in today's lesson I'm going to teach you everything you need to know to start conversations with strangers to meet new friends and to introduce yourself to new people in English it doesn't matter if you're a beginner intermediate or Advanced student there will be something for you in this lesson so make sure to watch until the end now first of all the first words you probably learned at school were hi or hello and I'm not going to talk about those words today instead I want to give you some very common Alternatives that native speakers use in
everyday conversation firstly instead of saying hi you could say hey okay what's up how are you doing how's it going and if you want to be even more informal you could say yo that's common amongst Americans or you could say Su which is obviously short for what's up again those are very very informal so I wouldn't recommend using them at work or with a professor on the more formal side of things we have phrases like good morning good afternoon or good evening okay those are standard phrases native speakers don't always use them in everyday casual
conversation especially good evening good afternoon those are a bit more formal but they're totally fine to use in any situation so those are the basic greetings we have in English now obviously if you meet somebody you want to ask them what their name is and be very careful in English we don't say how are you called how are you called that's completely wrong I know in a lot of languages that's how you would create this sentence is how you would structure it but in English we say what is your name what is your name or
if we're putting it together when we speak quickly we would say what's your name what's your name the only correct response would be my name is or again if we shorten it my name's for example my name is Michael what's your name now if you have a nickname a nickname is another name that is not your official name but it's what you like to be called you can say my name's Michael but I go by Mike for example I go by Mike or you could say my name's Michael but I prefer to be called Mike
I prefer to be called Mike so you've introduced yourself you've asked the other person what their name is you can also say pleasure to meet you pleasure to meet you nice to meet you great to meet you and if you want to be really formal you could say it's an honor to meet you I can't really think of too many situations when you would use this maybe if you met the president or somebody influential you could say it's an honor or a privilege to meet you and if you want to be really really polite if
somebody says this to you they say it's a pleasure to meet you you could say the pleasure is mine again that's really formal it's not super common but it's very diplomatic as we would say of course you can ask the question where are you from or where are you originally from to which the answer is obviously I'm from this city or this country I'm originally from this this city or this country but you could also answer in a bit more detail you could say I was born in or I'm from I'm originally from such and
such City but I grew up in a different place or I lived for several years in another place and and I have been living here for 3 months 6 months one year whatever now I have been living here is the present perfect continuous okay I have been living here it means you moved in the past but you are still living here now I have been living here for 3 years or since 2021 we use for for duration and since for the starting point 2021 of course if you want to ask somebody why they're here in
this specific place maybe that's a city a country or just the meeting the event or the party you could say what brings you here what brings you here and to answer that question you could could say I'm here because I know the host because I'm studying because I'm working etc etc etc we have this phenomenon in English I'm sure it exists in other languages too it's called Small Talk small talk now a lot of native speakers hate small talk I don't like it too much either but we just accept it because it's so important to
to meet new people you have to be good at Small Talk small talk is just casual conversation it's not too deep it's not too heavy it's quite basic it's maybe talking about the weather talking about what's happening around you in the situation we use small talk to break the ice to break the ice that means to get into a deeper conversation or to get to know somebody a bit better now a classic Small Talk example would be talking about the weather for example you could comment on what's happening outside you could say it's a lovely
day today isn't it or it's a miserable day today isn't it that's a very natural way of talking about the weather you could say we've had great weather lately or we've not had great weather lately now you can talk about the weather if you want but as I said maybe you want to be a bit more personal so you can ask some questions about the other person's life now one common question that a lot of people like to ask is what do you do for work or what do you do for a living be careful
we don't say what's your job doesn't sound natural we say what do you do for work or what do you do for a living I say you have to be careful with this question because in some places and in some communities it's considered rude it's considered a bit too invasive personally I don't see any problem with it but just so you know you might want to be a bit cautious with this question and definitely do not ask anybody how much money they make that's a big no no you can ask somebody what they do for
work but if they ask you what you do for work you could say I work as a and then your occupation I have been working as a blank for x amount of years or x amount of months or you could say currently I'm looking for a job currently I'm studying currently I am retired okay there are lots of different things you could say apart from work you can also talk about somebody's interests maybe you're at a party maybe you're at a social event you might want to connect with somebody on a bit of a deeper
level now obviously you can say what do you do in your free time or what are your hobbies that's totally okay but you can also say what are you passionate about what are you interested in at the moment or how do you like to spend your free time so these are all Alternatives that sound a bit more complex they sound a bit more elegant perhaps but of course there's nothing wrong with what do you do in your free time or what do you like to do as a hobby now if somebody asks you this question
you could say I'm passionate about XYZ I like to Surf I like to ski I like to read books okay I'm interested in something I'm interested in something careful it's always in it's never on or at or into it's always interested in something for example I'm interested in art I'm interested in playing piano those are also great Alternatives and lastly if you are a guest at somebody's house or you're a guest you've been invited to a meeting to a conference and you're talking to somebody who invited you or who is hosting you then you should
say thank you so much for having me thank you so much for having me of course you could also say thank you for the invitation thank you for inviting me but it sounds very natural to say thank you for having me we've learned some phrases you can use to introduce yourself to ask a few basic questions about other people and of course to share a bit more about yourself but at the end of the day probably the most important thing is confidence when you're meeting somebody new especially in American culture in British culture too as
well uh but I'm sure you're aware that confidence is a big thing in the United States it's important to smile it's important to be open it's important to have open body language so don't cross your arms keep them open like this even if you don't feel confident inside even if you feel shy even if you feel anxious socially it's really really important to at least try to fake it to try to make an effort to be sociable even if you don't feel fully confident with your English now I want you to memorize the phrases we
learned today there are other things you can say if you have any ideas or you have any things you would like to add then feel free to leave them in the comments below I'm looking forward to reading them if you want to improve your English with me this year then make sure to subscribe to English at the ready here on YouTube and click the link down in the description below to learn more about how I can help you improve your English if you like like the lesson if you found it useful make sure to leave
a like and I'll see you in the next video bye for now
