Topic-230 Gaps in Your English

Give me a list of the things you can only talk about in a general way

Topic-230 Gaps in Your English 12 December 2025

Find us: Myer Basement Food Court. Look for a furry animal toy on the table. Myer Basement Food Court is fairly quiet at 6:30 pm every second Friday evening when we meet there. This makes talking easy and relaxed. Each time there is a different topic with 10 talking points to help with ideas. For more details see the Facebook group at https://www.facebook.com/groups/1678127882281980 . The organizer is Thor May, thormay@yahoo.com . See you soon :)

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Talking Points

1. Give me a list of the things you can talk about in detail

2. Give me a list of the things you can only talk about in a general way

3. Give me a list of the things you can't talk about at all

4. I had a language exchange partner who quit because she said she was now fluent in English. She was fluent in chattering about herself (maybe that was the limit of her interests ...). In other areas of life, big or small, she was struck dumb. How can you push someone to expand their domains of interest, hence their domains of language skill?

5. Think of tasks and roles a) that you need to manage now (how often?); b) that you might need to handle in the future (e.g. for employment, social life, expanding your worldview, understanding what is happening etc). What is you L2 ability to handle these tasks? How could you go about acquiring this extra language skills?

6. What topics would you struggle to talk about in your first language? How wold you talk about them in L1 if you had to? [L1= 1st language; L2 = 2nd language]

7. Think of things you might have to talk about in English that you would not usually talk about in L1. Why might you suddenly have to talk about these things in English?

8. When you are lost for the right word in any language, what do you usually do? (Maybe you don't have a smart phone or dictionary nearby .. )

9. Language courses, teachers, ChatGPT and dictionaries usually teach you a formal way to say things. What has been your experience in picking up informal English? Examples?

10. What do you think is the best way to a) increase your vocabulary; b) your skill in using the right style of English for particular situations?

11. TOT (tip-of-the-tongue) forgetting happens to nearly everyone in both their first and second languages. What do you do when this happens? There is a cure (sort of!) for TOT. What is it?