"So what your saying is that..." or "What I'm hearing you say is..." People love this attention -- it doesn't even matter if you don't understand it right away -- so you can still talk about football and other things you find dull. If you don't get it, but you have a go and feed back to them, they'll delight in explaining it again to you in a different way. Once they're in delight, you have a friend for life! Let the other person do all the actual small talk... you deal with the questions... Start with your classic questions: Questions about them: Where are you from? What do you do for a living? Do you have any hobbies? Other old faithfuls: What do you think of the [insert politics here]? What about [insert famous celebrity's gossip]? The big problem here is that it's so dull... when we talk to people we don't want to get stuck in weather or the latest celebrity or political scandal for very long... So when you talk to people, you need to get a bit deeper -- that's where the good stuff lies! The easiest way to do it is to make an observation about the person, or something they have said. So if they say, "I'm a lion tamer" -- you might have something to go on... ask them whether they enjoy what they do... if they say yes, then ask them what it is they get from doing that. If they say