How to Use This Site
Most textbooks give you an answer. One correct sentence, memorized, delivered — and then silence, because the other person has nothing to grab onto.
Tiki-taka is the opposite idea. In football it means short, quick passes that keep possession moving. In conversation it means the same thing: your answer is not the end of the exchange, it is a pass. It has to be catchable.
The three routes
Every question on this site has three ways back. They are always in the same order, so you learn the shape rather than the sentence.
| Route | What it does | When to reach for it |
|---|---|---|
| Return | Short, safe, instant. One clause and a question mark. | You are tired, distracted, or the person is a stranger. |
| Add | One concrete detail they can pick up. | You want the conversation to continue. This is the default. |
| Flip | Turns the question around, or plays with it. | You are comfortable, and you want warmth or humor. |
Return never fails. Add is where most real conversation lives — a detail is a handle. Flip is the one that makes people remember you.
The practice loop
The answers are hidden on purpose. Reading a sentence and recognizing it is not the same skill as producing it under time pressure, and only one of those two skills helps you in a real conversation.
Read the question out loud
Say it as if someone just asked you. Hear the rhythm of it.
Look only at the trigger phrase
Every route shows its opening words — Can’t complain — or Actually, I —. That is the trigger. It is there because a first-language speaker does not compose a whole sentence before opening their mouth either; they start, and the rest follows.
Say your own full answer
Out loud. Not in your head. Finish the sentence from the trigger, and end with something the other person can answer.
Now open the card
Compare. You are not checking whether you got the right answer — there isn’t one. You are checking whether your version gave them a handle.
Say the card version once
Then close it and say your own again. The second attempt is the one that sticks.
What is inside a card
How's it going?
A colleague, passing you in the hallway.
Return Can't complain —
Can't complain. Same old, same old.
pass it backHow about you?
The safest answer in English. It says nothing, and that is fine — the question was not really a question.
Add Pretty good, actually —
Pretty good, actually. I finally finished that thing I have been dragging around all month.
pass it backHow's your week looking?
One concrete detail. They can now ask what the thing was, or complain about their own.
Flip Ask me after —
Ask me after my second coffee. Right now I am running on about forty percent.
pass it backAre you a morning person, or is that just me?
Self-deprecating and low-stakes. It hands them an easy opinion to have.
The orange pass it back line is the important part. An answer without one is a dead ball — technically correct, conversationally finished.
A note on register
Everything here is neutral-to-casual — what you would say to a coworker, a friend of a friend, or someone at a meetup. In a job interview or with a much older stranger, lean on Return and Add, and leave Flip alone until you know the room.