Book my class! https://teach.italki.com/teacher/1947582 Welcome back to another episode of Streetwise English podcast. My name is Carl. Today I want to talk about breaking the ice. So breaking the ice means meeting someone new that you don't know for the first time. So when you go to a party or you go to a new workplace or a new school, you're always going to have the occasion where you need to meet people for the very first time. And sometimes this can be awkward and you can feel embarrassed about talking to someone if you don't know them and they don't know you and you're not friends yet. So I just wanted to talk really briefly about some advice that I have for you to meet people for the first time in any environment. And this is especially true if you are not a native speaker of their language. So the first tip I have is to simply smile. Make your face look friendly and welcoming and give eye contact to the person that you want to talk to. It sounds really simple and obvious, but if you missed this step um, you know, this is a very important step and this is half the battle. So make sure that you look approachable yourself and you smile And you might even make a slight hand gesture, like, uh, a mini wave of some sort. And the next thing is to simply say hello. You don't have to come up with any kind of clever saying or pick up line or joke just simply saying hello. And you can see if the other person is interested in having a conversation with you. And another tip is that you can be observant of what the person looks like or what clothes they're wearing and use that as a clue um, to tell you about who they are. For example, if the person is wearing very nice running shoes you kind of have the idea that this person likes to run or this person may be a runner or if you notice that the person has, um, cauliflower ears, you know, scarred ears from wrestling OK, this guy is probably a fighter. (please subscribe to the Streetwise English Podcast)