跟读练习: Why I Had to Learn Small Talk - 通过YouTube学习英语口语
B2
So today we're going to talk about small talk, how you do it, why you need it, and everything in between.
160 句
如果句子过短或过长，请点击 Edit 进行调整。
1
So today we're going to talk about small talk, how you do it, why you need it, and everything in between.
2
Today I'm in a different location.
3
I'm in Vienna right now in this beautiful park.
4
I decided to just come for a walk and make a video.
5
Why not?
6
So I come from a post-Soviet Eastern European country called Moldova, and we don't really have small talk there.
7
If you ask somebody, how are you?
8
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.
9
And honestly, I've always thought that small talk is kind of stupid.
10
It's a waste of time.
11
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.
12
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.
13
So it becomes a bit more fun and interesting rather than a nerve-wracking experience.
14
But before I dive in, make sure to check my website, theforensun.com.
15
I have my upcoming speaking clubs there, my newsletter.
16
You can sign up and get a free PDF guide with 20 of my favorite English idioms.
17
I post all of my resources,
18
my recommendations there so make sure to check that out and if you'd like to support my channel and help me create
19
more free content for you I just launched memberships so by signing up you are showing your support and you're helping me get
20
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.
21
Okay, let's start with what the hell is small talk.
22
So in Moldova, small talk is rare.
23
We go straight to the point, you ask a question, you give the answer according to the question.
24
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.
25
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.
26
That's part of our small talk.
27
But in English-speaking countries, small talk is like social glue.
28
You show your friendliness, your approachability every time you meet someone new.
29
So small talk is a cultural thing.
30
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.
31
So why does small talk feel awkward?
32
It's because we overthink it.
33
What do I say?
34
How do I say it?
35
Am I boring?
36
Does that person want to know this?
37
Do they want to hear me out?
38
Are they interested?
39
So many different questions in the moment.
40
But here's the truth.
41
Small talk is not about you saying what you need to say.
42
It's about making the other person comfortable and you showing interest in them.
43
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,
44
customers, guests, executives, trades, people, like so much more communication than I would normally do.
45
and every single time they would either call someone or contact someone or meet someone,
46
they would have this small interaction at the beginning of their conversation before they moved into the professional business topics.
47
And because I was around, I was actually paying attention at how they're doing it.
48
And I realized that for those first few minutes of small talk, people get to feel a little bit more relaxed around each other.
49
So when it comes to doing business a few minutes later, they have this rapid going on already.
50
And it's not just like, okay, open the door or call and we go straight into business.
51
I don't know you, you don't know me.
52
We haven't exchanged a single question or answer or sentence and let's get down to business.
53
And when the time came for me to interact with all these people,
54
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.
55
That person was already much more open and willing to talk to me about pretty much anything.
56
So when the time came for me to start these conversations, I realized that having something in my back pocket or up my sleeve,
57
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.
58
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.
59
So based on my personal experiences, I learned that small talk was not just fluff.
60
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.
61
On top of that, every time you have a first interaction with someone, this is your chance to create a first impression, right?
62
And people don't really remember exactly what you said, but they remember how you made them feel.
63
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.
64
They want to work with you, they want to be friends with you, they want to interact with you.
65
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.
66
And trust me, the other person thinks the same way.
67
They're probably also nervous to say something.
68
They're probably also overthinking what they want to say or are about to say.
69
So one of you has to take the first step.
70
So why not be you?
71
Consider small talk like a little bridge over to bigger conversations, more serious conversations.
72
For example, if you're in an elevator, you have a very short amount of time to create this connection with someone, right?
73
So a simple, hi, how are you?
74
Or hi, how's your day is enough.
75
If you are standing in line at a coffee shop, right?
76
You can ask things like, have you been here before?
77
Are there pastries any good?
78
Do you like this coffee?
79
Can you recommend anything good here?
80
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
81
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.
82
I care enough to ask you something.
83
I care enough to start a conversation with you.
84
So how do you actually get good at small talk?
85
Rule number one, don't try to be interesting.
86
Try to be interested.
87
People love talking about themselves.
88
So you have to let them.
89
You have to be there to listen more than to talk.
90
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.
91
And if you're a little bit shy or you're a little bit introverted that's totally fine.
92
What you need to do is just to have a few questions ready to go whenever you need them.
93
For example, how is your day going?
94
What brings you here?
95
How do you know the host?
96
What's your role in this company?
97
Literally anything connected to the area, the circumstance, the environments that you're in.
98
Oh my god, there's this girl!
99
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.
100
So questions are the magic trick.
101
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.
102
This way you find out a lot more about that person and you don't have to do a lot of work.
103
Another point here is to match the other person's energy okay This is called mirroring.
104
You ask a question.
105
If that person is showing signs that they want to answer, they want to talk to you, you continue talking.
106
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.
107
You don't really continue.
108
You don't really push that conversation too far, but at least you've tried and now you know.
109
And this brings me to another point which is facial expressions, tone of voice and body language.
110
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.
111
But before you even start saying something you're already communicating through your body language through your facial expressions and then
112
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
113
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
114
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.
115
Hi, how are you?
116
Hi, how are you?
117
A little bit different.
118
You need to always remember you want to sound warm, friendly, welcoming, and approachable.
119
Either one of these.
120
Yeah, sure, you can be serious, but you can be approachable, right?
121
Somebody who is an executive and it's your boss and whatever.
122
If they know the art of small talk, they will give you a smile.
123
They will make themselves look approachable to you so you can start talking to them and not be afraid.
124
I know different countries, different cultures, they perceive this very differently.
125
Whoever has a status will never smile.
126
People in general don't really smile a lot, right?
127
So this is something that you need to learn.
128
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.
129
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
130
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
131
this restaurant in Canada.
132
Because I was a manager I was also part of the recruiting team so I was doing
133
interviews for candidates for certain jobs and when these candidates would come in the first thing that I would
134
look at is how they made me feel and how they would connect with me literally from the first second and because
135
it would have been extremely awkward for us to sit and for me to immediately start so tell me about your
136
previous job right that feels a little too straight to the point so we always had some sort of interaction like
137
a couple seconds couple questions here and there um and be like did you find us easy how was your day
138
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?
139
Are they using the correct facial expressions?
140
Are they funny?
141
Are they cracking a joke?
142
Are they responding well to my question?
143
Or they just get super terrified to say anything because they just rehearsed the interview questions and that's all.
144
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.
145
You have to present yourself as friendly and welcoming and approachable to your colleagues, to the guests, to your bosses, to everybody around you.
146
And if that doesn't really work, then your job is going to be extremely, extremely difficult.
147
And then my job will be extremely difficult following up on the other person's job and why is it difficult?
148
So if I were to choose between somebody who has a smile on their face, are comfortable,
149
are responding well to my small talk, are pleasant, they're making me feel relaxed, they're approachable, they're friendly,
150
they're sociable and another person who has a lot of experience but is not able to make me feel like that,
151
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.
152
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
153
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.
154
So please let me know if you want to learn more about small talk.
155
Make sure you subscribe.
156
You like this video so I know you want more.
157
And if you have a friend who hates small talk, send them this video.
158
Thank you so much for watching.
159
See you next time.
160
Bye!
下载应用
AI 为你说出的每个句子打分
TRENDING
热门
为什么通过这个视频练习口语？
在学习英语的过程中，小谈话（small talk）是一个非常重要的社交技能。尤其在英语国家，小谈话被视为社交的“粘合剂”。通过这个视频，您可以了解如何自然地进行小谈话，从而提高与他人沟通的能力。在视频中，演讲者分享了自己在加拿大生活中遇到的小谈话，并强调了其在建立联系和促进交流方面的必要性。通过跟随视频中的对话，您不仅能够提升自己的英语口语能力，还能够学习如何在不同场合中加强与他人的联系，为您的社交网络打下良好的基础。
语法与表达的应用
在视频中，有几个关键的语法结构和表达方式对学习者尤为重要：
- How are you? - 一种简单而常用的问候方式，适合用于开启对话。
- What do you think about...? - 这种表达能够引导对方分享他们的观点，适合增加互动。
- I'm feeling... because... - 用于分享个人感受，有助于建立情感连接。
- Did you hear about...? - 用来引入话题和建立共同兴趣，保持对话流畅。
这些表达不仅对提高英语发音 提高英语发音 助益良多，还能帮助您更有效地进行 英语口语练习 与 shadow speak。
常见发音陷阱
在视频中，有一些词汇和发音可能对学习者构成挑战：
- Awkward - 这个词的发音为 /ˈɔː.kwərd/，在快速对话中容易发错音。
- Social glue - 该短语的发音需要注意重音位置，以便顺畅交流。
- Genuine interest - 记住这个词组的整体语调，对于表达真实的兴趣至关重要。
通过观看这个视频并进行跟读（shadow speech）练习，您将会明显感受到发音的改善，这将帮助您在日常交流中更加自信，而不仅仅是提高英语的发音。
什么是跟读法？
跟读法 (Shadowing) 是一种有科学依据的语言学习技巧，最初开发用于专业口译员的培训，并由多语言者Alexander Arguelles博士普及。这个方法简单而强大：您在听英语母语原声的同时立即大声重复——就像是一个延迟1-2秒紧跟说话者的影子。与被动听力或语法练习不同，跟读法强迫您的大脑和口腔肌肉同时处理并模仿真实的讲话模式。研究表明它能显着提高发音准确性，语调，节奏，连读，听力理解和口语流利度——使其成为雅思口语备考和真实英语交流最有效的方法之一。