 How to continue a conversation in English from espressoenglish.net Here's an example of how not to have an English conversation. Did you have a good weekend? Yes, I did. And you? Yeah Unfortunately the conversation stops here because there's no natural way to continue it. You have to think of a new question This is okay if you only want to have a quick conversation For example, if you are quickly passing a co-worker in the hallway, but how can you have a longer conversation in English? Today I'm going to teach you three keys to continuing a conversation The first one is to ask questions that start with question words like who what when where why and how Try to avoid yes or no questions Because yes or no questions can be answered with a very short answer. Yes or no But questions that start with question words will bring out more information from the other person For example, if you ask the other person, how did you spend your weekend? Then they will start talking about the activities they did The second key to continuing a conversation is this in each of your answers give one or two Details that will help continue the conversation. You don't need to talk for a long time So it takes the pressure off The third key is to talk about these topics family interests and hobbies sports TV movies music popular culture current events Travel and interesting places and your experiences or the other person's experiences Unless the other person is a very good friend of yours Avoid topics like politics religion sex life health problems and personal finances These are considered topics to be discussed only among very close friends or family members Here are two example conversations Notice how each person adds one or two details and then there was a follow-up question about the details Conversation one Hey, how was your weekend? Pretty good. I went to a baseball game with my brother Really who was playing? The Yankees and the Red Sox were huge Yankees fans Yeah, how is the game? Very exciting. It was tied until the last inning when we won two to one That's great. I can't say I'm a baseball fan myself. I prefer basketball basketball, huh playing or watching Both I've played basketball since I was a kid No kidding. You must be really good. Well, I just play for fun. It's a great workout I bet I could use more exercise myself, but I don't think I'm cut out for basketball I was thinking of joining a martial arts class That sounds interesting. Which one? So you can see how the conversation goes from the weekend to baseball to basketball and then Exercise and martial arts each person just gives one or two details and then the follow-up question kind of comes naturally Here's another one conversation number two. This conversation takes place in a park What a beautiful day. It feels like summer Sure does. I can't wait for the summer. We're taking a big family vacation in June. Oh Where are you going? We're going to Colorado for a month of hiking and camping. Have you ever been there? Yes, I've actually been to Denver twice on business trips, but they didn't involve any hiking How about you any special plans for the summer? No, not really. I'm saving up my vacation time for December when I'm going to Costa Rica. Wow. Why Costa Rica? Well, my best friend from college lives there now She owns a hotel and she invited me to spend a couple of weeks there to escape the cold winter weather How wonderful do you speak any Spanish? Barely any only what I remember from classes in high school Again, it's easy to keep the conversation going when you ask about the other person's plans and experiences. I Think it's great to learn spoken English from conversations and in my everyday English speaking course you have that opportunity You'll read and listen to a dialogue and then I'll explain the phrases and expressions Click on the link in the video to take a free sample