Asking questions in English is a great way to build ongoing conversations, and building up and using a bank of questions can help you to communicate more effectively! In this episode, you will find out how to use questions to improve your level. Do you have any questions? All the best! Paul Here is the full transcript: How to ask questions effectively in English. Hi there, I’m Paul Urwin, and welcome to the Business English Community podcast, where the world of business meets the English language. We discuss culture, strategies, techniques, vocabulary, grammar, and much, much more. Find out more at businessenglishcommunity.com. Hi, Paul here, and welcome to Episode 13 of the Business English Community podcast. How has your week been so far? I hope you’re having a great week. I hope you’re making progress on all of your projects, and I hope you’re making progress with improving your level of English. That is of course where I hope to be able to help you even more and help you to take your business English to the next level. Well, first of all, before we get started, a couple of very quick reminders. The first one is that if you wish to follow the text for this podcast, then it is already up on the website. The full transcripts are up on the website: businessenglishcommunity.com. While you are on the website, I also recommend that you download your completely free training, so that’s also available on businessenglishcommunity.com. Right, let’s get cracking. Okay, well, today I want to talk about how to ask questions effectively in English. The reason for this is that I really believe that questions can help conversation flow, it can really help you to communicate more effectively. If you are communicating more effectively, then quite simply, you are going to achieve more, you are going to get more things done. Questions not only help to start conversations, but they also help to keep conversations going. They help you to find out information, they help to move business forward. Let me give you a really simple example. This is super simple, but hopefully will get my point across. “How are you?” “I’m fine.” “How are you?” “I’m fine.” Well, that is a very short conversation. Now I’d like you to compare that with this conversation: “How are you?” “I’m fine. And you?” “And you?” So that second question at the end there is the question that is going to generate interaction, is going to keep the conversation going. So with those two people having a conversation, if the first person says, “How are you?” And the second person says, “I’m fine.” then that takes the conversation to a certain point. But if that second person not only answers with, “I’m fine”, but then also asks another question, “And you?” then that is going to help to keep the conversation going, and if we keep the conversation going we find out more information, we help to move business forward, and we help to get things done. So, many reasons why we should keep the conversation going. It helps to really build relationships. How are you going to build a relationship with someone? Well, by having a conversation with them. Okay, well, I’m going to suggest now that in order to keep those conversations going you build up a portfolio of questions. I don’t expect you to go into these conversations unarmed or unprepared, and therefore you might find it a little bit difficult. But if you have a series of questions, let’s say 30 questions built up before you go into these live situations, then you are going to be in a much better position, you’re going to be able to ask for help, you’re going to be able to ask for guidance in different situations. Remember, people actually like providing help or giving guidance on certain topics, it helps them to feel part of the action as well, if you like. So a number