That and It In the English language when we use the word "that" you are usually referring to something or someone that is not located close to you. So for example if your dog , ball or friend is across the street , you say " That is my dog.", " That is my ball.", "That is my friend." . In contrast the word "It" is a singular personal pronoun. You normally use "it" to refer to objects (objects you can or can't touch) , non- living things and to highlight something that was said earlier. For example . The building is colourful . "It"is beautiful. So let us examine the sentences . Sentence 1 "We had a conversation for 30 minutes. *That* was about our simple profiles, cultural shocks through traveling, religions and so on. " Using "that" would show you are referring to the conversation as being a person or an tangible object not being close to you , but some distance away from you . Hence it is grammatically wrong. Sentence 2 We had a conversation for 30 minutes. *It* was about our simple profiles, cultural shocks through traveling, religions and so on. Using "It" shows you that you are highlighting something stated from the 30 minute conversation earlier. So using "it" points out that the conversation was about simple profiles, cultural shocks through traveling, religions and so on. Hope this helps

We had a conversation for 30 minutes about our simple profiles, cultural shocks through traveling, religions and so on. He also could have excluded "it" all together.

Hi Maho, "It" is a pronoun whereas "that" is a demonstrative pronoun used more commonly in highlighting something which you already have some knowledge about. Example: Bring me that book. (You are probably pointing to a particular book far away from you.) I am going to talk about that. (The other person most likely knows the topic you are going to discuss.) We exchanged ideas on culture and languages. That was a great experience. (Notice that the previous sentence already introduces the nature of the conversation topics. Therefore, the word "that" focuses our attention on the first sentence.) In your first sentence (We had a conversation for 30 minutes), we only now that there was a conversation. Therefore, in the second sentence, we use"it" to draw the reader's attention on the "conversation" and provide more information on the topics discussed in the later part of the second sentence instead. To sum it up, we can write: We had a conversation for 30 minutes. IT was about our simple profiles, cultural shocks through traveling, religions and so on. THAT was the most candid sharing session I have ever attended. Hope this helps. Cheers, Lance

I agree with the correction. The usual pronoun used to replace a non-personal noun is "it". "That" can be used to replace a singular noun in certain situations when emphasising or identifying something but your situation is a neutral one.