Want to start conversations in English naturally and confidently? In this English conversation lesson, you'll learn useful conversation openers, everyday greetings, and small talk phrases that native English speakers use in daily life.
Discover how to use common expressions such as "How are you doing?", "How's it going?", "What's up?", and "How about you?" Learn the differences between these phrases, understand when to use formal or informal expressions, and practice responding naturally in everyday conversations.
In this lesson, you'll learn:
✅ How to start a conversation in English ✅ The difference between "How are you doing?" and "How's it going?" ✅ How to use informal greetings like "What's up?" ✅ The difference between "What are you doing?" and "Where are you going?" ✅ How to ask follow-up questions with "How's your job?" and "How's your family?" ✅ How to make small talk in English at school, work, and in everyday situations ✅ How to end a conversation politely with expressions like "Nice talking to you" and "Have a good one" ✅ How body language, smiling, and eye contact help you communicate naturally
Whether you're an English beginner, an ESL student, or an intermediate English learner, this lesson will help you improve your spoken English, build your conversational skills, and feel more comfortable speaking English with other people.
Practice these expressions today! Start with a simple greeting, ask a follow-up question, and learn how to keep a conversation going naturally.
If you enjoy learning English through practical conversations and everyday expressions, subscribe to our channel for more English lessons, speaking practice, and useful tips to improve your fluency.
Now you can learn English quickly by yourself at home for free step by step! This video gives you a topic for conversation, something to speak about, as well as some words and phrases to use. Great for teachers and students of English as a second language (ESL) both in the classroom and as self-study.
Conversation openers. Let's start talking in English.
Which of the following are most similar
in meaning? How are you doing? What are you doing?
How's it going? Where are you going?
Think about it.
The most similar in meaning are how
are you doing and how's it going. When you
start a conversation in English, right after hi or hello,
you say how are you doing or how's it
going. Informally, you might say, how you doing?
Or how's it going? What do these phrases mean?
They're a type of greeting used to connect with the other person.
They mean something like,
what is your overall or general condition or situation?
No one expects a long answer. A simple
okay or good is all that is required in response.
After that, you need to ask the other person,
How about yourself? Or yourself? How about you?
What are the differences among these sentences?
How are you doing? Is asking about your condition or feeling.
How's it going? Is talking about your
situation. Do not say, how are you going?
That is incorrect. You can also ask, what are you doing?
This is talking about your actions. What's up?
This is informal. What are you doing right now?
Or where are you going? This is asking about your direction.
We can also say where are you heading
or where are you headed, which is also asking about your direction.
Now here's a typical
quick conversation. Hi, how are you doing?
Okay, how about you? Good. What's up? Not much.
Just going to class. You can stop the conversation here.
Have a good one. Maybe you don't have time
to talk, or maybe you're in a hurry.
You do not have to continue the conversation. That's enough.
But if you want to have a longer conversation,
you can use other phrases, what I call
how's your statements. For example, how's your job?
How's your family? How's your class? Now,
you may have to change the grammar a little bit.
How are your classes? How was your weekend for
past tense? Notice the steps in what we call small talk,
short conversations. Hi, how are you doing?
Sometimes that's all that's necessary.
If you're busy or in a hurry, that's all you have to say,
but make sure you smile and give some eye contact.
Body language is important here
because you're not saying much.
If you want to take it to the next step, go a little bit further
with the conversation. You can ask, what's up?
In this situation, you might stop for a minute
and talk to the other person.
Then if you want a longer conversation, you can get into the how's
your statements? How's your job? How's your family?
Then you can ask for more details and
have a longer conversation.
When you're finished, you can say, nice talking to you.
Have a good day
or have a good one. Have a great class.
We often call this small talk. The purpose is to make a
connection and to show friendship.
Now, we don't usually do small talk for a long time. Usually,
it's an introduction to something else.
After that, we will focus on a new purpose. If you
haven't seen someone for a long time,
you can do what we call reconnecting after a time apart.
Now, that's the topic of our next video.
So please be sure to click on the link below
for reconnecting and refocusing the conversation.
Hope that was helpful. Please remember to subscribe
to our channel, youtube.com at EnglishFree4U.
And check out the links below, eslgold.com
and englishvideo.com.
Thanks for watching.
