AEE 2660: Stop Dropping Names! Connect Your Listeners to the Story

This is an All Ears English podcast, episode 2660. Stop dropping names. Connect your listeners to the story. Welcome to the All Ears English podcast downloaded more than 200 million times.

Are you feeling stuck with your English? We'll show you how to become fearless and fluent by focusing on connection, not perfection with your American hosts, Lindsay McMahon, the English adventurer, and Michelle Kaplan, the New York radio girl. coming to you from Colorado and New York City, USA. And to get your transcripts delivered by email every week, go to allearsenglish.com forward slash subscribe.

When you say someone's name while talking with people who may not know the person, you can let them sit there confused or you can pull them in by giving them a little bit of context so they can relate. Learn how to do it today.

I'll see you next time. Search for All Ears English Business English wherever you listen and listen to Aubrey, Michelle and Lindsay three days a week. See you there.

Hello, Michelle. How's it going today? Hey, Lindsay, I'm good. How are you? Good, Michelle. Who do you usually celebrate the holidays with? I would say family.

But sometimes, recently, there was a holiday that we went to our friend's house. Well, a couple times, actually, we've been to friends' houses, you know, just if our family isn't in town or it's more convenient.

How about you? Yeah. Yeah, I mean, definitely family, I would say either East Coast or in Colorado. So depending on if I go to my brother's house, it'll be all of his wife's family.

So extended families, things like that, you know? Yeah, yeah, exactly. So when we talk about other people, things can get confusing when we're with a certain group. So especially if the person we're talking to doesn't know the people.

Like, have you ever... been in a situation where a couple people were talking and they maybe they went to high school together and you met them later on in life and then they're just talking about it and you're like, all right, like, I guess I'll just zone out. Like, it's fine. You get because you get it.

It's fun to have that for them to have that connection moment. So you don't want to get in the way, but you're just like, Okay. Yeah. That'd be great.

Exactly. Exactly. So, but, but again, we're all about connection moments here on Allers English. And this is, so we need a skill. What is the skill we need to have then, Michelle, to be able to pull people in so that doesn't happen?

Right. So it's important to give context, to explain, give a bit of a background instead of just saying, oh, and Stacey, remember when Stacey did this and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and they're all talking about Stacey and you're like, I don't, you know.

Yes, totally. 100%. So we're getting into this. So instead of just saying people's names, you pull in someone who maybe doesn't know Stacey by giving them context of who they are and why we should care, right?

In a way. Right. Yeah. So, yeah. So, like, by context, we mean, you know, describing the relationship briefly so it makes sense to the other person. So, like, if someone asks me who I spent the holidays with, I'm not gonna just say random people's names.

Oh, I spent the holidays with Joe and Bob and... Stephen. Okay. You know, because if the listener doesn't know them, they're going to feel confused or even disconnected.

And certainly we don't want that. Exactly. I can't wait to get into this skill together because it's very key. And obviously our listeners know this in their native languages, but we need this as a connection skill in English.

So guys, go ahead and hit follow right now on the show so you don't miss any one of our amazing five episodes a week here on Allers English. Also, why not send the show to a friend today? Sure. Go ahead and think of one friend who also believes in connection, not perfection.

Open your text message and send them a link to the show wherever you like to listen. Okay? Definitely. So, look, Lindsay, why does this matter? It matters so that no one loses the conversation, right?

They don't lose the thread, as we say. Don't let them have that moment. As you said, Michelle, it's okay. You get it. It's fine. Yeah. They went to high school together.

You can zone out for a minute, but maybe that doesn't have to happen. Instead, you pull people in and show them why this person might actually be relevant to you, right? Right. Exactly.

And this will help them follow the conversation and connect them with the story. And also... feel included, you know? And I mean, again, you know, they weren't there.

Maybe it's not that, you know, serious to them. But okay, they have some connection. Maybe they, I mean, they probably went to high school. They, you know, there might be some ways in which you can make it seem a little more relevant or interesting to them.

And even if it's not going to be super interesting to them, at least you show that you've tried or you understand that, okay, yeah, we're talking about something that we know and sorry, and we're going to get back to you.

Exactly. And that's the key to connection is to feel included, right? That should be our number one, one of our number one goals. We want to be clear.

We want to sound confident, but we want to include people because that's what builds relationships. Exactly. And this was actually inspired, Michelle, by an experience that I had. Yeah, tell us.

Yeah. So back in the, oh gosh, this was back around Thanksgiving of 2025. It was a while ago now. I was out in California with my partner and we went to see my partner's friend from high school.

We went up to like near Santa Monica to have dinner with her and her parents. Yeah. So it was my partner's friend and her parents. And someone's name came up.

Let's say Natasha. Natasha came up. And this was someone that my partner's friend and my partner had gone to school with. And the parents were there. And so what my partner's friend said, let's just call her Denise, for example.

So Denise said to her mom, you remember Natasha, right? She was in the drama club with me. Before that, her mom was kind of spacing out like Natasha, who is this person? She didn't really care.

She didn't know. But Denise reminded her mom about who this person was and why they mattered. And then I also didn't know Natasha because I didn't know Denise in school. So she said to me, this is someone that we both went to school with back in middle school, meaning my partner and Denise.

So I hope I just didn't lose our listeners there. But You need to rewind to follow it. It's this unknown party whose name comes up. Right, exactly. And only some of you at the table know who this person is.

You need to pull in the other people. And the other people in this case were me and Denise's mom. Right. Right. I mean, imagine if, Lindsay, if the two of us were right now talking and we're like, oh, yeah.

Like, if we throw out names, it's usually because somebody might know them. So, like, if we say Aubrey, you know who that is. If we say Dan, I think Dan has been mentioned enough that most people probably know as my husband, right? So, like, Dan is almost – I always joke with Dan.

I'm like, you're a character on all – Yeah, he is kind of in a way. He's a supporting character. But like, yeah, exactly. But it would be weird if we were just talking and we're like, I mean, it would just show that we're not paying attention to our listeners.

We're not thinking about them. So the key here is to just really tailor your explanation to the person you're talking to. Yeah. In this situation, Lindsay, it sounds like your friend gave context for both her mom and for you.

Yes. Right. So she tailored it. Exactly. So she took that extra step, the extra work. Right. So if she just said, remember, Natasha, her mom might have been confused.

It was so long ago. It was middle school or elementary school. But there was that little extra context. She was in the drama club with me. That probably triggered because her mom probably dropped her off at drama club and maybe she knew Natasha's mom, right?

Right, right, right. And you could always go further if her mom was like, oh, I don't know. And, you know, if it's important, you might say, you might either say, it doesn't matter. Right.

you might say no remember like her mom was the friendly one who always helped with the cookie sale you know what i mean you can keep on going with it if it's important for her to give people the image because it brings the conversation to life more i mean the mom could have just said okay yeah i don't really know who it was you know but it's fun when she can actually put a face to a name and actually okay that's who you're talking about you know that moment where then you realize yeah who it is oh yeah of course oh i remember that is you know that is really fun i agree completely um and then to me she said this is someone we both went to school with back in middle school because i'm totally disconnected from denise's childhood you're all i only know denise through my partner right

So since I've never met this person, it gives me enough context to understand the story and that's it. But she took the effort to give both of us the context, right? Yeah. Denise sounds like a good gal.

The funny part is I actually saw her again for the first time since this instance, again, last weekend. But she wasn't doing this. This time, she was just kind of mentioning names and not giving us any context. Denise, this episode is for you.

Yeah, I know. It's funny. Anyways, really funny. We don't always do this. Sometimes we just get caught up in the story and we don't, you know, it's okay again, but we want to teach you guys the best way to perhaps build those connections instead of just make someone sit there like, I don't know these people.

All right. I guess I'll look at my phone. You know, you can always tell them the person gets on just like, okay, I'm just going to take some time and look at my phone. Yeah.

Well, you can see the glazing over, right, in the eyes. You know when we've lost someone, you can see their eyes are kind of like glazy. That's when you know you've done something wrong, right? Yeah.

Yes. Don't let them glaze. You got to pull them back in. All right. Exactly. Who are you in your native language? Confident, funny, opinionated. Now, who are you in English?

If you feel smaller, quieter, or less expressive, that's not because you're bad at English. It's because fluency is tied to identity. When you're unsure, you hold back. And when you hold back, people don't see the real you.

You don't need perfect grammar. You need clarity about what is holding you back. In just two minutes, you can discover your English level and what's slowing your progress for free. Go to allearsenglish.com slash fluency score.

That's allearsenglish.com slash F-L-U-E-N-C-Y-S-C-O-R-E. All right. Okay, Michelle. So let's give our listeners this skill because we've talked about how crucial it is.

We've told a story. How can we include others when we tell stories like this? Yeah. So again, like we mentioned, first you have to consider the relationship.

So how do you know the person? So share that. So you could say my coworker from my last job, my neighbor downstairs, a friend from college, right? So you have to think about how you know the person and how you can express that.

And then, of course, you need to tailor it to the person you're talking to because you know something about the person you're trying to pull in. You know a lot about the person you're talking about. So how do we tailor it? If you're speaking to a close friend, this is someone we went to school with, meaning you and the close friend, I guess, right?

Maybe? Yeah, exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Or speaking to your mother, she was in drama club with us. Or speaking to someone new, she went to middle school with us or with me, I guess you could say.

Right. So you kind of think about how, you know, broad, how much you're going to zoom in on it. Are you going to say she was in drama club with Mr. Henderson with, you know what I mean?

How much are you going to zoom in? How much is important? And exactly. Yeah. Like how do they connect this to the story? It's also important. So yeah.

For example, she lives in your neighborhood or she was your coworker at your first job or he also studied abroad in Spain. So we're connecting the relationship how you know that person and

how the other person could connect to it and then how that person connects to the story. Exactly. Exactly. It seems like a very cumbersome topic to explain today, but I think our listeners get it.

I think we know exactly what we're talking about today. So let's break into some scenarios here, Michelle, and demonstrate. Okay. All right. So here's scenario one.

All right. I ran into Kevin the other day. He's that coworker from my last job. I used to talk about him a lot. Oh, nice. How's he doing? Okay. So you gave me a couple of cues, a little context.

Yeah. He's that coworker from, and you also interestingly kind of, um, added question marks, even though it's not in our writing, you added question marks at the end. He's that coworker from my last job. I used to talk about him a lot, right?

I'm asking, you're asking me if I remember in a sense. I'm like giving you clues. Like, is that going to help you remember? Is this going to help you remember?

Yeah, it's interesting. You're prompting me. Do you know now? Do you know now? Right. I'm prompting you. Yeah. Next one. Um, All right. Here's the next one.

I ran into Sarah this weekend. She's my neighbor downstairs. The one whose dog is always barking. Oh, right. I remember you mentioning her. Did you say anything about the dog situation?

Right. Yeah. And again, I did it again with, I said, the one whose dog is always barking. I mean, I could say, oh, you know, the one whose dog is always barking, right?

So you can play with it a little bit. Yeah. You don't have to add that question mark. No. That is something that native speakers will do, right? Exactly.

You'll hear that. So next one, I ran into this guy, Andrew, at the gym today. We actually used to live in the same dorm in college. And here I'm not asking the question because maybe... No, you're just telling me who it is, right?

It's more... Yeah. And the reason for that seems to me to be – oh, sorry. I cut you off. You had something to say. No, no. I just say, oh, that's funny.

Were you guys friends? Yeah. Sorry. And I think the reason that I didn't ask you the question of do you remember him is because we didn't necessarily go to college together.

Right. Right. Right. Exactly. Yeah. Right. So it sounds like we didn't go to college together or we didn't know each other in college at least. Yeah, exactly.

So I'm just simply giving you context. I'm not asking if you remember because of the context I'm giving you in a way. Right. Right. So you have to think about your purpose here.

Like how much do you need this person to know? How much could they know? Right. Exactly. Okay. Let's roll this out in a role play, Michelle. Roll it out on a role play.

Love it. What are we doing? So here we are having brunch with another friend named Emma. So we also went to high school together, but our other friend did not.

And you're going to tell a story. Okay. So Emma's the one who's kind of on the outside, right? A little bit. Okay. Okay. I ran into Patrick at the grocery store last week.

Remember him, Michelle? He went to high school with us. Oh, yeah. How could I forget? Emma, Patrick was super cute and really sweet. All the girls had a crush on him.

So how was he? He still seems like a great guy and he's doing really well. He actually married Janine, his high school sweetheart, and they have three kids. Wow.

Time flies. Yeah. So where was the context given? What was the context clue here? So you said, so you're asking me, and it's interesting because written in this roleplay, there are question marks.

You said, remember him, Michelle? I ran into Patrick, so we have our Patrick. And then you said, remember him, Michelle? And you're not sure if I will?

So you said, he went to high school with us? Yeah, because you and I have that common experience. So we both know him. So I'm prompting you with a bit of a question mark.

And then I'm pulling Emma in. Yeah. No, Emma didn't go to high school with us, but she still needs to kind of know it would add value for her if she knew who Patrick was. right?

Yes, exactly. So yeah, you said Emma Patrick was super cute and really sweet. All the girls had a crush on her. Yeah. So, and then that way Emma can think about someone she knew who all the girls had a crush on and she can bring that archetype into her mind.

Yeah. Right. Yeah. Yeah. That's funny. Yeah. It's true. Yeah. Good picture. So this is good. So what else, Michelle, anything else we want to say about this role play?

Yeah, I mean, I just think you did a really good job here of, you know, explaining, you know, nobody feels left out, everybody feels connected to the conversation. And I really like what you said about then I can, Emma can build that archetype in her head. So remember somebody who had who was like that, you know, every school has that, right? There's always cool.

So you can remember, oh, this is and then who knows, that might lead into a story about someone she had a crush on. And yes, Yeah. You never know. It just can bridge to so many different things too.

The more context you give people, the more they can participate and grab onto what you're saying and add connection moments. Right? Yes. I love it. So if you guys want to listen to another very useful episode, check out episode 2577, which was can versus can't.

Three pronunciation tips. Yes. And for a takeaway, I mean, I think this is really important for connection. We've already talked about why. Don't leave people hanging.

Don't let them sit at that table completely disconnected while you just kind of chat with someone else about this person, you know, John, Michael, who is John, who's Michael? Why should we care, right? Everyone should feel included to some extent as much as you can, right? Exactly.

Exactly. All right. Well, I'm so glad we talked about this today. This is really interesting. And I feel like we're, you know, really setting our listeners up to make everybody feel included, connected, and that's just going to really bring positive things.

Yep. That's success right there, right? Connection is success as we define it here on All Airs English. All right. Good stuff, Michelle. You have a good rest of your day.

All right. You too. Bye, Lindsay. Bye, guys. Bye. Thanks for listening to All Ears English. Would you like to know your English level? Take our two minute quiz.

Go to allearsenglish.com forward slash fluency score. And if you believe in connection, not perfection, then hit subscribe now to make sure you don't miss anything. See you next time.