#46 Leverage your questions skills for better conversations

A lot of people want to learn conversational English, rather than grammar and writing.

One way to better your conversational English is through improving your ability to ask questions.

Asking questions in a skilled way does NOT equal conversation, but it is a key ability that can greatly improve your conversation experience.

Because in a conversation we usually want to sound interested. And questions do exactly that.

They are not only used to get information, but also to express interest, and to help to keep a conversation going.

Some questions can be tricky in English to make. Even at intermediate levels I see students form questions with certain difficulty.

1-Minute Tip ?

There are two kinds of questions, basically:

• "yes or no" questions such as “Are you from France?” or “Can you play the guitar?”

• "open ended" questions like “What do you think of this place?” or “How do you cook paella?”

If you ask someone “What movies do you like?”, you can probably generate more conversation right away than if you just ask “Do you like movies”?

These questions cannot be answered with simply yes or no. They're called open ended questions because there are various possible ways to answer them.

Working on your questions skills is a good idea for conversations when you prefer to stay more on the listener's side and speak less.

This content is authentic and it is not AI generated.

I write these weekly tips for you because I enjoy sharing techniques that I have seen work for my students through my 20+ years of teaching experience.

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?? Hi, I'm Gábor

I am an English speech fluency trainer, specialized in pronunciation training.

Connect | Gábor Légrádi | MA, RSA/CTEFLA