Mastering Conversations

You are listening to episode 18 of season two of English with Dane. Hit it. There's the music, so you know we have officially started the show. A quick reminder that this episode is also on my YouTube channel for those of you who prefer that. You won't see me because it's just audio like this, but I have added the transcript to the video so you can read along while you listen. And speaking of reading along while you listen, the transcript for this episode is in the description of this episode.

So if you want to go and click on that to make sure you retain more information, go for it. So let's make you the best conversationalist you can be. We'll start with a few more general things to take into account, and then we'll get into the nitty-gritty of actual things you can say or throw into a normal conversation to make it feel like a great conversation or great interaction. A good conversation does a lot.

A good conversation makes you like a person more than you did before, and it makes them like you in turn too. It strengthens a bond. It makes you feel valued and seen, visto o vista, it makes you feel valued and seen, and it can make you feel better about yourself. As humans, we long for connection, so we need connection. It's essentially the number one thing. Think of when you go to a party or an event. What makes you leave that place thinking, I had a really good time?

I think most of the time it's connecting with people. You meet a few new people, you have similar interests, you talk to someone who you hadn't talked to much before, and you hit it off. There could be cool music, good food, maybe an incredible location, but it's the connection with people that you really value. A good conversation often feels coordinated, like you're taking turns instinctively. They share stuff, you share stuff, and you walk away with a better connection.

Or a connection if you didn't have one before, in the case of meeting someone for the first time. It feels effortless sometimes, right? So how do we achieve this? Let's take a look at the quote requirements or guidelines for a good conversation according to research and well common sense. So there are several elements that make up a good conversation. Let's go through them real quick and then we'll get into what you can say in order to make sure you are covering all of these bases.

Let's start with the most important one: being a good listener. I think it's much more important to be a good listener than a good speaker. If you're a good listener already, these things will sound obvious, but you'd be surprised, this representeria, you'd be surprised how many people struggle with this, how many people are finding this difficult because they are just waiting to speak, maybe. To be a good listener, you have to be engaged, you have to be actively present. What does that mean?

First, you're being intentional. You are paying attention to the words and the context. It's listening, not hearing. Hearing is normally involuntary, while listening is an engaged process, one that requires, gotta get it, that requires effortful processing. So you need to actually put some effort into this type of listening.

This makes the person you're talking to feel connected because you're invested in what they're saying, and it actually connects you to them too, because it activates the reward center in your brain. So what you're not doing is hearing a word and then going immediately into the story that the word reminded you of. Being a good listener is in large part impulse control.

Even when people stop talking, give them a few seconds because oftentimes there's more to say, and that pause means they'll actually get to share that. And because we sometimes don't lead or start with the most personal stuff, this pause allows them to go into that last part, which usually would get cut off. You don't have to fill every silence. That's something a lot of us need to unlearn. This is what good interviewers or podcasters do, by the way.

I want you to try and notice this, que te descuenta, I want you to try to notice this from now on. Sometimes interviewers or podcasters will ask something, get an answer, and either go to a new question or share an experience of theirs. But good interviewers will maybe take five seconds, let the silence sit, and more often than not, they'll get an extra little bit from the subject.

See if you can spot this next time you're listening to your favorite podcaster or journalist and radio personality, etc. Second thing that makes you a good listener is nonverbal cues. We like talking to people who we know are listening, but how do we know someone is listening? Nonverbal cues. I mean verbal cues too, of course, like saying, mm-hmm, right, okay. But nonverbal cues also contribute to this. Nodding, con doble n, nodding helps, so moving your head up and down, like you're saying yes.

Eye contact, not too much because that's creepy, but a good amount. Having your shoulders directed toward the speaker. There are actually several things like this that we do instinctively that give people a sense that we're listening, and it's good to be aware of them in case we catch ourselves not doing them. Showing empathy, of course, is a huge aspect of being a good listener too. So validating emotions.

This shows that you understand their perspective, or that you are at the bare minimum trying to. The bare minimum, el minimo indispensable. Bare is spelled B-A-R-E, the bare minimum. So this shows that you understand their perspective, or that you are at the bare minimum trying to. This makes people feel connected. If you're telling someone a story about something at work that you didn't think was fair to you, and the person you're talking to says, wait, what? They said that to you?

That's crazy. You feel understood, you feel validated, and like this person is on your side. This is because most of the time, when we talk about things that have had a negative impact on us, we just want the person to commiserate. Great word, to commiserate. Condoble M means to express or share sympathy with someone who's going through a difficult time. This is because most of the time, when we talk about things that had a negative impact on us, we just want the person to commiserate, right?

To commiserate con doble M means to express or share sympathy with someone who is going through a difficult time, showing you that they understand their feelings of sadness, disappointment, etc. So instead of saying, Well, have you tried talking to blah blah, if you just say, Oh, that's so frustrating, congratulations, you did it. That last tip is the biggest relationship tip I can give you as well. Learn to recognize when someone actually wants help or advice or when they just want to vent.

Gram verbo, to vent, spelled V-E-N-T, means to express strong emotions, usually negative, like frustration or anger, disappointment, in order to release them, so in order to release them. It's the opposite of holding in your emotions and letting them fester. To fester, spelled F-E-S-T-E-R, from a medical standpoint, means to get infected, produce pus, no producir pus, and get worse over time.

So, in a figurative sense, to let negative emotions fester means to let them grow and worsen, empeorar, to worsen and produce more resentment inside in the long run. Here in Spain, while in Latin America se llama el tío Lucas. So, you know, punto para España, I guess. Back to being a good listener. Then there's paraphrasing, so summing up, no, um resumiendo, summing up what they shared and kind of saying it back to them. This sounds like a lot, but it's something we do all the time.

So if someone is telling you a story, you can say, wait, so you were in line at the airport like everyone else, but they singled you out. This is a really powerful way to show someone that you're listening. Here's another super important one. Follow-up questions. Follow-up questions are your best friend when it comes to conversation. Instead of just listening and then moving on to something else, you can ask them to elaborate on something they said or share more.

Maybe someone says, so I grew up in Spain and then moved to Poland and then ended up here in the UK. You could say, How old were you when you moved to Poland? What was that like for you? I feel like most people would ask why, right? Why did you move to Poland? The answer to that is probably, oh, I got a job there, or my wife's family lives there, or something like that. But if you ask how they felt about the move, you're much more likely to get something real that you can both connect over.

There's a lot more stuff, of course, but those are maybe the core principles to being a good listener and therefore a good conversationalist. So now let's get into specifics. This is where you write a few things down. You don't need all of these, but if you can incorporate a few of these into your next conversation, you're on the right track. Let's talk about follow-up questions first.

There was a Harvard study published in 2017 that showed that asking follow-up questions increased how much people like you, which is of course at the center of human connection. They used real-life conversations like speed dating events, online chats, and lab experiments to see what made people connect the most.

And their main finding was that people who asked more follow-up questions, so questions that built on que construyan, that built on something the other person just said, were rated as more likable and more understanding. It's important to note that the correlation was not based on just the amount of follow-up questions asked, but on how many were responsive follow-ups versus generic or pre-planned questions. So let's take a look at some examples.

The first one I mentioned already was what was that like? What was that like? You're not asking for the reason for something, which they might not even like that much anyway. You're asking about the experience. It's much more engaging to talk about your experience with something than the reason behind it. Next, what was going through your mind? What was going through your mind? Again, you're asking them about their experience and specifically their train of thought.

It allows them to walk you through it and allows you to really empathize with what they went through. Then there's what happened next. What happened next? You're invested, you want more, you're intrigued, and it sets them up to keep going. Maybe you can go for a different type of follow-up. Do you feel like that changed you at all? Do you feel like that changed you at all? More of a deep question, asking them to reflect about it. Maybe you can learn something through that experience.

Obviously, you have to gauge, Tines Committee, you have to gauge how to use a follow-up like this because it feels like a big request, perhaps. But I also think you'd be surprised with how willing, que tan dispuestos, how willing people are to answer questions like this because maybe they haven't thought about it too much and they're taking this opportunity to think it through. If someone is talking about a trip they went on, maybe ask, What made you want to go there? Or why Japan?

Or wherever they went. This allows them to speak about their inspiration for the trip, which is a fun thing to talk about and which might contain more information about the person. Maybe you say, Oh, what made you want to visit Japan? And they reply, Well, I've always been really into video games, Nintendo in particular, and so I wanted to And suddenly you're connecting over video games. Do you see what I mean?

Maybe I'm getting a bit specific, but I feel like specific is maybe what we need sometimes. Let's talk quickly about active listening and what you can say to show that you're engaged. You don't need a lot, no se falta mucho, you don't need a lot. You can throw in a right, oh wow, are you kidding me? Maybe that's rough if they express something particularly daunting. You gotta do something though, don't just stare at them with a blank face. This reminds me of something I saw a few days ago.

I'm sure you guys know about the millennial pause. Do you know about this? The millennial pause is that pause that millennials do when they film themselves, cuando se graban, when they film themselves. If you don't know about this, go check it out because it's fascinating. It's basically uh a second or two of waiting to make sure we are recording, to make sure it's working.

People think it's because millennials grew up in a time where although the technology was there, it wasn't the best yet, and we always kind of try to make sure it's okay. Gen Z doesn't really do this, they just hit record and they go for it. What is something characteristic about Gen Z is what people call the Gen Z shake. So that moment where they place the phone down somewhere to record, and the phone kind of shakes from that action. The Gen Z shake.

Well, apparently, there's another identifying feature of Gen Z. I'm talking about something called the Gen Z stare. I just learned about this. So apparently, Gen Z is different to the Millennial, Gen X, and Boomer generations in this particular aspect. It started when people observed Gen Z people, particularly in jobs that are people-facing and just staring at people instead of greeting them, and again, just staring when listening to them talk. So, not a lot of those active listening features.

I find it really interesting. I'm not trying to criticize every generation has their context, and we're not even aware of these things that we do. So the Gen Z stare, also known as the Gen Z gaze or the zoomer stare, it happens in large part, and this is from Gen Z people, this is what they have said. It happens in large part because their generation simply doesn't default to scripted greetings, like, hi, how can I help you, unless they actually feel it.

For them, silence or neutrality can be more authentic and they don't feel like it's rude. It would be rude to fake it. I thought that was a cool little tidbit. A tidbit is a small, interesting piece of information, by the way, spelled tidbit T-I-D B-I-T. More things to say in conversations. Like I said earlier, good conversations have that turn-taking element. They don't feel like monologues. So don't be afraid to throw in uh, what do you think, as a way to hand the floor back?

And when appropriate, share something back with, oh, that reminds me of, or oh, speaking of blah blah blah blah, so link what they're saying with something that you can share too. Maybe you can say, Oh, it's crazy that you bring that up because I was just talking to so-and-so about it. Por cierto, so-and-so's two hypothetical people. So, oh, it's crazy that you bring that up. I was just talking to blah blah blah about this.

When someone derails a good conversation and the messing with the dynamic, maybe they interrupt the person who was speaking. You could correct the course by saying something like, You got cut off before. What were you saying about blah blah blah? You got cut off. So cut off, a good phrasal verb to use there. If someone cuts you off, they interrupted you, right? And started going on about something else.

We use it for driving too, when someone suddenly moves their car into your lane, and the carril, into your lane, and makes you slow down or maybe hit the brakes really hard. Hit the brakes is an expression too. If your friend's telling a story and they're going too fast and you want them to slow down, you say, whoa, whoa, whoa, hit the brakes or pump the brakes.

If you're in a conversation and you want to say something that maybe contradicts what they said, or you want to give some advice, I would start by hedging. So by softening what you're about to say with something so it doesn't sound like you're taking your opinion too seriously, and to also make it easier for them to disagree without making it confrontational. To hedge what you're going to say, you can say something like, I'm probably way off, but blah blah blah.

I'm probably way off, but blah blah blah. Or I'm probably wrong on this, but doesn't blah blah blah. I'm probably wrong about this or wrong on this. I'm sure I haven't thought it through enough, but I love that one. I'm sure I haven't thought it through enough, but blah blah blah. Because then also what you say isn't as important, right? Because it's not like, oh, I've researched this so much. No, it's already. I'm sure I haven't thought it through enough.

I'm probably way off on this, but or correct me if I'm wrong, but I think this kind of hedging is really appreciated. To me, it shows that you don't want to put me in a situation in which I have to prove something. It shows me that you are considering my feelings and don't want to say, I think you're wrong. It makes me feel like you don't take yourself too seriously, too. Imagine you said something and someone just said, nope, that's not right. It feels pretty terrible.

But we all know someone like that. It's like the difference between saying, oh seguro que es así, igual yo leí mal, pero es que me pareció ver que like that feels much better. One more thing. I think it's really easy to jump straight into giving advice. Most people don't want your advice. If they do, they'll ask for it. But if you absolutely have to give advice, don't just go for it. Ask someone what they have tried first. Say something like, ah, that's a tough situation.

What have you tried so far? That's a tough situation, what have you tried so far? That's way better because you've empathized, right? And you're asking about the experience. What have you tried so far? You're not just telling them what you think they should do. If they are in that situation, they have probably thought about it more than you. Okay, that's it for this episode of English with Dane. I hope you found it useful. I hope you enjoyed it.

And if you did, share it with someone who you think would also enjoy it. Follow the show on Instagram and TikTok for more content and write to me. If you want me to talk about something in particular, just let me know. Alright, thanks for listening. Have a great week. Later.