55 Conversation Starters for Online Chat (That Survive Translation)

The first message is the hardest one. You open a chat with someone you've never met, the cursor blinks, and "hi" is all you can think of. A plain "hi" is fine, but it gives the other person nothing to answer.

This list is written for text chat, where there's no tone of voice, no smile and sometimes no shared language. The questions are short, open and easy to translate. Pick one that sounds like you, change a word or two, and send it.

What makes a good starter in text

A good opener does three things:

• It can't be answered with yes or no. "Do you like music?" gets "yes". "What song have you had on repeat this week?" gets a story.
• It's about their world, not a test. Food, weather, a weekend, a small habit. Everyone is an expert on their own day.
• It's plain. Slang, jokes built on wordplay and idioms ("what's up", "break the ice") can come out strange when translated. Short sentences travel best.

Add one line about yourself before the question. "I'm having breakfast, it's very cold here. What is the weather like where you are?" is easier to answer than a bare question, because it shows you're a person too.

Light and easy

These work as a first message with almost anyone.

1. What are you doing right now?
2. What's the weather like where you are today?
3. What time is it there? It's evening for me.
4. What was the best thing you ate this week?
5. What's a normal breakfast where you live?
6. Is it a busy day for you or a slow one?
7. What did you do last weekend?
8. What's the first thing you do after you wake up?
9. Do you prefer mornings or nights? Tell me about your best time of day.
10. What's something small that made you smile today?
11. What are you drinking at the moment: coffee, tea, or something else? 12. What's your favourite season, and why?

About where you live

People like to talk about home, and you learn something real.

13. What is your city like? If I visited for one day, what should I do?
14. What's a food from your country that every visitor should try?
15. What's a place near you that tourists usually miss?
16. How do people usually get around where you live?
17. What is a tradition in your country that surprises foreigners?
18. What's the best time of year in your country?
19. Is there a word in your language that is hard to translate?
20. What do people your age usually do on a Friday night?
21. What's something you wish people knew about your country?
22. What's a local snack you'd miss if you moved away?

Music, films, games and hobbies

23. What music do you listen to when you're in a good mood?
24. What's the last film or series you finished? Would you recommend it?
25. What's a song from your country that I should listen to?
26. Do you play any games? What are you playing now?
27. Do you have a hobby you could talk about for an hour?
28. What's the last book you read, or the last one you gave up on?
29. Is there a sport everyone follows where you live?
30. What's a skill you're trying to learn right now?
31. What's your favourite thing to do on a rainy day?
32. If you could learn any instrument tomorrow, which one?

A bit deeper

Save these for after the first few messages, when the chat feels easy.

33. What's the best advice you've ever been given?
34. What did you want to be when you were a child?
35. What's something you're proud of that you rarely mention?
36. What's a small habit that improved your life?
37. What's one thing you'd like to do before the end of the year?
38. What do you miss most about being a child?
39. Who is someone who changed how you see things?
40. What's a place you'd go back to tomorrow if you could?

Fun and a little silly

41. Would you rather live by the sea or in the mountains?
42. You can have dinner with anyone, from any time. Who do you pick?
43. What's the strangest food you've ever tried?
44. If you could instantly speak any language, which would it be?
45. What's the funniest thing that has happened to you this month?
46. If you could live in any country for a year, where?
47. What's a "useless" talent you have?
48. Tea or coffee? Defend your answer.

If you're meeting someone from another country

When your messages are translated both ways, you can be curious about everyday life somewhere else, which is the best part.

49. What's something people in your country do that people elsewhere find strange?
50. How do you greet a friend where you live? Can you teach me?
51. What's a polite thing to say in your language when you meet someone new?
52. Is there a holiday this month where you live? How do you celebrate it?
53. What do children learn in school there that I might not know?
54. Which English words do you hear most often in your daily life?
55. What's a proverb from your country, and what does it mean?

Open in their language

You don't need to speak a language to start with one word. Open with a hello in their language, then ask your question in English (or your language) and let the translation do the rest. These forms come from our list of hello in 79 languages, where each was checked in two references.

Language	Hello	Also used
Spanish	¡Hola!	-
French	Bonjour	Salut (casual)
German	Hallo	Guten Tag (polite)
Portuguese	Olá	Oi (casual, Brazil)
Turkish	Merhaba	Selam (casual)
Arabic	مرحبا (marhaban)	السلام عليكم (as-salamu alaykum)
Hindi	नमस्ते (namaste)	नमस्कार (namaskar)
Mandarin Chinese	你好 (nǐ hǎo)	您好 (nín hǎo), polite
Japanese	こんにちは (konnichiwa)	-
Korean	안녕하세요 (annyeong-haseyo)	안녕 (annyeong), casual
Tagalog	Kumusta	Musta (casual)
Swahili	Hujambo	Jambo (short form)

With someone you don't know, start with the polite form and follow their lead. If they answer with the casual one, you can switch.

How to keep the chat going

A starter only opens the door. A few habits keep a conversation alive:

• Follow one thread. Pick a detail from their answer and ask about it. Don't jump to your next prepared question.
• Answer your own question. After they reply, say what your answer would be. A chat is two people taking turns, not an interview.
• Keep sentences short. One idea per message translates better than a long paragraph.
• Ask for the story. "What happened?" or "How did you start?" gets more than "why?".
• Let silence be. If a reply takes a while, they might be cooking, working or asleep. Don't send three more messages.

What to skip

• Yes/no openers and one-word messages like "hi" or "sup" on their own.
• Idioms, sarcasm and slang. They break in translation.
• Comments about looks, relationship status or age in the first messages.
• Asking for a phone number, social account or photo straight away. Let trust build first.
• The same copy-pasted line sent to everybody.

Stay safe too: never share your address, bank details or passwords, and never send money to someone you only know from a chat. For more, read our random text chat safety tips.

Try one right now

Reading a list is easy. Sending the first message is the hard part, and it gets easier each time. With Olu you can start a text chat with a real person in another country: you're matched with someone who is online now, every message is translated both ways, and there's no video or voice. If nobody is around, you may meet an AI local, always labelled as AI. It's free, and for adults 18 and over.

Pick one starter from this page, send it, and see what comes back. For more openers built around countries and cultures, see how to start a conversation with a stranger from another country.