Hey, there. It's Ronnie coming at you. Helping
you speak English. And believe me, I know
that it can be embarrassing and uncomfortable.
You feel like maybe you've forgotten something
in situations, or there's just... I don't know,
something's just really, really uncomfortable.
What do you do in these situations? But you
are not alone, because even I, someone who's
a native speaker of English, feel uncomfortable
sometimes. One example is speaking to strangers.
Yeah. What do you say to people? I don't know.
Do you have an elevator or a lift if you live
in the UK, in your building? You're lucky. You
don't have to take the stairs, or you're lazy.
Yeah, I'm lazy. Okay. So, in my building, I
have an elevator, and I never know if someone's
going to get on the elevator with me. Yeah.
I pray that nobody ever gets on the elevator
with me. I'm like, "Please, please, please."
Oh, shit, there's a person. Okay. Hello. So,
what do you say to people on an elevator?
Elevator talk, it's called. Breno, this one's
for you. In English, we have something called
"small talk". Small talk is basically you
talk about unimportant things for a short period of time, and then leave. Examples of
small talk, probably the most popular topic of small talk is the weather. So, oh, hey,
it's a beautiful day today. Yeah. Uh-oh, press
the button, look at the thing. Come on. Oh,
it's raining today. Yeah, thank you. That's
great. So, if you don't want to be the weather
man or the weather woman in the elevator, there's other things you can talk about. If
the person has a pet, maybe a dog, pet hamster,
cat, taking their pet hamster for a walk,
you can ask some questions about the dog.
"Oh, hey. What's your dog's name? What's your
cat's name? What kind of hamster is that?" Anything that you can say about something
else will help you. Look around the elevator,
like, oh, there isn't much... much to look
at on an elevator. You can talk to them about
their kids, if there's a kid on the elevator
or a baby. People love to talk about their baby and their kids.
Another technique is to compliment someone on
something. So, just make sure it's genuine,
which means real. For example, you wouldn't say to me, like, "Oh, hey, Ronnie. I love
that shirt you have on today." Huh? So, make
sure that what you're complimenting people
on is actually genuine and real. You can say to
me, like, "Oh, Ronnie, you're wearing glasses.
I love your new glasses." Like, "Oh, you know
what? Thank you. I just picked them up. My...
Just as I get older..." This is a very important
thing. If the person on the elevator wants
to talk to you, they will respond and give
you more information. So, if you said to me,
for example, "Ronnie, I like your glasses."
And I go, "Thanks." And I don't say anything,
this means I don't want to talk to you. It doesn't mean that your English is bad. It
doesn't mean that you cannot speak English. Maybe I'm having a bad day, or the person
on the elevator just doesn't want to talk to
you. Don't take it seriously. It's just...
It's just an elevator ride. Don't ever think
that your English is bad because the person
does not respond to you. Okay? Always try.
Try your best. If people don't respond, it's
okay. So you can compliment people. "Oh, I
like those shoes. Those are some cool shoes.
Where did you get those?" "Oh, cool. Okay." Hopefully, the elevator ride is not long.
I know nowadays we have super-fast elevators.
So, basically, anything that you want to talk
about is okay. Try not to get too personal, like, "Oh, what happened to your leg?" You
don't want to kind of dive into personal topics
right away on an elevator. So, strangers,
what do you say to them? Maybe you're waiting
at the bus, waiting for the subway or the
train, and there's a person you see every day at the train station, and you want to
practice your English. Go for it. Just try. A
really great thing to say is just to introduce
yourself. That's okay. You can walk up to someone and say, "Hi. My name's Ronnie. How
are you?" If the people want to talk to you,
they'll say, "Oh, hi. My name's Joe. Nice
to meet you." "Oh, yeah. You, too." And then
you can bust in with a small talk, like, "Oh,
I see you at this station every day. I hope
you have a good ride to work." Anything that
you can think of to continue the conversation
is going to be good. And remember, the other
person also has the opportunity to ask you a question. So, maybe if I introduce myself
and I say, "Oh, hi. I'm Ronnie. Nice to meet
you." The person doesn't say anything. Maybe
they say, "Oh. Oh, hey. Yeah, Ronnie. I see
you here. Do you work near here?" I say, "Oh,
yeah. Mm-hmm. My work's down the street. You
know, I'm a mechanical engineer." You can
tell them about your job. Little topics you can talk about, there's no danger in that.
Don't worry about that. Just don't get too personal right away. Save that for, like,
Fridays. On Friday, you're like, "Oh, my god. It's Friday. Thank goodness."
Maybe you have problems at work talking to
co-workers. Maybe you feel a little uncomfortable
speaking to your boss. It's okay. It's normal.
A lot of people have this fear of speaking
to people in authority, but remember, they're
just humans, too. So, try. Just say hi to
them, compliment them on something. People love compliments. I don't know why. If you
compliment me, I get a little embarrassed.
I'm like... Thank you. But most people really
enjoy compliments. So, if you're in an elevator,
if you're talking to co-workers, or your boss,
or someone that's a stranger that you don't know them, it's okay. Practice your English
with them. Give it a shot. And remember, your
English is awesome. If they don't want to
talk to you, that's their loss. So, getting out of uncomfortable situations, it's done.