Greetings and Breaking the Ice

Before we get started with the dialogue let’s just set the scene.

That means describe basically what’s happening and talk about the roles or the characters involved with this little story.

So one person let’s call him Mr. Vincent and his first name will be David is taking a business trip to New York to visit the company where another person works the other person’s name.

The person who lives in New York and works at that company is Luke same person.

Maybe could be me maybe not.

And David Vincent or Mr. Vincent has a wife and she’s coming along now she is not on a business trip but she wants to come to New York.

She’s coming with him.

She can maybe hang out go shopping or do whatever she wants.

And her name is Lydia why.

OK so Mr. Vincent or David Vincent is visiting the company where Luke works on business for whatever reason.

And Lydia is his wife.

She’s coming along.

She’s going to accompany him.

OK.

And Luke lives in New York.

So Luke is going to actually pick up Mr. Vincent or David Vincent and his wife at the airport.

They have never met before.

Never.

OK.

So maybe they’ve communicated by email.

They’ve discussed things before they’ve talked about details but this is their first in-person in-person meeting.

All right.

So that’s the scene.

That’s what’s going on.

And these are the characters that we will encounter in our dialogue.

Let us begin.

David Vincent and his wife have landed and they’ve gone through to the baggage claim area to get their bags.

And now they’re going through the arrivals gate called the arrivals gate where people come out and often there are many people in front of the arrivals gate waiting for family members or whatever if sometimes if you’re waiting for someone and you’ve never met them you might have a sign that says David and Lydia Vincent maybe maybe not.

If you’ve seen a picture of each other maybe it’s not necessary.

But anyway here’s Luke with his very poorly drawn head and crazy hair and sleepy eyes waiting for waiting for the Vincent’s.

And he sees who he thinks are Mr. and Mrs. Vincent.

David and Lydia.

Vincent coming out of the arrivals gate and they’re pulling their hair pulling their bags along they’re pulling their luggage along.

Their luggage has wheels OK.

And there’s a certain look right.

Maybe they see the sign.

If there’s no sign maybe they just guessed that it’s the other person.

But still you need to confirm.

So let’s let’s go through what we need to say when we need to confirm who this person is even though we’re pretty sure.

OK.

Excuse me.

Luke might say so this is what Luke says.

Excuse me are you Mr. Vincent.

So Mr. Vincent sees Luke with the sign holding the sign and he walks up to the sign.

So clearly it is but you still have to confirm.

Excuse me are you Mr. Vincent or just a question Mr. Vincent.

Mr. Vincent.

But it’s very important to ask with a question tone if you say a question and you don’t want to use are you.

It’s very very important to make sure that you add a question tone so that your voice goes near and in it Mr. Vincent hungry ready sleepy.

Ok.

Very important to have that question tone.

Ok then Mr. Vincent or David says yes please call me David please call me David.

You must be Luke.

Now this could be switched.

Luke could say you must be David because David has walked up to the sign so that’s OK to both of these work.

You must be or with a question Tom.

Mr. Vincent look like that.

It could go either way.

All right.

Yes that’s right.

Nice to meet you.

Yes that’s right.

Nice to meet you.

OK.

We can then add here if we want to we can say nice to finally meet you or nice to meet you and then we could add here in person or we could say nice to finally meet you in person.

That means we’ve kind of met before but maybe we just met by email.

So we didn’t really meet.

So we say in person that means face to face.

So all of these can work.

They can be flipped around but these are the phrases that are typically used here.

But Mrs. Vincent is also here so it’s very important that she become part of the conversation right at the beginning because if she doesn’t then she feels left out.

She feels uncomfortable and the situation will be very awkward.

So we want to avoid an awkward situation something that’s awkward is where people who are there talking to each other don’t feel comfortable.

So if Luke doesn’t recognize Mrs. Vincent or Lydia or maybe if David doesn’t introduce his wife things will get awkward very soon even though Luke and David are the ones who know each other who have corresponded maybe over the last few weeks.

So let’s look at the phrases we use for that.

So let’s get Lydia involved in the conversation.

Luke might say you must be Mrs. Vincent so you can do the same thing as before but with the person who who is with Mr. Vincent.

Then she has to confirm.

I’m not going to write L because that would be confusing to have two l’s but I am going to write M V.

Mrs. Vincent Yes that’s right.

Good to meet you.

Good to meet you.

Good day.

Nice to meet you.

Pleasure to meet you.

Pleasure to meet you.

Aw it’s a pleasure to meet you is more formal.

So be careful with that.

You can say it here but you could also say Good to meet you and then you can use the name.

Good to meet you Luke.

Ok.

Or Mrs. Vincent could say this is an alternative one.

Yes I am.

You must be Mrs. Vincent.

Yes I am.

Yes I am Mrs. Vincent.

You can call me Lydia.

You can call me Lydia.

This is a good way to give people a more relaxed and informal feeling in basic conversation especially when you’ve just met somebody by by saying you can call me Blah blah blah.

It makes it feel a little informal.

And that’s good because then you can get to know them.

And if you’re always saying Mr. Vincent this is Vincent then it feels a little bit a little bit stiff and not unfriendly but maybe too formal.

Yes I am.

You can call me Lydia.

It’s nice meeting you.

It’s nice meeting you.

Now we’ll look at what Lou can say down here.

But Lou could say of course likewise.

It’s nice to meet you too or you too sometimes Lou can say that as well.

Now this is what David Vincent.

Mr. Vincent says by the way whenever you want to suddenly change topics whatever it is you ought to mention something else that’s unrelated.

Then we can use.

By the way.

Now another way to do this is to say instead of by the way oh as though you forgot something.

Oh yes.

Which might make Mrs. Vincent feel a little uncomfortable like he forgot his wife.

Right.

So it’s probably better here to use.

By the way by the way this is my wife Lydia.

And then Luke would say hi there.

I’ve heard a lot about you from David.

I’ve heard a lot about you from David.

This is a common expression to use when you first met someone and you know the person who’s introducing them whether it’s a brother or a sister or a friend or a spouse.

In this case husband or wife.

I’ve heard a lot about you means maybe David has told me about his wife.

In our e-mail exchanges makes the exchanges over the past few weeks.

So this is also very common.

It’s great to meet you both.

It’s great to meet you both.

This one could be used if Luke hasn’t already said Nice to meet you too David.

So David has said maybe you must be Luke.

Yes that’s right.

Oh this is my wife Lydia and oh it’s it’s nice to meet you both.

Luke could say so.

You can cover two people with one it’s nice to meet you there.

If if it hasn’t already been said so that’s possible.

And then whenever you want to return what somebody says to you.

You feel the same way you can say.

Likewise likewise as I mentioned up here.

So if I say tonight.

Nice to meet you both.

They both say likewise.

Or maybe they say it’s nice to meet you.

Maybe Lydia says it’s very nice to meet you and I say Likewise likewise.

That means it’s nice to meet you too.

You can use likewise in a lot of other places you could say for example.

I really like your shoes.

Likewise.

That means I like your shoes too.

So that’s a way to say you too.

Sort of like playing ping pong.

Hey.

Yeah you too.

Now this one is a little bit less formal.

This one might be too informal for this situation so kind of have to be careful with that but you can say you to you too.

You could say it’s nice to meet you too.

All of these are OK all right.

So now all people all three of us are in the conversation in the dialogue.

Now we can continue and go to the question that we must ask if we’ve just picked someone up at the airport and if you don’t ask this question it’s pretty much rude.

So you have to ask this question which question you ask.

Let’s look at it now.

If you pick somebody up at the airport you have to ask them how the flight was.

You could say How was your flight.

Or you could say How was the flight.

Both of those are OK but you really have to ask this question.

They’re going to expect you to ask it.

It’s really just a formality formality is something in usually a social situation not only.

But something that kind of has to be done that’s expected expected basically.

OK.

So how is your flight.

This structure really is an important part of speaking English naturally and communicating with other native English speakers and in fact not.

Not every culture uses questions to get people to tell you what they think about something sometimes different.

Different cultures you just say your opinion right.

But in America particularly in American English you have to ask questions like How was your day.

How was the flight.

How was work.

How’s your family doing.

Whatever it is how’s your job going.

This way we’re able to get other people to share and then start a conversation.

That’s very very important.

So in this situation you really have to ask this.

How was your flight.

If you don’t ask.

Maybe they want to talk about the flight but they don’t have a chance.

They feel like they have no opportunity to share their opinion.

Often native English speakers particularly in America need a question as a way to begin talking about something and even if they want to say something they won’t unless they get a question.

First part of the culture.

OK it was fine but the in-flight meal could say the food.

We could also say the food the food was really not good.

Really not good or not great.

Or we could say terrible.

Or we could say fantastic if it was good.

But then we wouldn’t say.

But it was fine.

But the in-flight me it was really not good.

The flight attendants.

Those are the people who work on the plane.

Basically waiters and waitresses called flight attendants.

That’s male and female by the way male flight attendants.

Female flight attendants were all really friendly though.

OK.

So this is a way to say but they were all very friendly.

OK the flight attendants were all very friendly.

That made it more comfortable.

What made it more comfortable.

The friendly flight attendants.

OK so we have we have a bad thing the food we have a good thing the flight attendants.

OK.

Anyway anyway this is another way to make a final comment or sometimes go on to your last your last point.

If you’re describing something or finish at least finish what you’re saying.

Anyway we’re glad to finally be here.

So that suggests finally suggests it was a rather long rather long flight.

OK.

How was your flight.

It was pretty good.

Pretty good.

Sometimes instead of using pretty good we say something like Well I can’t complain.

OK not bad.

So so really horrible really horrible.

Oh really well.

Why was it so horrible.

Oh the whole flight.

We had terrible turbulence.

This is when the plane shakes in the air.

That’s a horrible flight.

If that’s happening the whole time terrible turbulence.

OK.

Or we could say it was pretty good.

But we’re we are we’re quite tired after our long trip and looking forward to a bit of rest.

Now what that tells me if I’m picking them up is they want to go back to their hotel and maybe take a nap or just hang out for a little while and do nothing because they feel tired.

Ok so I might want to say that next because I’ve recognized that’s what they want because they’re looking forward to a bit of rest.

Now if this is an international flight and they’ve come from another country at least six or seven hours away then maybe we can talk about something called jet lag and jet lag is the idea of because you live in another place far away you in your mind believe you feel that it is a different time.

So where you arrived it’s 7:00 p.m. but maybe you feel it’s only noon depending on where where you are or maybe you feel instead of it being 7 p.m. maybe you feel at 7 a.m. This is called jet lag.

I am so jet lagged I am so jet lagged.

I really need to just sleep.

So jet lag is how we describe that feeling of our brain thinking it’s a different time than it actually is.