40 phrases for starting conversations in English

09/12/23 • 8 min

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Do you have difficulty speaking English? Sometimes the hardest part is simply starting a conversation. Today you'll learn 40 conversation starters that native English speakers use in various real life situations – formal or informal, at work, school, or other contexts! These aren’t especially “deep” conversation starters like you might want to use on a first date, when you’re interested in getting to know someone extremely well. Instead, they are more suited for “small talk” – casual conversation about topics of general interest.

You will learn lots more phrases inside my Everyday English Speaking Courses - they cover tons of situations, like what to say during:

travel
shopping
eating in restaurants
socializing
agreeing/disagreeing
making invitations and requests
giving criticism or advice
expressing your thoughts
...and much more.

I hope to see you inside!

You will learn lots more phrases inside my Everyday English Speaking Courses - they cover tons of situations, like what to say during:

travel
shopping
eating in restaurants
socializing
agreeing/disagreeing
making invitations and requests
giving criticism or advice
expressing your thoughts
...and much more.

I hope to see you inside!

Previous Episode

Reported Speech: Rules, Examples, and Exceptions!

A LOT of students ask me about "reported speech," when we talk about what somebody else said. For example:

Direct Speech: “I’ve been to London three times.”
Reported Speech: She said she’d been to London three times.

There are a lot of tricky little details to remember... but don’t worry, I’ll explain them and we’ll see lots of examples. There are also two quizzes for you to practice!

So much of English grammar - like this topic, reported speech - can be confusing, hard to understand, and even harder to use correctly. I can help you learn grammar easily and use it confidently inside my Advanced English Grammar Course. I will make even the most difficult parts of English grammar clear to you - and there are lots of opportunities for you to practice. If you want to take your English grammar to the next level, then my Advanced English Grammar Course is for you!

Next Episode

How to keep a conversation going (with examples!)

In the last lesson, you learned how to start a conversation in English. In this lesson, you will learn how to keep a conversation going - with examples!

If you like learning English from conversations, then you will LOVE my Everyday English Speaking Courses, because each lesson is based on a dialogue. This is a very effective way to learn English phrases in context.

I think some English learners can be a little afraid of having conversations because they’re afraid they’ll have to speak for a long time. But as you can see from these examples, each person just says one or two sentences, and then it’s the other person’s turn to speak. It’s a balanced interaction - a conversation involves taking turns, not just one person talking on and on for a long time. So don’t be scared to have conversations in English! I know you can do it, and remembering the tips from this video will really help you. Of course, it’s even easier to have conversations when you know lots of phrases to express yourself! You can learn them inside my Everyday English Speaking Courses. Like I mentioned earlier, the course lessons are based on conversations, so you can learn the phrases naturally.