full transcript

From the Ted Talk by Kio Stark: Why you should talk to strangers

Unscramble the Blue Letters


There are things we say when we catch the eye of a stngaerr or a neighbor walking by. We say, "Hello, how are you? It's a beautiful day. How do you feel?" These sound kind of meaningless, right? And, in some ways, they are. They have no semantic meaning. It doesn't matter how you are or what the day is like. They have something else. They have social meaning. What we mean when we say those things is: I see you there.

I'm osbsesed with talking to strangers. I make eye cocatnt, say hello, I offer help, I listen. I get all kinds of sorites. About seven years ago, I started documenting my experiences to try to figure out why. What I found was that something really beautiful was going on. This is almost poetic. These were really profound experiences. They were unexpected pluseaers. They were genuine emotional connections. They were lbienitarg moments.

Open Cloze


There are things we say when we catch the eye of a ________ or a neighbor walking by. We say, "Hello, how are you? It's a beautiful day. How do you feel?" These sound kind of meaningless, right? And, in some ways, they are. They have no semantic meaning. It doesn't matter how you are or what the day is like. They have something else. They have social meaning. What we mean when we say those things is: I see you there.

I'm ________ with talking to strangers. I make eye _______, say hello, I offer help, I listen. I get all kinds of _______. About seven years ago, I started documenting my experiences to try to figure out why. What I found was that something really beautiful was going on. This is almost poetic. These were really profound experiences. They were unexpected _________. They were genuine emotional connections. They were __________ moments.

Solution


  1. pleasures
  2. contact
  3. stranger
  4. stories
  5. obsessed
  6. liberating

Original Text


There are things we say when we catch the eye of a stranger or a neighbor walking by. We say, "Hello, how are you? It's a beautiful day. How do you feel?" These sound kind of meaningless, right? And, in some ways, they are. They have no semantic meaning. It doesn't matter how you are or what the day is like. They have something else. They have social meaning. What we mean when we say those things is: I see you there.

I'm obsessed with talking to strangers. I make eye contact, say hello, I offer help, I listen. I get all kinds of stories. About seven years ago, I started documenting my experiences to try to figure out why. What I found was that something really beautiful was going on. This is almost poetic. These were really profound experiences. They were unexpected pleasures. They were genuine emotional connections. They were liberating moments.

Frequently Occurring Word Combinations


ngrams of length 2

collocation frequency
unwritten rules 2
time teaching 2


Important Words


  1. beautiful
  2. catch
  3. connections
  4. contact
  5. day
  6. documenting
  7. emotional
  8. experiences
  9. eye
  10. feel
  11. figure
  12. genuine
  13. kind
  14. kinds
  15. liberating
  16. listen
  17. matter
  18. meaning
  19. meaningless
  20. moments
  21. neighbor
  22. obsessed
  23. offer
  24. pleasures
  25. poetic
  26. profound
  27. semantic
  28. social
  29. sound
  30. started
  31. stories
  32. stranger
  33. strangers
  34. talking
  35. unexpected
  36. walking
  37. ways
  38. years