The other day I found an excellent youtube video about small talk. It mentioned the Top Five topics of Small Talk are:
Work, Life, Travel, Food, Weather
Knowing the topics are not enough. As the practice, it is suggested to list some questions and try to answer them in your way.
Then you can reuse them in your real live. I list mine here:
Work
Q:What do you do for work?
A: I am a software engineer.
Q: What motivate you to be a sofware engineer/ What do you love about your job?
A: I found this job is very challenging, we can turn the design into reality/vituality, and build the things up from scratch.
Q: What’s your typical workday look like?
A: Every morning, the team will have a catch-up to give a round table update, which we call stand-up meeting, in the meeting everyone can know about each other’s progress and who need helps on anything. Then we will start the programming and testing. In between the acutal work, we will also have some meetings with other teams to make sure the project smooth.
Life
Q: Have you got much planned for the weekend?
A:Yea, we are going to White Hill Reserved for a hiking on Saturday, another family will go with us. I think it will be fun.
Q: What do you like to do in your spare time?
A: I like playing the ukulele. Recently I am learning to play a new song called “Just The Way You Are” written by Billy Joel.
Q: Have you read a good book recently?
A: Too busy to read recently. But I read Stephen King’s “The Stand” a few months ago, it’s a story about Pandemic, it’s a fantasic book.
Q: Have you seen any good movies?
A: I watched “Dark Knight” last week, I like the storyline and the charactor Joker.
Q: So, do you have any kids/Pets?
A: Yes, I have 2 daughters, they are 5 and 8 years old.
Travel
Q: So, are you planning on getting away for the holidays?
A: We haven’t booked anythings in, so will just stay in xxxxx, and may have a couple of day trips to xxxxx.
Q: Are you taking time off over Christmas?
A: Yep, I will take extra 4 days off, I will spend the time with family.
Q: You went to ___ last year, didn’t you? Do you have any recommendation?
Q: What places are on your bucket list?
A: I would like to say it’s Japan, I have watched so many travelling program about Japan, some day I will be there to have a look, I like the Japanese food and the culture over there.
Food
Q: Do you know any good restaurant around here?
A: I think XXXX Japanese restaurant is a good one, I went there last week, the Beef Don is highly recommended, and it cost me only $12.
Q: I am cooking __ tonight, what about you?
A: Usually my wife makes the dinner, but in the coming weekend, I will make the Hainan chicken rice.
Q: Have you tried the ___ restaurant on __ street, I heard that it’s amazing.
Q: Do you like Thai food?
A: Oh, I love it, and the green curry is my favourite.
Weather
Q: It’s a beautiful day today, isn’t it?
A: Yea, beautiful sunshine, it will be good if we can go out for a walk rather than sitting in the office.
Q: Can you believe all the rain we’ve been having lately?
A:
Q: It’s pouring out there! It’s shame I rode my bike today. How did you get to work?
A:
And More:
- Do you have any plan in the weekends?
- How was your weekends?
- Are you going to take any day off in the Christmas time?
- How was the weather like last night?
- Do you have a second language?
- What project are you working on at the moment?
- Where do you live by the way?