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by Liz Walter
When we want to speak to someone for a specific reason, we don’t usually begin immediately with the thing we want to say. Instead, we often use a phrase that will help the other person get some idea of what sort of conversation it is going to be. Continue reading “I need to ask you a favour: signalling what we are going to say”
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My first post on death and dying looked at softer, less direct ways of talking about this subject, for example saying that we ‘lose’ a person or that a person ‘passes away’ rather than saying they ‘die’. Today, I’m looking at idioms and phrases generally in this area, some of which are also gently euphemistic. Continue reading “Talking about death (Part 2)”
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It’s the second week of February and here in Cambridge, the weather feels arctic! As I type this, my fingers are as cold as ice. Time to get that electric heater from the spare room! In a way though, it’s appropriate, as today’s post is about how we describe the effect that the weather has on us.
Continue reading “Chilled to the bone or roasting? (The effect that the weather has on us)”
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by Liz Walter
We all have times when we need to reassure someone, perhaps because they have done something they regret, because they are worried about something they have to do in the future or because they are experiencing something that is causing them anxiety.
Continue reading “Nobody blames you: phrases for offering reassurance”
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by Liz Walter
We all make judgments every day about what to believe and what not to believe, so it’s not surprising that there are several nice phrases to express this process.
If you have something on good authority, you have been given information about it by someone you trust:
I have it on good authority that she’s considering selling the property. Continue reading “I feel it in my bones: phrases connected with believing or disbelieving”
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by Liz Walter
My last post looked at ways of responding to introductions and introducing other people. Today’s post gives some ideas about how to take the conversation further. We call this kind of chatting small talk but with luck it can lead to deeper and more interesting conversations! Continue reading “Have you come far? Chatting to someone you don’t know (2)”
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by Liz Walter
Chatting to someone you don’t know can be difficult at any time, but it’s especially hard if you aren’t speaking in your first language. Back in 2017, my colleague Kate Woodford wrote a useful post about introducing yourself and giving a little information about yourself. This post and my next look at ways of continuing the conversation. Continue reading “Do you know many people here? Chatting to someone you don’t know (1)”
Readers of this blog often ask us for conversational English. They want to learn phrases for chatting informally with friends and colleagues. To help with this, some of our blog posts focus on the sort of conversations that we all have during the course of a day or a week. In this post, we’re looking at what you can say on a Monday when someone asks ‘How was your weekend?’ Continue reading “Did you have a nice weekend? (Chatting about the weekend)”
This post takes a look at a group of phrases that we use when we talk about the future.
Some of the phrases that we use when we talk about our future plans and ideas simply mean ‘at some time in the future’, (without mentioning a particular time), for example at some point: At some point, we’ll look into buying a new laptop. Continue reading “Going forward, sooner or later (Expressions to talk about the future)”
by Liz Walter
Last month I wrote about the importance of collocations (word partners) for making your English fluent and natural. In this post I am going to concentrate on collocations connected with a very basic topic – communicating.
A major reason to learn good collocations is to avoid using common words too much. So while it’s fine to say that someone ‘starts’ or ‘has’ a conversation, it would be much more impressive to use the collocations strike up a conversation or hold a conversation:
She struck up a conversation with one of the other passengers.
I know enough French to be able to hold a conversation. Continue reading “Hurling insults and hazarding a guess: ways to talk about communication”