5 Conversation Starters

How does a conversation begin?

A typical conversation goes like this:

A: Hi, how are you?

B: Fine, you?

A: Fine. Did anything exciting happen?

B: I went to work and that's about it. You?

A: Same.

When talking to people, old friends or new encounters, we like to have interesting new things to say or ask. Here's a list of 5 questions you can ask to spice up the conversation and get your speaking partner to open up. They're mostly opinion or experience based questions which we all have plenty of.

1. What kinds of movies do you most enjoy? Why?

This is a good question because we all love movies and talking about movies.

• Action
• Romance
• Comedy
• Romantic Comedy
• Horror
• Animation

I like comedy movies because after a long day it's nice to have a good laugh. Laughing can help you relax and get rid of stress as well as exercise your face muscles. Anytime you want to smile you can just remember a funny moment from a movie and your instantly beaming.

2. What’s your favorite beverage?

This is a classic 'What's your favorite...' question. You can substitute beverage for just about anything. As far as beverages go.

• Juice (orange, apple, grape, strawberry, etc.)
• Coffee
• Tea
• Sports drink
• Milk
• Water
• Beer or Wine (for the adults)

Once someone says, "My favorite beverage is coffee." don't let the conversation stop there, make sure to ask follow up questions such as "How do you take it? Black? With milk or sugar? Where do you buy your favorite coffee? Do you drink coffee just in the morning or in the afternoon? Do you own a coffee maker?" and so on.

3. What’s something you should throw away, but can’t? Explain.

We all have something in our closet that we never use or have any need for and always think to ourselves, "I might need it one day." so you hang on to it just in case even though we should probably throw it away.

• My old computer
• Old blankets
• VCR or Cassette tapes
• Notes from University class

Yeah, this is a list stuff hanging around in my closet. The VCR tapes are definitely a huge nuisance. On the one hand I own most of my favorite movies on DVD and probably won't watch them on tape again. On the other I paid a lot of money for those tapes and can't bring myself to get rid of them. A bit of a conundrum.

4. How often do you get a haircut? Describe your worst haircut.

I think you can learn a lot about a person by how ofter they cut their hair.

• Once a week
• Every 2 weeks
• Once a month
• Every two months
• Whenever it feels too long

And we've all had bad experiences at the barber or salon. Getting someone to tell their terrible haircut story is a good way to gain trust through our personal embarrassments. Don't forget to add, "What did you do?" at the end to find out how they solved their bad haircut problem. "I wore hat for 2 weeks until it grew back!"

5. Do you save old greeting cards and letters, or throw them all away? Why?

I like this questions out of pure curiosity on what others do with old cards and letters. When I throw away cards I immediately feel guilty so I still have some cards given to me by friends and relatives. Letters of course I never throw away. Letter writing is a dying art so I like to preserve letters people have written to me. How about you?

The next time your in a conversation throw one these questions into the mix and enjoy the responses you get.

Happy learning!