Please forward this to ONE friend today and tell them to subscribe here.First off, it’s a core part of daily life here. It happens at the counter at work, at school, on transit, with neighbors, even before your meetings start on Google Meet or whatever platform you use for virtual meetings.
When John and I were scoping the outline for this guide, we naturally lapsed into small talk about plans and the weather. We didn’t even realize it until later. It was just so natural.
Depending on what side of the fence you sit, people often judge friendliness and fit based on how comfortable you seem with casual conversation.
Think of small talk as the first step towards building your network
Folks who avoid small talk risk being seen as distant, shy, or not interested. It’s understandable if it’s due to nervousness but you are more likely to be judged if you avoid it.
This is because small talk is often the first step people use to build relationships in Canada.
Get it right, and people invite you to lunch, to after-work activities, or other social activities. Opportunities to build your network and integrate into your new community.
In Canada, there is a separation for the most part between personal life and professional life. We don’t often get into a lot of very deep conversations. It can happen, but it’s quite rare. So instead, managers and colleagues use small talk to build trust and teamwork.
Which is why knowing what to say and what not to say in small talk can influence your being hired, promotion opportunities, being mentored. These casual conversations can help boost your understanding about how things work in Canada. You’ll get a sense of the office norms, a sense of the unwritten rules, and upcoming opportunities.
Plus, if you decide to apply for any of these opportunities, being seen as a good fit socially is equally or even more important than the skill sets or experience you have listed on your resume.
And it can start with some very simple talk, even just questions like “How was your weekend?”
Why mastering small talk feels harder than learning English
When you’re learning a language, you’ve got some set rules. There’s also a lot of information out there on grammar rules, vocabulary, and all you need to know to grasp the English language.
But when it comes to small talk, these rules are rarely stated. For the most part, people, especially in Canada and many parts of North America, think it’s one of those human things everyone does.
Social norms about personal space, eye contact, and topics appropriate for such conversations also make it more difficult for newcomers to Canada.
For people who are learning English as a second or third language, engaging in small talk means asides from worrying about responding appropriately, they also need to worry if people can understand them or if they’re silently judging how they sound.
All these can make you believe that it’s better to stay silent. It feels safer. I mean, if you don’t speak, you can’t make a mistake. You can’t reveal that you don’t fully understand the cultural context. You can’t be judged for your accent or your choice of words.
But if you succumb to those kinds of fears or misjudge how important small talk can be, it can be disadvantageous to you in the short and long run. You lose the informal networks, the relationships, the confidence and trust in yourself within your new context that gets built through these everyday conversations that seem like they don’t matter but actually matter enormously.
What this guide will (and won’t) teach you
This guide will give you safe topics, some example phrases, some mini dialogues, and recovery tools to get you out of awkward moments.
It’s quite natural that will happen sometimes. Even those of us who are comfortable with small talk experience a faux pas every now and then.
We will get into some regional differences, such as Quebec’s conversational culture versus the Prairies friendliness. We’ll also talk about the unwritten rules, like volume and physical space, humor, sarcasm, oversharing, and more.
What it won’t teach you is a focus on the language itself in terms of mechanics of what you might learn in an English class, because there are plenty of resources for that. Also, we assume that anyone reading this has a fairly strong, at least intermediate level grasp of English.
You might pick up some interesting vocabulary and turn-of-phrase, but that’s not the primary intent.
John and I also don’t promise that you will end up changing your accent so that you can sound more like someone who was born and raised here.
However, the one promise we make is that as long as you put in the work of reading and practicing the exercises that’ll follow, you’ll start to find yourself becoming adept at small talk.
The only way to master this skill is by doing. That means being comfortable with the idea of maybe making mistakes. That’s how we all learn. Don’t wait until you feel like you’re perfect from reading these articles or any resource.
Start putting all you learn into practice once you are done with Part One.
Part 1: Starting Conversations and Making Graceful Exits
Some questions to noodle on as you go through the guide
Q1. How can I practice small talk in low-stakes situations where mistakes won’t affect my job prospects or professional reputation while I’m still building confidence?
Q2. What if my personality is genuinely introverted or I find small talk draining even in my native language—does that mean I’ll never succeed in Canadian professional culture?
Q4. When I avoid small talk because of language anxiety, how do I explain this to Canadian colleagues without making them uncomfortable or reinforcing the “distant newcomer” stereotype?
Q5. If small talk rules are invisible and cultural, how can I tell when I’ve made a mistake if Canadians are too polite to correct me directly?
