300 Questions People Ask You: And Exactly How to Answer Them

How are you? is a greeting. How's it going? from your manager means will it be ready. Am I being unreasonable? is not a request for your judgement — it is a request for permission to be upset.

That gap is the whole subject of this book. Answer the words and you produce something correct and useless. Answer what is underneath and the conversation works.

Three hundred questions, each with five things:

• The question, as it is actually asked

• What they are really asking — one line, and the part worth reading even if you skip everything else

• A model answer, at the length a real conversation takes

• The short version, for when you have lost your nerve — because the short version is what will actually come out of your mouth

• What to avoid, with the reason. Usually the answer that seems polite, modest or helpful and does the opposite

Part One — meeting people. The first thirty seconds. Where are you from and every version of it, including the second one. What do you do. Family, home, weekends. And the two hardest parts of small talk in English: keeping it going, and getting out of it.

Part Two — at work. What your manager, your colleagues and your customers are really asking. Your first weeks in a new job. Appraisals and feedback. And the awkward ones: salary, redundancy rumours, whose fault it was.

Part Three — interviews. Sixty questions: about you, about your experience, the difficult ones, the job itself, money, and the questions you should be asking them.

Part Four — the difficult ones. Age, money, marriage and children. Illness and loss. Politics and religion. The questions children ask. And what to say when somebody asks too much — with twelve ways to decline a question that nobody in English ever argues with.

Part Five — officials and practical life. The doctor, the bank, the border, the landlord, your child's school, and every public helpline you will ever have to ring.

At the back: the shape every good answer has, twelve polite ways to not answer, ten ways to buy yourself a few seconds, twelve questions that keep any conversation alive, and all three hundred questions listed so you can find the one you are about to be asked.

300 questions · 600 answers · 300 sentences to avoid