Small Talk in English: How to Start a Conversation, Keep It Going and End It

What small talk is, and the four moves that make it work

Cambridge defines small talk as “conversation about things that are not important, often between people who do not know each other well.” The topics don’t matter much, but the talk does: it tells the other person you’re friendly and open to talking. The technical term for this kind of talk is phatic communion, which Wiktionary defines as communication “primarily for social purposes rather than for the exchange of vital information, such as small talk and social pleasantries.” Cambridge’s entry for phatic gives a familiar example: “the phatic meaning of ‘How are you?’”

Small talk also tends to go better than people expect. In experiments by Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder, commuters on trains and buses who were asked to talk with a stranger reported a more positive ride than those asked to keep to themselves, while people who only imagined the two options predicted the opposite (Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 2014). A later field experiment with London-area train commuters again found a better experience for those who talked; the researchers concluded that worry about starting may hold people back, because commuters expected others not to be interested in talking (2022). And after a conversation, people tend to underestimate how much the other person liked them, a “liking gap” found among strangers in a lab, first-year college students and their dorm mates, and workshop participants (Psychological Science, 2018). These studies were about conversation in general, not about speaking a second language, but they’re a good reason to start the conversation anyway.

Small talk is usually short: a couple of exchanges in a line or an elevator, a few minutes at a party. You don’t need to be funny or know a lot about the topic. You need one phrase for each move, and you need to listen.

How to start small talk: openers for six settings

The easiest opener is about something you and the other person share at that moment: the place, the weather, the wait, the event, the person who invited you both. A comment with a tag question, like “Cold today, isn’t it?”, is easy to answer, and a question about the shared situation, like “How do you know Maria?”, invites more than one word. Use the lines below as they are or swap in your own details.

At work, in the elevator and before a video call

• “How’s your week going?” works any day. On a Monday, try “Did you have a good weekend?”; on a Thursday or Friday, “Any plans for the weekend?”
• “How’s the new project going?” or “How are you finding the new role?” for someone who just started something.
• In the elevator or the office kitchen: “Morning! Is that coffee from the new place downstairs?” A comment on what’s right in front of you needs no preparation.
• Before a video call starts: “Can you hear me OK?”, “Where are you calling in from today?” or, with people in another time zone, “Is it still morning there?”

At work, small talk is often a short warm-up before the work starts. Our guide to business English conversation covers it in depth, with work-related questions and how to move on to business; for longer breaks, see our lunch conversation topics for coworkers.

With neighbors

• “Hi, I don’t think we’ve met. I’m Ana. I just moved into 4B.” Give your name and a fact that explains why you’re saying hello.
• “How long have you lived here?” is easy for anyone to answer and often leads to tips about the area.
• “Do you know a good coffee place around here?” Asking for a recommendation gives the other person an easy way to help.
• “Your garden looks great.” or “What’s his name?” to someone walking a dog. Compliment something they chose or care for, not their body.

If the conversation turns to who you are and what you do, our guide on how to introduce yourself in English has short scripts for it.

At a party or event

• “How do you know Maria?” is the classic party opener, because everyone there knows the host somehow.
• “Have you been to one of these before?” works at conferences, meetups and classes.
• “Have you tried the dumplings? They’re amazing.” Food gives you something to talk about right away.
• “Hi, I’m Leo. Mind if I join you?” to join a small group. Wait for a pause before you say it.

For more lines for one kind of event, see our wedding conversation starters.

Waiting in line or at a shop

• “Is this the line for tickets?” A practical question is the most natural way to start talking to a stranger.
• “It’s busy today, isn’t it?” or “This line is barely moving.” A small shared complaint is fine.
• “Have you tried this one? I can’t decide.” in a store or a bakery.
• To a cashier or barista: “How’s your day going?” and, when you leave, “Have a good one!”

With a taxi or rideshare driver

• “How’s your day going? Busy?”
• “Is traffic always like this around here?”
• “Do you know any good places to eat near the hotel?” A local tip is an easy thing to ask for.
• If the driver answers in a word or two, let the conversation go. A quiet ride is fine too.

Online: team chats, posts and webinars

• In a team chat: “Happy Friday, everyone! Any fun plans?”
• Before a webinar or an online class starts: “Hi all, joining from Lisbon. Looking forward to this!”
• Under a colleague’s post: “Congrats on the new role! How are you finding it so far?”
• Online, people answer when they have time, so one friendly line is enough. Don’t send a second message just because nobody replied yet.

How to answer “How are you?”, “How’s it going?” and “What’s up?”

These look like questions, but in small talk they usually work as greetings. Cambridge lists “How are things?”, “How’s everything?” and “How’s it going?” as informal greetings, and defines “What’s up?” as a way of “asking how someone is or what someone has been doing,” with the reply “Nothing much.” A pre-arrival orientation for international students at Truman State University puts it this way: “Hi, how are you?” is “a general greeting, not an invitation to share all of your problems.” For more ways to say hello, see our list of English greetings.

“Fine, thank you. And you?” is correct; Cambridge’s own example answer is “Fine, thanks, how are you?” It works for a quick hello, but it gives the other person nothing new to pick up. When you have a minute to talk, add one small detail.

• Ask back every time. “You?”, “How about you?” and “And you?” all work. Without it, the exchange stops with you.
• “What’s up?” isn’t asking for a report. Cambridge’s example reply is “Nothing much,” and “Not much, you?” works the same way.
• If things aren’t great, be honest but light. “Honestly, it’s been a long week” or “Hanging in there” is enough. Cambridge defines hang in there as “do not give up,” so “I’m hanging in there” says things are hard but you’re OK. Save the details for friends.
• Match the greeting. If someone says “Hey, how’s it going?”, a relaxed “Good, you?” fits better than a formal “I am fine, thank you.”

How to keep small talk going

After the opener, three tools keep the conversation moving: follow-up questions, a small detail of your own and short reactions. The first is the most useful. In three studies of live conversations, Karen Huang and colleagues found that people who asked more questions, particularly follow-up questions, were liked more by their conversation partners, and that people didn’t expect asking questions to have that effect (Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 2017).

Ask a follow-up question

A follow-up picks up a detail the other person just gave you. Listen for a place, a plan, something new or a feeling, then ask about it.

Share a small detail

Questions alone can turn small talk into an interview. Answer the question, add one detail about yourself, then hand the turn back: “I’m from Osaka, actually. Have you ever been to Japan?” The detail gives the other person a new thread to follow, and asking back keeps the turns even. This answer, detail, question pattern is our rule of thumb, and it’s the one the dialogues below follow.

React in a word or two

Short reactions show you’re listening and give you a second to think of a follow-up.

A short pause is normal. An awkward silence, in Cambridge’s words, is one “in which nobody speaks, making people feel uncomfortable or embarrassed.” When a topic runs out, go back to a detail from earlier (“So you said you’re into cooking…”), comment on something around you, or move to an exit. Our guide to English conversation topics has five repair moves for when a topic dies. If you need a second to find a word, a stalling phrase like “Let me think” works better than going quiet; our guide to English filler words has more.

Safe topics and topics to avoid

Safe small talk topics are ones anyone can answer without revealing much: what’s around you, what’s coming up, what you both like. The topics to avoid come from two guides for international students in the US, by Truman State University and James Madison University.

Treat these as defaults. JMU’s guide says such topics “should not be discussed until you know a person well,” so they open up as you get to know someone, and if the other person brings a topic up, you can follow their lead. Norms also vary by country, region and person. A University of Reading guide for international students in the UK asks, “Why are we so obsessed with talking about the weather?” A Korea Herald column says Koreans often ask someone’s age at the start of a conversation (more on that below).

How to change the topic

Three short phrases do most of the work. Cambridge says by the way is “used to introduce a new subject,” speaking of something means “related to the subject being discussed,” and in conversation anyway is used “to change the subject, return to an earlier subject, or get to the most interesting point.”

How to end small talk politely

A polite exit has three parts: a signal word (“Anyway,” “Well,” “OK”), a reason or a plan, and a warm closing line. The reason doesn’t have to be dramatic: getting back to work, saying hi to a friend or getting another drink is enough. You can also make the exit about the other person’s time: “I should let you go.”

• Catch up means to talk and exchange news. Cambridge’s example for catch up is “Let’s have a coffee next week and catch up,” a friendly close with someone you’ll see again.
• If you want to meet again, name a day. “We should grab coffee sometime” is friendly but open; “Are you free for coffee on Thursday?” is a plan.
• Don’t just walk away. Even a quick “Nice talking to you!” closes the conversation.

Three model small talk dialogues, line by line

Each dialogue goes through the four moves in under a minute. The notes show what each line does.

1. Before a video call (B1)

2. Meeting a new neighbor (A2–B1)

3. At a friend’s party (B1–B2)

Read each dialogue out loud, then switch roles. The names and details are made up for illustration. Notice that nobody says anything clever: the conversations keep moving because each person adds a detail and asks one question.

Notes for speakers of Japanese, Korean, Spanish and Portuguese

Some small talk trouble comes from your first language: habits that are normal at home, words that look English and mean something else, or phrases that don’t translate word for word. Here are a few for each language, each with a source.

If you speak Japanese

• Listening sounds. A study of English conversations found that Japanese listeners gave short listener responses, called backchannels, “far more frequently” than Americans from the Midwest (White, Language in Society, 1989). A later study of 30 English conversations between Japanese and American speakers found differences in how often, where and why each group used them, and evidence that the habits they didn’t share contributed to negative impressions (Cutrone, Intercultural Pragmatics, 2014); White had found no such evidence. Either way, nodding and “uh-huh” are fine, but small talk also needs your words: a reaction plus a follow-up question.
• Pauses. If you think of Japanese conversation as full of long pauses, the data say otherwise: in a ten-language study of turn-taking, Japanese speakers answered yes/no questions fastest of all, about 7 milliseconds after the other person finished on average, compared with about 200 milliseconds across all ten languages (Stivers et al., PNAS, 2009). If you go quiet in English while you look for a word, a short holding phrase tells the other person you’re still in the conversation: “Let me think…” or “How can I put this?”
• Words that look English. スマート means slim (Wiktionary), but smart means intelligent in American English and tidy or stylish in mainly British use, and comments on weight are on the avoid list anyway. マンション is a condominium or an apartment building (Wiktionary), but a mansion is “a very large, expensive house,” so say “I live in an apartment” or “a condo.” Wiktionary glosses テンション as excitement, while English tension is nervousness, so テンションが高い is “I’m so excited” or “I’m in a great mood today.”
• お疲れ様です. Wiktionary glosses お疲れ様でした as “I appreciate your efforts, thank you very much, good work”: several English phrases for one Japanese one. When you leave work, try “See you tomorrow!” or “Have a good evening!”; after a long meeting, “Thanks, everyone.”

If you speak Korean

• Age questions. In a Korea Herald column, Min Byoung-chul writes that Koreans often ask someone’s age or birth year at the start of a conversation, because tradition calls for speaking differently to someone older, and that millennials are less likely to ask (2022). English grammar doesn’t change with the listener’s age, and Truman State University’s guide for international students in the US advises not to ask women about their age at all. To learn more about someone, ask “What do you do?” or “How long have you lived here?”
• Konglish. 핸드폰 is a cell phone (Wiktionary), so say “my phone,” not “my hand phone.” 파이팅 means “good luck!” or “go for it!” (Wiktionary); in English, say “Good luck!” or “You’ve got this!” 서비스 can mean something given for free, “on the house” (Wiktionary), so at a restaurant ask “Is this on the house?”

If you speak Spanish

The Spanish meanings come from Cambridge’s Spanish–English dictionary (constipado, embarazada, simpático, actualmente, asistir, pariente) and the English ones from its English dictionary (constipated, sympathetic, actually). Several of these come up in exactly the moments small talk is about: how you feel, what you did on the weekend, who you saw.

If you speak Portuguese (Brazil)

Sources: Wiktionary for assistir (to watch, to witness, to attend) and Cambridge’s Portuguese–English dictionary for parente (relative), pretender (to intend, to want) and fome (ter fome, to feel hungry); Cambridge defines English pretend as behaving “as if something is true when you know that it is not.” “Tudo bem?” has an easy match: Wiktionary translates tudo bem as “how are you?” and “I’m fine,” so “How’s it going?” and “All good, thanks!” work.

A short routine to practice small talk

Small talk feels hard because it happens fast and without warning. The fix is to have your lines ready before you need them. This routine is our suggestion; it takes about 15 minutes.

1. Pick two settings you’ll face this week. A Monday at work and a party on Saturday, or a new neighbor and a call with a client.
2. Write one line for each move. An opener, your answer to “How are you?” with a real detail, two follow-up questions and one exit line.
3. Say each line out loud three times, until it comes out without reading.
4. Run the whole conversation. With a friend, a recording of yourself or an AI tutor, go through all four moves in two or three minutes.
5. Use one line for real. Afterwards, notice what the other person said back and plan a follow-up question for next time.

Practice small talk with an AI tutor

Step 4 is the hardest to arrange. In Fluently, you talk with an AI tutor by voice, like on a phone call. You can describe your own scenario for a role-play, and the tutor plays the other role. For example: “You’re my new neighbor. We meet by the mailboxes in our building. Make small talk with me for a few minutes, and let me be the one who ends the conversation.” Before the call, pick an opener, two follow-up questions and an exit line from this page.

After your turn, a card can show a grammar fix, a more natural way to say your sentence (the way a native speaker would put it) or a better word, and the conversation keeps going. Your scores for pronunciation, fluency, vocabulary, grammar and coherence update as you practice. In the settings, you can turn off live captions, so you practice catching phrases by ear, and change the tutor’s speaking pace: start slower, then move to normal speed.

To see where you stand first, the free English speaking test in the app is a conversation of about four minutes that estimates your CEFR level and gives you an overall score out of 100 and scores for five skills.

Fluently is free to start. Take a free AI speaking assessment to see your level, then practice with games that build your vocabulary and pronunciation. Conversations with your AI tutor come with Fluently Premium.

Try your four moves in a real conversation

Get the Fluently app and take the free AI speaking assessment to see your level, then practice with games that build your vocabulary and pronunciation. Conversations with your AI tutor, where you can role-play your own small talk scenarios and get cards after your turn, come with Fluently Premium.

Download on theApp StoreGet it onGoogle Play