便順暢交流。
- Genuine interest - 記住這個片語的整體語調，對於表達真實的興趣至關重要。
通過觀看這個影片並進行跟讀（shadow speech）練習，您將會明顯感受到發音的改善，這將幫助您在日常交流中更加自信，而不僅僅是提高英語的發音。
影片中的語法
說話人最常用的結構，並附上影片中的原話：
| 結構 | 影片中的用法 |
|---|---|
| 條件句 if + 從句，will/would + 動詞 — 條件及其結果 | if they know that they will finish |
| 定語從句 who / which + 從句 — 補充說明人或事物 | point which is · Somebody who is · somebody who has |
| 現在完成時 have/has + 過去分詞 — 過去發生但與現在仍有關聯的事 | I've always thought · haven't exchanged · you've tried |
什麼是跟讀法？
跟讀法 (Shadowing) 是一種有科學依據的語言學習技巧，最初開發用於專業口譯員的培訓，並由多語言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。這個方法簡單而強大：您在聽英語母語原聲的同時立即大聲重複——就像是一個延遲1-2秒緊跟說話者的影子。與被動聽力或語法練習不同，跟讀法強迫您的大腦和口腔肌肉同時處理並模模擬實的講話模式。研究表明它能顯著提高發音準確性，語調，節奏，連讀，聽力理解和口語流利度——使其成為雅思口語備考和真實英語交流最有效的方法之一。