It can be difficult to strike up a conversation and we all want to avoid awkward silence. Personal meetings and business meetings in English are more successful when we have a conversation strategy. Here are some fun ways to use English in conversation, even if you don't know everyone in the room:

Icebreakers

One of the most nerve-wracking situations is when you don't know a person and you're not sure if you should speak and what you should say. When we are afraid to talk with strangers in English it's usually because we are afraid that people will think we aren't intelligent. I feel this way when I speak foreign languages too. It's completely natural. But when the conversation has already begun, I feel more comfortable joining it.

Icebreakers are phrases that are designed to help kick off conversations. So, if you're wondering what to say when you meet new people, a good icebreaker might be the answer. Let's practice some questions, phrases,...

When English speakers speak quickly it can be difficult to understand what they are saying. And sometimes English speakers use shortened words and phrases in writing too.

Here are some popular English neologisms (short slang words):

• Lotta = a lot of / lots of
• Wanna = want to / want a
• Gonna = going to
• I'ma = to be about to
• Gotta = got a / have got to
• Outta = out of
• Hafta = have to / have got to
• Betcha = would bet you
• Sup? = What's up?
• Dunno = don't know
• Sorta = sort of
• Kinda = kind of
• Lemme = let me
• Gimme = give me
• Shoulda = should have
• Coulda = could have
• Woulda = would have
• Oughta = ought to / ought to have

The letter R can be pronounced in a few different ways. It can be confusing and difficult to understand how to pronounce the letter R because different English speakers from different places who speak with different accents might pronounce it differently.

There are three main ways to pronounce R in English:

• rhotic R = this is the R sound that most people associate with English.
• rolled R = this is the R sound that most people associate with having a foreign accent in English, but it is used in some parts of northern English and Scotland.
• silent R = this is the R sound that you don't hear.

Here are some general rules to help you understand how to say R:

• At the beginning of a word R is almost always pronounced.
• In the middle of a word R is almost always pronounced.
• At the end of a word R is only pronounced in some accents.

In this video we review the pronunciation of the words:

road

ride

rug

red

rural

urban

drawer

plural

rarely

temperature

library

choir

regularly

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Kris Amerikos: Hey everybody my name is Kris Amerikos and welcome to another video. This video is about another advanced topic and the topic today is more is less

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Kris Amerikos: Probably you've heard people say the phrase less is more. And this can be very confusing because most people think that it's not true.

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Kris Amerikos: Right, it doesn't really make sense when we say less is more. If you have less than, how can you also have more right there opposites. But in today's video I'm going to explain how more

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Kris Amerikos: Is really less and how that affects us when we're learning English teaching English, and most importantly, speaking and communicating in English. So first of all, let's look at what people usually believe

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Kris Amerikos: We can call this conventional wisdom and conventional wisdom tells us that this phrase less is more is not really true. It's

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Kris Amerikos: Just a catchy phrase it...

A lot of people who study English make mistakes when using infinitives and gerunds.

And it's understandable why they do - it's difficult!

The rule about negative infinitives and gerunds

The rule is that we should say "not" before the infinitive or gerund to make it negative.

An easy way to follow this rule is by remembering the famous phrase by Shakespeare:

"to be or not to be".

Learn more about this topic

Here is a lesson about using infinitives and gerunds:

Here is a lesson presented to a live audience about infinitives and gerunds:

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Kris Amerikos: Hey everybody, I'm Kris Amerikos and welcome to another video before we jump into this video I have to give you a warning.

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Kris Amerikos: In this video I'm going to be using the term native speaker a lot, and I'm going to explain why I use this term and why other people use this term.

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Kris Amerikos: And I just want you to know that you'll need to watch all the way to the end of the video to really understand what this video is about. So let's jump right in.

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Kris Amerikos: First of all, why do people use this term native speaker for the last hundred plus years, people have been using the term native speaker to try to sell things

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Kris Amerikos: And it's not only about English. Although today, most people think that this is related to English language learning

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Kris Amerikos: It's an issue that has been attached to other languages in the past as well. And it's...

This video is about different accents in English.

In this video you will hear native speakers from the United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, Australia, and South Africa. First, the teachers introduce themselves. Then, they each pronounce the same words as the other teachers so you can hear the differences in their pronunciation.

Study with us every day here: https://www.krisamerikos.com/ee

This video is about still and yet.

Speak with me every day here: https://www.krisamerikos.com/ee