Transcript of AE 1275 - The Goss: How to Make Small talk with Aussies

G'day you mob. Pete here. And this is another episode of Aussie English, the number one place for anyone and everyone wanting to learn Australian English. So today I have a Goss episode for you where I sit down with my old man, my father, Ian Smissen, and we talk about the week's news. Whether locally Down Under here in Australia, or non-locally, overseas, in other parts of the world, okay. And we sometimes also talk about whatever comes to mind, right? If we can think of something interesting to share with you guys related to us or Australia, we also talk about that in The Goss.

So these episodes are specifically designed to try and give you content about many different topics where we're obviously speaking in English and there are multiple people having a natural and spontaneous conversation in English. So it is particularly good to improve your listening skills. In order to complement that, though, I really recommend that you join the podcast membership or the Academy membership at AussieEnglish.Com.au where you will get access to the full transcripts of these episodes, the PDFs, the downloads. And you can also use the online PDF reader to read and listen at the same time. Okay, so if you really, really want to improve your listening skills fast, get the transcript, listen and read at the same time. Keep practising. And that is the quickest way to level up your English. Anyway, I've been rabbiting on a bit. I've been talking a bit. Let's just get into this episode guys. Smack the bird. And let's get into it.

Dad, what's going on? He's just having..

Caught me in the middle of a slurp.

Opened my drink.

Getting rid of the drips off the drink.

Yeah. No. Sorry, guys.

Yeah, yeah. Pressed 'Go' too quickly.

This thought occurred to me while I had a quick toilet break.

Oh, there's- nothing good ever comes.

Ah hopefully it's all right. I thought we could do an episode on chatting about how to do, how to make small talk. It's one of those interesting things..

How to make small..

Make it. You don't do it.

Yeah. How to do small talk.

You create it.

Yeah. It's immediate tangent. That's an interesting use of, of those, of how we use different words in, you know, English speaking countries differently. Like, we say 'different from', Americans say 'different than'.

You know, what annoys me?

'Different to'.

Yeah.

Is there one in here? None of them is incorrect.

Well, it just settles. I guess it's one of those things where it's like evolution, right? Where a local population settles on a certain way of doing something or evolves a certain trait that's unique to them. And another population settles on something else. Yeah. We could talk about obviously language too, but something that always blows my mind is 'make a mistake', right? Is it 'make a mistake'?

Yeah. 'Make a mistake' rather than 'do a mistake'.

No no no. Sorry. Not that.

Yeah I..

'Make a decision'.

'I'll make a decision'.

Versus 'take a decision'.

Yeah.

'Take a decision' sounds so weird to me, to my ears. And that would make me think that I am used to hearing 'make a mistake'. 'Make a decision'. 'You need to make a decision.' 'Make a decision'.

Make one of those things where my editor brain. Not that I've ever been a formally trained editor, but my editor brain is. There's actually a single word that means that you don't need..

Choose.

No, 'choose' or 'decide'.

Yeah.

You can even use the same derivative. Like you don't need to 'make' a decision. You just 'decide'.

Yeah.

It's we we create. Superfluous language by trying to make it sound more sophisticated. And it becomes the, the semi sophisticated version becomes the expected term. And it doesn't make sense.

This is one of those weird things that I notice on the news in particular, usually from politicians. And I even think I can, I can it was um, what was the female premier of New South Wales called again? Gladys Berejiklian. Yeah, I remember her saying this. This was one of those moments that sticks out. She would always be like, 'We've taken the decision.' 'We've decided to take the decision to', you know, 'do this', 'do that', 'implement this'. And I remember thinking like, why do I always hear this on the news from politicians and not in person? I never, I..

Don't hear it. Normal people, whatever..

As far as I can remember..

I just did air quotes then for those who are as..

As far as I can recall, any time I talk to quote unquote people, you know, normal people in the street or whatever, I hear them say, 'make a decision' or, you know, yeah, those sorts of things. But there are some things that for whatever reason, I don't know if politicians do it because they're trying to sound more intellectual or more intelligent, or it is a certain way of saying it that is frequent elsewhere in the country or in other dialects.

I think it just..

I think Americans say, 'take a decision'..

Don't know.

Much more frequently than we think.

I think the things like 'take a decision' and you talk about..

Why are you 'taking' it?

It becomes that sort of subculture. It becomes common use in June subculture, police speak is another good one. You know, a Caucasian male, you meet a white man. Yeah.

Like notes from a Caucasian.

Like the Caucus Islands.

Exactly. What do you don't a male..

No one is going to criticise you for..

Male is not a noun. It is an adjective. A male what, you mean a male human? There is a word for that, 'man'. Like.

Yeah.

Or 'boy', or be more specific. Yeah. So yeah, I think there are those sort of things. But yeah, the, the 'make a decision', 'take a decision'. I find it bizarre because 'make a decision' makes sense to me. Because 'make a decision' means you are trying to create something.

Yeah.

'Take a decision' means, 'take a decision' means 'There's some predetermined options here. I'm going to take one'.

Yeah, 'I'm going to take one of these away'. I'm going to 'take the food from the restaurant'. I'm going to take this..

Which is actually accurate in politics, I suppose, because it's 'do we do this or don't we'?

These people made the decisions. And we decide which one to take,

.. which one to take. Yeah.

But yeah, it seems I always notice politicians and people on the news doing it, but in like informal, everyday language. I don't really hear people saying, 'We have to take a decision.' 'Take a decision'. You need to take- 'What do you want to eat for dinner? Take a decision'. It's like no one would say that.

Oh no.

No one would say that. And another thing I remember is, was it Scomo Scott Morrison saying 'We've had a lot of learnings'.

'Our learnings' has become, it's become those things. They go again. 'Learning' is a verb.

What, 'to learn'. Yes.

It is not a noun.

'We've had a lot of learnings'. And not only that, I could say we've had, I would understand saying we've 'We've had a lot of learning'. We have a lot of- learning has taken.

'A lot of learning took place'. It's still using it as a verb, but you don't do learnings.

No, 'a lot of learnings' is the gerund, right? It's a noun in that case. But you wouldn't pluralise it and say, yeah, there was one learning. And then we had another learning and then another one.

I know.

It's an immeasurable noun.

Yes, yes.

There's been a lot of learning.

Oh, seven sheeps.

But that was weird. I remember that happening with Scomo, and I think it would have been one interview that he had. And then all of a sudden it was parroted by loads of other politicians. And then also by the reporters and the journalists, repeating back to, 'Okay, what learnings did you have after this', you know, in an interview or whatever? And you're like, Oh my God, this is how it begins. It's just literally there was one.

See..

He just had a brain fart and said..

No, he didn't have a brain fart, he was trying to be trendy. Yeah. The and some of that shit just drives me nuts. The transformation of word types. 'Can you loan me something?' No. Loan is a noun. If you mean, 'Can I lend you something?' That's a verb, yes I can.

Oh, yeah. You'll be 'loaning' it from me. I'll be 'lending' it to you.

'Can you send me the invite?' No. 'I will invite you to something by sending you an invitation'. It's. And it just.

You're being pedantic, though.

I am being pedantic. And my darling friend Wendy, whom I love dearly, and knows far more about language than I do.

She's wrote the For Dummies English Grammar book..

..English Grammar, Australian English Grammar for dummies. She would just look at me and go, you're right, but language evolves. Get over it. And I don't mind language evolving by people inventing new words or new uses for words and those sort of things. But when there's a perfectly good word that is a derivative of the same word you're trying to use, just use the right one.

But it's, that's the funny thing about language, I guess. It's not about being efficient, it's about communication. And if you take a longer way of doing it, or in a more intelligent way of doing it, or a simpler way of doing it..

Just use the one that's established! It's lazy. That's the thing that I don't otherwise..

If that were the case, we would have one language that ever evolved and everyone would speak it exactly the same way, and you would only have a single word for everything. And I think, ironically, I think someone like yourself, you know, who is intelligent, probably appreciates having multiple options.

I do! I don't mind people creating new words. What I object to is using a word that sort of sounds right, but it's not the right word. When there's a perfectly good one, it is just as easy to use. And in fact, everybody has always used it.

I couldn't care less.

Yeah, 'I could care less'. That's the one that grates me most.

That's the one that gets you..

I have, I have more arguments with my American friends and relatives about that one.

'I could care less'.

'I could care less'. Everybody could. Yeah, yeah.

There's a few of those, right. I know one that again, I had an interesting question about. And it's one of those things.

We will get on to small talk. But this is small talk.

This is fun.

Yeah.

That was the fact that we say 'aren't I' instead of.

'Am I not'?

Amn't I.

Ah so 'am I not'..

But yeah I know, but we don't have the contraction of 'am' and 'not' together.

Yeah, 'am I not'. We don't have the contraction.

No. But you don't have 'am not I'.

'Am not I'.

Amn't.

Aren't I.

Yeah.

Aren't.

We would say 'aren't I', 'Aren't I going as well?'

And it's 'aren't we'. Yeah.

Yeah but you can, I know it's that..

But it's that, that subjective first person pronoun. And objectives. The distinction between 'I' and 'me' also gets confused all the time. And you hear it particularly in North America.

'Who's going?' 'He and I', yeah. It's like no, it should be he and he. Yeah. Who's going. Yeah. Me and him. He and I are going who is going?

Me and him.

He and I, no. It's for he and me.

No. Him and me. Yeah yeah yeah it's. And it's that. Yeah. It's just that confusion of pronouns and again that one I understand because it just becomes common usage and it's lazy and so on. And, and we all understand, we know 'I' and 'me' mean exactly the same thing. They are just two different words used in different grammatical structures, ironically the same thing.

So they're some of the words that are left over from cases in English, right where you have the the pronoun.

Subjective and objective.

... the way that it's spelt. It's said depending on what its grammatical role...

And 'me' actually comes from 'why'.

Well, they'd both be coming from the original Latin.

Whatever it was. But yeah.

But yeah, I just, I don't know. I love those sorts of things. It is one of those funny things when I think you first learn a language, the first language, you start learning. You kind of..

You learn it formally.

When you look at it and you're kind of like, why are all these exceptions? Why are all these weird an, like..

You mean you're..

Un-efficient way of doing? No, when you're learning a foreign language for the first time, and you're kind of looking at it through the lens of..

Formal .. and what do we do that.

Yeah, yeah. And you just have to start getting used to the fact that things aren't necessarily..

And you go and listen to a native speaker of that, and they don't use formal language at all.

I know. Yeah. Well, and Australians, it would be interesting to do, to know more about, or I imagine someone studied it, but to know more about dialects of English or I guess nations that speak a certain language and how their use of the language differs from one another in terms of formality or not. Like are Australians more informal on average than Americans. But even that is a trope, is that..

Within countries like Australia has very little accent difference across the country. There are..

Well, there's a diversity.

Different cadence. Not..

It's not geographic the same way that it is in, say, Britain.

Or in the United States, which isn't quite as bad. Britain's like Cornwall and Yorkshire. I reckon you could put a Yorkshireman and a Cornishman in the same room and get them to talk to each other. They wouldn't understand a word they were saying, and they're both speaking English and they both live in the same country.

It's pretty bizarre, right?

So yeah.

Yeah.

Anyway.

Small talk! Yeah, we can get on to small talk. So. How can we make this useful for listeners? How do you start small talk conversations and in what situations would you or would you not decide..

So you're talking small, small talk. You're- small talk among people who know each other? Or small talk be among people who don't?

You can do both.

Yeah. So and "don't" is probably easier.

Yeah.

Particularly for your audience who are more likely to be talking to and meeting people they don't know. You know, if you're a visitor to Australia or you're doing business in Australia or whatever, you're not friends with the people that you're talking to..

Travelling. Yeah, all that sort of thing..

So that sort of like you're in a pub and the person sits down next to you and says, G'day.

Yeah.

What's the next thing you say?

When it probably differs culturally. Certain cultures, I would imagine, would have different etiquette around when and when not to have small talk. So I, you know, like I imagine that Australians are probably friendlier than Americans with talking to people in public. Whereas perhaps, you know, people in another country say Japan or China or something may be less likely to just walk up to complete strangers and try and have a conversation with them for the sake of it. They'd be like, What do you want? What are you doing? You're trying to take something? My Estonian friends always had that thing of like, you get to Australia and everyone thinks you're like, cold and a psychopath because you don't smile and look at people in the eyes and everything that- people you don't know in the street.

... smile when walking down the street.

Yeah. And he's like, if you did that in, in, you know, Russia or Estonia or Sweden or whatever, they would just be like, they'll think you're a nutjob. They'll be like, What are you just, are you going to rape me? What are you doing? Like, and I remember Mart, my friend, saying when he came to Australia, it took him months to get used to just getting smiled at, but then also smiling at other people. And he was like, everyone thought I was a psycho to begin with. And then I kind of loosened up and became more open with my, you know, the expressing myself and my emotions and humour. And he's like, the funny thing was, when I went home, everyone thought I was a psychopath.

Because he was smiling!

.. smiling at everyone and talking to people and being all like, I had to learn to be cold again.

So there is culture, and certainly within Australia there is that culture that almost that everybody is worth at least greeting.

Yeah.

Acknowledging that they exist. So. It would, it would almost be considered rude. Using that example, I just said it'd be almost considered rude. If you're in a pub and you walk down, you know a person sitting at a bar and there's a stool next to it, and you go and sit on the stool of not acknowledging the other person.

Yeah.

You don't. Either the person who's already there turning and going, Oh, g'day, or you arriving, say, Oh, is this stool..? Or, you know, Is this available? Or..

You'd wonder what the threshold is for how chockers a place has to be, how full it has to be with people to for you to get to the point where you would no longer do that, right? Because if you walked into a packed pub and there was an empty chair..

The only thing you'd say is somebody..

.. has take it. Yeah, exactly. But you wouldn't be thinking, oh fuck, I've got to have a conversation with this person next to me, or it's a crowd..

You probably wouldn't.

But you wonder what the threshold is. You know, I wonder if people have done those experiments where there's a pub and..

There's seven people in the..

..just increased yet? At what point do people..

Nobody talk to each other?

Yeah. Just stop making small talk. Yeah, exactly. At what point, if we, if it was the other way around, where we start with a packed pub and we start taking people out, at what point do strangers start having more conversations with one another because of that? Kind of like, yeah, again, if I walk into a store and there's only one person in there who's behind the counter, you're going to make eye contact with them and say, G'day, you know? But if the store is full of people, you're not going to look at them and you..

Wave at everybody in the..

Hello, everyone. Hello. I'm here, fellow shoppers!

But if there's one in there..

Yeah.

You'd probably walk by, so. G'day, how are you going!

Yeah, yeah.

And that's the other thing too, is that 'how are you going' is not an invitation for a conversation.

Yes.

It is- and it's not saying 'don't respond', but you're not going to insult the other person if you don't.

Well, and the other person is going to seem like a psycho if they're like, well, actually my mum's a bit crook at the moment and my dog died like..

Dude, the answer, the answer is 'Yeah, good. And you?' 'All right. How are you going?'

Yeah. But yeah. Okay so..

And you can't- sorry, I got caught in that cycle the other day when I was driving around country Victoria and stopped at a, you know, general store place just to get a drink and always try and spend money in the local places where I'm going. And walked in and the woman said, G'day, how are you going? I said, Good, how are you? She said, I'm all right. How are you? And I looked at her and she went..

Good, how are you?

And she went, hmm. And just smiled and laughed. She realised that we've got tied into this, the automatic response.

Yeah, there's a few of those sorts of funny things that happen. I remember how that happened in a restaurant where, you would have those moments of it. It's like you've, you haven't heard what they said you were expecting to say How are you? And you say, Good, you too. But they've actually said Thanks or something. And you say, Good, you too. And you'd be like, Oh fuck.

Well, they used to be that..

Here's the bill. Thanks, you too.

You're probably a little bit old to remember it. There was a a skit comedy show called..

"Old to remember it" or you mean young?

Sorry, young. Yeah. I'm too old for you to remember that you're too young. Yeah.

Have another Pepsi!

It is too old for you to remember. I was just contracting it. You understood what I meant actually, I didn't. The, there was this, a gag that one of the characters used to use when somebody would say Hello and she'd say, Good, thanks.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

So, because the expected thing is How you going? Yeah.

Oh, man. But yeah, so when would you, when would you make small talk with complete strangers? Can you think of situations like if you were at a station and you sat down next to someone, would you feel inclined to talk to them? Would you feel inclined to ignore them? What would be a socially acceptable situation where you would talk to, like, I don't know, I think we can just discuss those.

Yeah, I know, here's one for you. I went to my Cardiologist's office two days ago to get a prescription. Just a prescription renewal.

Name dropper!

Yeah. My cardiologist. That's hardly a name dropper. Yeah, I went to my financial advisor. Yeah, my travel agent to be the next. No, so I was, I was in a, a lift, an elevator. Coming back down from there. And, you know, normally it's five floors, so you don't have to wait very long to get to the bottom to go to leave. So I just press ground and brain dead. And then it stopped and it had only gone down one floor. So we're on fourth floor and a woman with a pram came in. I went, oh, you know, I was about to walk out thinking her brain goes, all right, I'm out of time. Yeah. And and she came in and I, you know, you do what you do with a woman with a pram. You, first thing you do is you look at the baby and go, Oh, that's very cute. Which it was. It was a very cute baby.

It was a dog, wasn't it?

No, it wasn't, it was a baby.

It was an actual baby.

It was an actual baby. And it was cute!

One of those crazy old women with a pram with a little dog in their..

.. Pomeranian sitting out there.

Your baby is..

You're fucking ugly, please go away! Yeah. And that's instant small talk. Women with anybody with a baby.

Yeah.

Is instant small talk because it's, and I don't know whether it is part of our normal psyche that wants to communicate with people. And if you- the woman with the dog!

It's funny..

It didn't matter if it was a baby or a dog or a cat or an elephant.

To pause you there. It's, you're looking for something about which you can have a conversation.

Yes! You're looking for an excuse to say something that isn't going to be considered to be not so much rude, but but..

There's a woman sitting next to you, and you just turn around and say Hello!

Hello! Cute baby! I don't have a baby.

That's it.

Exactly. So it becomes a bit psychotic then.

It's isn't it, yeah. If you just.

When you've got the, it's almost like an implied invitation in your personal thing, in your own brain that just says it's okay to say something.

There's something obvious that you can talk about. But yeah, if you did it with someone, like, again, I would feel like this if I just started talking with a young, attractive woman and there was no obvious reason for me to start a conversation with them. That's where I would be like, that's creepy. That's weird, right? Like, if there's no, she's wearing a t shirt of a band that I really like, or she's got a small child and I've got a small child.

So yes. The triggers can be..

Hi, where do you live?

The trick, but Hi, where do you live? Is probably okay. Semi, if you're in a pub and you hear them talking. And, Oh, you come from Melbourne! Yeah. And then it's that trigger. Whereas in an elevator when there's just the two of you alone. Hi, where do you come from?

What's your address?

Yeah, exactly.

Are you walking alone home?

Walking alone home tonight? Yeah.

Yeah. So but I was thinking. Yeah. Like I had one the other day where, this is a funny situation. This guy came out of Day-care and he was with his kids, and he was wearing a Meshuggah shirt. And Meshuggah is a band, a really heavy metal band. And I didn't even say anything. I just looked at him and went, [Pete vocalizes]. And he knew exactly what song I was talking about. And he was like, Bleed! And we started having a chat. I'm like, I love that, man. That song was so good.

And that's the trigger!

Yeah.

That's that trigger of you've got, you've got something in common. And you know, babies and dogs are a good example.

Yeah.

They're in common with humanity, you know, that everybody has either had children, been a child. Well, everybody's been a child, knows someone with babies. You've got something to talk about even if it's three seconds. And the same thing with a dog.

Well, it's funny you mentioned the children thing because I find that, again, the older I get as a male, the more I find it awkward at starting conversations with women, young women in particular, because of the assumption that you want something from them, right. Like, there's that I've become more aware of that the older I am that the younger the woman compared to my age now, the weirder it feels like there's a, there- you get that vibe from them of like, Why are you talking to me? What do you want? You're too old, you know? So..

Whereas you get to my age..

And you're totally disarmed.

And that, but that apparent threat has just dissolved. Now it's just, Oh, here's the grandpa. So.

The point I'm trying to get to, I guess, is that now I find when I'm alone, out and about, that I see women with children, I can still start those sorts of conversations. Because one, I'm genuinely interested in how they're going and how they're surviving. If there's a reason to have a talk like we're stuck in a lift or something and they've got a small baby, I'll be like, How are you surviving? Like, Are you getting enough sleep? Yeah, all that sort of stuff. Then I'll be like, because I've got two kids and it's so funny how as soon as you mention you have children, they effectively just end up disarmed.

And because then it's a common conversation.

Exactly. But yeah, it is. It is one of these things that I would never have thought about prior to having kids, how much that's just having that in common with them. And so I found myself having those sorts of endless conversations with women, with kids, when you're out and about. And obviously it's something that I wouldn't have given a shit about prior to having kids. No. How are you going?

'Are you getting any sleep?' And they go, 'What's it got to do with you?'

Yeah, exactly. 'I don't have kids, but I'm curious!' But yeah, so that is one of those funny things I end up. Swimming is the perfect example. Taking the kids to swimming.

Ah yeah. And there's..

I'm always sitting around other parents.

Parents who, the only reason they are there, is because their kids are at swimming.

Yeah. And but I guess it's one of these good situations to talk about because you're, I would have people listening to the podcast being like, so I don't know how to make small talk and make friends with people that are interacting with my kids, right. People who are also parents of kids there. And I think one of those things is just trying to openly have conversations with people you don't necessarily know for the sake of it.

Yeah.

And like putting hooks in the water. It's sort of like dating, right? Finding good friends. Well, you just have to meet as many people as possible.

Initial..

Interact with them.

The initial dates are the perfect example of small talk.

Yeah.

Because you've got nothing else to talk about.

Yeah.

You know, I mean, that the whole, the reason that we call it 'small talk' is because we're talking about things that don't matter.

Yeah. For the sake of just communicating.

Yeah.

But yeah. So and it's, it's one of those things that I notice that. Really what I'm doing. It's like, yeah, as you say, like dating. When you have small talk, I'm looking for a reason to connect with someone else, to then explore that further. Like as a friendship or something, right. So whenever I've gone to swimming, usually when I'm chatting to different parents about different things, what I'm really at the end of the day, you're trying to get to, Is there a connection I can make with this other person? Do they have similar hobbies? Similar interests? Are their kids really friendly and interested in my kids? You know, like if you go to a playground and you see your kid playing with another kid and they're really having a good time, and they seem to really like one another one that would cause me to go and have a small talk with the parents like, Hey, check it out, you know, What's your kid's name?

That's that situational thing.

Yeah. But then two, I would be trying to develop that into a friendship, potentially for the sake of my kids, let alone the sake of, you know, myself having more friends. Yeah. But it is, it is difficult.

And sometimes it's, sometimes there's no intent as such other than just acknowledging another human being.

Well, I've had those moments right where I've been on a train. This was when I used to travel up and down from Geelong, going to Melbourne Uni, and there was this one time I remember chatting to this young woman on there. We're probably about the same age, and just really clicking with her, but in like a platonic friendship kind of way. And it just didn't like I didn't get anything from it. Like I didn't get a number, I didn't get a but we just had a really good conversation for the entire length of the..

Yeah. And it can be for 10s or an hour.

What is, and it was interesting because I think she was probably, we were probably talking about things that we wouldn't have otherwise spoken to strangers about.

No harm, no foul, if you don't know the person.

Yeah. But it was one of those things where looking back, I'm like, that's the point. You want to like looking for a relationship or not. That is when you know, okay, try and make the connection last longer. Get a number, get a name, get something. Because you clearly get along well. And obviously put put something out there being like, look, I had a great time chatting. Do you want to catch up another time and just have a chat again? Because, you know, I seem to be able to just connect with you. What's your number? What's your name or whatever and then try and see where it goes. I think that's one of those keys you have to put yourself out there..

If that's, yeah. Again if that's the intent. But yeah, but even if it's not, even if it's just that, Hey, I want to practice my English.

Yeah. Well and that's one of the disarming things..

And the other thing too, if you're a visitor and whatever those circumstances are to a place, whether it be a country or a town that you've never been to or you've never been to this suburb before, sometimes it's just, what can I find out about this place?

And I think, to go from there, the reason that works so well is because you're asking for help or advice. Yes. And people generally want to be helpful.

You're handing the responsibility for the conversation over to the other person. That's..

So yeah, like..

People want to be helpful.

If I, if I was in Brazil and I, you know, spoke a bit of Portuguese but got on a train or something and was sitting around people that I wanted to connect with or have a conversation with, I think that would be one of those things of like, Hey, I'm, I'm not from here..

I'm here. So what do you guys have.

Any suggestions for places to go, things to see, where to avoid, what to do and then see where it goes. But..

What's the best place to eat?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's a common one that I use. When you go and you go and you stay at a hotel or whatever, and particularly a hotel that doesn't have its own dining room. So they're not having to give you advice in conflict with their own commercial interest is what's the best, where's the best place to eat? And you'll always find someone who tells you these quirky little places that you'd never would have found. You know that. So there are some advantages to that sort of small talk, but that's that's not the, the situational or, the spontaneous small talk. That's the small talk when you actually want something.

Yeah.

You know, this is..

It can end up being those other things.

Yeah. But it can be give me information. I need to know the answer to this and it and it's, you know, some of them it's open ended. Like what's the best place to eat. Sometimes it can be just how do I go up and ask somebody how to get to the bus stop? You know..

It's funny, I remember watching a video when I was in that language learning sort of stage at uni, like really passionate about learning different languages. And there was a guy, I think he was in Sweden, learning, learning Swedish. And he's like, I was having a lot of trouble trying to tell the time and getting good at it. So what I did was go out and just kept asking people at the time was and just walking around the street and he's like, if anyone had stopped and just watched me, they would have..

Thought you were a lunatic!

But he was like, it was..

The first 12 times somebody told you what the time was, you didn't believe them! You're going, look, I'm telling you, time is a democracy.

I've got a fetish. And I just like being told the time. That's how I get self gratification.

Yeah, I'll keep asking it until I get the answer I want.

But he would just do that where he would go out and try and have conversations with strangers. But by doing something innocuous like that, where he was asking for directions or the time or for, you know, where's this place? What's this..

Genuinely.

People would give him, and he would get reps in effectively right with different people who had different accents and different pronunciation, different ages. And he was like, within a day I could tell the time pretty well. And so that's one of those things I've said that before to people like listening. But if you are travelling, travelling in particular and encountering loads of different people all the time, find reasons or questions to be asking them right, just come up with random shit! You know, of like where's where's this place? Have you seen this place? What's the time? Do you know how to get here and just have loads of different interactions like that, even if it's 10s 20s. And it'll also probably help you build confidence because you just stop caring about Oh, I don't want to open my mouth and talk or, you know.

And look, you know, genuinely. And there's always individual cases that are going to break the, the norm. But generally in Australia, people are happy to help.

Yeah. Just carry a map and open it and look..

I'm in Melbourne.

Yeah. Look lost.

In Melbourne. And you, I guarantee you the second person who walks past you, go You need help?

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Do it in Sydney and it'll be Get out of the bloody way.

It is interesting how I think to be as efficient and effective at learning a language as possible, and be able to have these interactions. You do need to learn a little bit about human behaviour and the fact that, yeah, we are social creatures who want to be helpful and want to interact with other people. And so you have to find a way of manipulate is probably the wrong kind of word, but kind of leverage that..

Exploit people's natural tendencies. And Australians, I think, are more naturally friendly and openly helpful. They're they're actually not necessarily any more helpful, but they want to be.

Yeah.

And so you will find, you know, if you ask somebody in the street, you walk up to anybody in the street and just say, Oh, look, you know, How do I find Bourke Street if you're in Melbourne? People will tell you, Got a phone?

Yeah.

And they'll go out of their way to help you. Yeah. But, and look, you know, this is not a racist thing, but I remember being in Hong Kong and asking people and and that's the cultural thing of..

This story came to my mind. I couldn't remember if it was you or not..

That was me..

.. bring it up. And, you know, How do I get to here? And you show them the name, you know, and that's the thing, if you're, you know, particularly if you do not speak any English now, your audience is clearly not that, but or you don't speak the language like I speak. Absolutely no. It's Cantonese in Hong Kong, but no Mandarin or Cantonese. And so if you need to go somewhere, you have it written down for you.

Yeah.

In their language. So you just, you just point at it. And, and the natural reaction of people in Hong Kong was just they point down the street, you go, Oh yeah. Thank you. And off you go.

It's like pinball though.

Yeah.

And then you get to the next one and they send you back down and you suddenly realise there's a cultural thing here that they do not want to say they don't know.

Yeah, they want to save face.

So they just give you an answer. Whereas in Australia you'll find if you go, Oh, you know, how do I get to Bourke Street?

Just point up.

No idea, mate.

Yeah. That's it, you're on your own. Good luck.

But what that person will probably do is ask the next person, go Hey, mate!

Yeah.

This guy needs to know how to get to Bourke Street. Can you?

That's so reminiscent of scenes from Crocodile Dundee.

Yeah.

Where I think they have those. They kind of show that cultural thing of, when he goes, he's looking for the, it's actually in America, isn't it? He's looking for his his love interest, right. The woman and he goes into the subway in the US and, he's like trying to there's a huge crowd and he's trying to get the attention of the woman, and he has to yell to these different guys, and they have to communicate with one another. And it's kind of like..

He just gets up and walks across the crowd..

Like a sheepdog, a cattle dog. Yeah, exactly. Yeah. So are there situations where you think you would avoid small talk? I mean, it's hard to kind of spontaneously pull these out.

Me, myself possibly. And in Australia, probably not.

I think you have to kind of gauge the..

But there are certainly you know, I'm just thinking about travelling certainly in the US, I've been to plenty of places where I wouldn't talk to people.

As in..?

Where..

Kind of like as in, you don't feel safe?

If you're walking down the back streets of a city that you don't know, and you're not going to ask the first person, you know, 'how do I get to' sort of question.

Surely, though, was it you who telling me the story about, some, a group of people who went into a restaurant and they didn't realise it was like a black only kind of restaurant?

It wasn't me.

And apparently they, they were, they went into this restaurant and it was kind of, you know, like it's not illegal for white people to eat there.

But no, but it was well known that it was..

Like, this is where black people have dinner. And so they looked and saw a white family come in and were like, what the F are these people doing here? But they they sat down and ordered some food. And I think as soon as they saw them eating with the knife and fork around the other way, from how Americans would they were like, Oh, foreigners, you guys are fine, you know? And then they were like, yeah, we're Australian. And then they, you know, dealt with it. But it was funny that those kind of like social thing, those cues. As soon as they sort of communicated the fact that they were foreigners, they were like, Ah, it's sweet, you're all good. So I reckon like you could probably just be like, G'day, mate. Excuse me!

Yeah.

Excuse me, mate! Yeah.

Yeah. You can turn on the Australian accent. There's bloody idiot. What does he know? Yeah. Look, very rarely, certainly in Australia, it'd be very rare that I wouldn't. There are some times where you look at it and you go, no, it would just be embarrassing for the other person.

You know..

And often you're talking about the, you know, approaching young women.

Yeah. Yeah.

You know.

The gym. And women. It's one of those..

No, no.

Leave them alone.

Exactly.

Leave Britney alone.

Yeah.

That would be one of them. That, and that was at any age. As a male, I would just be like, I always just felt so creeped out by the other guys who would use the gym as somewhere to look for..

It's like a pick up joint.

Yeah, exactly. To look for women. And you would just be like, Dude, like, just leave them. Don't even look at them. Just like, leave them alone. Let them get in, get out, be thankful they're here at all. And then just go about your day. But that would be one like I think it would be. I would be waiting for women at a gym to be making small talk with me before I would be not instigating in those kinds of situations. Because I, because there's that underlying thing of they're going to be like, This dude's a creep. This guy's a creep. Why is he talking to me like, I've got a boyfriend? All I said was, Hello? Got a boyfriend? Got a boyfriend. Don't hurt me, like. So that's one of those situations.

Leave me alone.

Yeah, but I can't think of any others, really. But, yeah, I think I think the key is to just really be interested. Like, if you have a reason..

You've said the dating thing is, don't try and be interesting. Try and be interested.

Yeah, well and that's not my line but that's that idea. Yeah. And I think language learning in particular is is useful and just friendships in general. If you've got, if you're there the whole time trying to impress by telling everyone about you how good you are, everything like that.

It becomes tedious.

Yeah. And people are going to lose interest pretty quickly. Whereas if you're asking questions, you can be talking just as much. You don't have to slow down how much you're talking, but when you're talking about them or showing an interest or curiosity in them, as opposed to trying to impress them with yourself, that is a huge, a huge thing for developing friendships, right? Because you make feel people feel better by..

You interested in them.

Yeah. And I did that so well when I was dating that there were a few times when I left and I was like, I can't even remember that person's name. Like, because all I did was just ask questions about their life and they just didn't stop talking. And they didn't ask you, like, they didn't even ask me my name. They didn't even like it was that kind of thing of, they didn't even stop to breathe. And I was like, I use these powers too well, like, I need to, I need to give them some, some chance to to reciprocate with questions next time.

Yeah. And that's, I'd say that was why I was talking. I asked it first about are we talking about small talk with people that we know. Are we talking about small talk with strangers?

Okay, so that's, we've covered strangers.

We've covered the stranger, the small talk with people that, you know, is very situationally dependent. Is it a date?

Yeah.

If it's not a date, could it become a date? So is there a romantic or potentially romantic overtone to it, is very different from sitting with friends around a dinner table.

Well, family, at an event or something.

You know, small talk.

I think I would almost find that harder at times. It depends on the person too, because it is one of those things where you go to family events and if you're forced to have small talk with people you don't particularly like, it's so much more laborious..

Going to a party and..

Tiresome.

I told this story many times. You probably heard it. I went to a friend's 50th birthday party years ago. And I got stuck talking to a guy who spent half an hour. I'm not joking. Half an hour talking about plane spotting. And that he would drive out to. There's a spot next to Melbourne Airport and Tullamarine Airport, Melbourne's international airport, where you can park under the flight zone. So when they're coming in and taking off, depending which way the wind is going, they're either doing one or the other. And he used to go out there and record the registration numbers of the planes as they were going past. You go, all right, that's cool. That's the end of that conversation, right? That's taken 15 seconds.

See, he he violated that rule.

He did. He just talked for..

Half an hour.

Yeah. He didn't show any interest in you or what you..

And I showed no interest in what he was doing. And all I was trying to do was get away. And he had a captive audience..

I think I would just get to a point where I'd be like, look, I think I've shat my pants.

Yeah!

I'm going to have to excuse myself..

And clean up.

I think I pooed my..

Can you help me?

Yeah. That's it. Can you, can we continue this conversation in the toilet? That's it. I would probably, I that would be.

I remember. I, another, another friend who was at that party. I forced her to rescue me by doing basically that, without the shat pants..

.. suddenly grab your stomach and you're like, Oh!

And went, Hello, how are you going? And just wandered off.

I kind of, I would, yeah..

And then tried to avoid him for the rest of the night.

Oh no. Excuse me, we're Ian! Ian! I haven't..

We've only got three quarters of the way through this story!

There's more to come!

There's more!

There's more, there was a Boeing seven.. No, no.

Oh yeah, exactly. So yes, there is small talk and there is painfully pointless talk.

But it's funny though, right? Because you have those interactions..

Sorry. That's just being able to read the other person.

Yeah. And but that's what I was going to say. You have those interactions with people where they clearly just don't get it. And you're kind of like, look at my face and read the secret. Read the expression, I know.

And there's so many comedians who have done that gag about, you know, the nerdy guy who just wants to tell you about, you know, how that the little left hand screw on that little thing goes in and you need a very particular screwdriver to it? And that screwdriver only comes from a little town in the Czech Republic. And when I went to the factory there and. Oh God. Eyes rolling to the back of your head and going Really? You lost me at screw, you know. Yeah.

Yeah. Let me decide the journey..

I mentioned 'camera'. Oh, you're a photographer! Let me tell you about my little.. Yeah.

How are you? That's what I said. How are you?

Yeah, exactly.

I'm sure Ricky Gervais has done jokes on that.

Yeah.

But. Yeah. I can't remember where I was going to go with the convo. I had some really funny things to say.

Yeah. Conversation. Yeah, small talk with them. But if you're learning a language. And not just learning the language formally but just learning how people talk, just sometimes sitting and listening to, to that sort of thing is..

There's another reason to be listening, right? That's all layered on top. When you understand the language pretty well, perfectly well, you just have to enjoy the story and that's all you've got. You don't get to sit there and enjoy the fact that you're speaking English. You're sort of like, ahh. But yes, read the room.

Read the room.

That's one of them. But it is hard when you've got, I have that same thing of I would rather be talking to strangers, I think, at least initially, than some family members that we have where I just be like, Please, dear God, do not let us be in the same room alone. Because then you have that pressure of looking at each other like, Ahh. And they'll be like, So how's the family? And you'd be like, Ah, fuck.

Good.

Yeah, that's good.

The one word answers. Yes. No. Good. Six.

Yeah.

It used to be that thing too, at work.

You just rotate through them. Yes. No.

I'm pretty sure I remember this. When I was when I was at the museum. You know, you would be going to the lift to go down a few floors to be able to go to the cafe to get a coffee. And there would be certain people in the, in the department that you would sometimes see coming to the lift at the same time as you, and there'd be no one else there, and you'd be like..

And go the other way.

You just keep walking. You're like, Fuck it, I'll get the stairs..

Down to the library. Yeah.

They would look at you like, Oh, are you getting coffee too? And you're like, No, no, I'm taking a shit.

I mean by the time, and then you've raced down, and got your coffee and you're sitting there..

You've got to sneak through the exhibits just like. And they'd be like, that was a quick shit. Yeah, you look. Yeah. I know it's funny, isn't it? Those, those kind of unspoken- when people just don't get it. And they can't read the room, those sorts of interactions. There was a, I was watching something recently about a comedian, and the story was these there were four women that were up the front of this guy's show, and he was watching them, and only one of them wasn't laughing. The rest were. And he was just like, what's the fuck wrong with it? Like, my jokes are funny. Everyone else is laughing. Why aren't you laughing? And then he was like, I think I worked it out, and it's like, you're the friend that keeps getting dragged along. But they stopped liking you 20 years ago, right? And, and everyone laughed except her.

Yeah.

And she got up and stormed out, and he was like, the guy telling the story was like, Wow. He just got it straight away and knew the dynamic. And then to follow it up was like, Good! Leave! No one fucking likes you! You just like, Oh my God!

Well, you know the art of stand up comedy, that's..

It's brutal telling people the truth they don't want to hear.

Yeah. Yep. But, yeah, I don't know. I guess we were meant to be talking about small talk, but we got sidetracked.

Sidetracked to stand up comedy.

Into big talk. We've been talking for 42 minutes. There's a lot of small talk.

Yeah I don't know how much of that will be helpful. But hopefully it is. I think, I guess the takeaway is try and find a reason to connect with people if you can. If you can, you know, if they're wearing something that you can, you see and you're like, Oh, that's my band. Or they've got a skateboard and you're like skating or there's some reason to be like, you know, you hear them talking. One thing that I always notice is if I hear an accent or..

I do it all the time.

I'm just like, and I don't know what it is in particular, I'll be like, Is that an accent? Where abouts are you from? And it's just because I'm interested and I want to know.

I do it all the time and people are always interested in telling you.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Well there are certain people who get offended. Usually. I found though they'll be..

Only if you try and pick on the accent then you're wrong.

Yeah, well there's that, but the people that I know who would get offended by that are usually, they've got different coloured skin, but they're native speakers of English.

Yes.

And they're from say, you know..

From an African country or..

Wherever. And they have migrated here a long time ago, and they get upset at the very fact that you..

Think they've got an accent..

.. other language. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And they'll get pissed off about it. But generally when, when the people who actually do speak a foreign language. Yeah, it's it's always great conversations especially. And, you know, I'm sure that a lot of the people listening to this will know what I'm like if they're in the Academy and they come to my calls every month, we almost always end up talking about their language, their culture, their history, you know, their country, because I'm just so interested in it.

But it's, it's something to talk about.

You just have to walk up to the average Aussie and just be like..

Where do you come from?

Yeah. What's the best part about being Australian? You know, what sucks? If you could kill one Australian, who would it be? Like if you come up with some random question, if there was one person in Australia that you would drop from a very high height in a helicopter, you know, who would it be?

Maybe don't use that one!

Yeah, that's it.

At least not the first question.

If you could wish one person was attacked by a crocodile in Northern Australia, you know. Which politician would it be? Anyway, all right, we've ranted enough.

Yes.

Thanks for joining us.

See you guys!

See ya!