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Lesson Transcript

Welcome to EnglishClass101.com’s English in Three Minutes. The fastest, easiest, and most fun way to learn English.
Hey everyone, I’m Alisha!
In this series, we’re going to learn some easy ways to ask and answer common questions in English. It’s really useful, and it only takes three minutes!
In this lesson, you’re going to learn how to ask someone whom they know.
Often at a party or in another social situation that you attend with a friend, you will be introduced to someone new, or someone else will join the conversation. A question that we often ask in this situation is how the new person knows your friend, and what the connection is between them.
So how to ask this? It’s easy:
“So how do you know Person A?”
If Person A is talking with you still, you can ask this in a slightly different way, by including both people and saying:
“So how do you know each other?”
This “So” at the beginning softens the question as well as makes it clear that you’re introducing a new topic.
Of course there are many possible answers to this question, usually beginning with “We met...”:
“We met at school.”
Or:
“We met at a party.”
Or:
“We met through a friend.”
Another way to answer this is to state your current connection with the other person. For example:
“We work together.”
Or:
“We have a friend in common.”
This phrase “a friend in common” is a really useful idiom that you should keep in mind!
The next logical step in the conversation is to expand on what you’ve just learned. A good all-purpose reply is “Oh, really?”
Then you can ask another follow-up question.
For example, if the other person says “We met at school,” you can say:
“Where was your school?”
or:
“Which school?”
If they say “We met at work”, you can then ask:
“Where do you work?”
Or:
“What kind of job do you do?”
If they say:
“We met through a friend,”
A possible follow-up question is:
“Anyone I know?”
Of course it’s also possible that the other person will ask you where you met the friend you have in common, by using that useful phrase:
“How about you?”
Now it’s time for Alisha’s Advice!
Note that sometimes in the United States people call this conversation, in which you try to work out what the connection between the two of you is, “the name game” - as in “We’re playing the name game again!”
Do you know how to talk about sports in English? Not just what sports you play and like, but what teams you’re a fan of? Find out in the next English in Three Minutes lesson!

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