50 Advanced ESL Discussion Topics for Deep Conversation (B2-C2)

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Michael Desrosiers Langclub Co-founder · MA, Johns Hopkins University Updated Dec 17, 2025
10 min read

Are you tired of talking about the weather? Are you bored of answering, "What is your hobby?" for the 100th time?

If you want to reach an Advanced (C1) level of English, you need to stop swimming in the shallow end of the pool. You need to dive deep.

When you discuss complex, philosophical topics, your brain stops worrying about grammar and starts focusing on the message. You forget you are speaking a foreign language. That is the definition of flow.

Below are 50 questions, sorted into eight categories and tagged by level (B2, C1, C2). Every question comes with follow-up prompts, because in a real discussion the hard part is not the first question. It is the thirty seconds after someone answers it.

These questions come from Langclub's live session archive: over 4,000 discussions held with B2 to C1 speakers in more than 140 countries.

Contents

Values & Happiness (B2)
The Future & Technology (B2)
Ethics & Society (C1)
Work & Ambition (B2)
Culture & Identity (C1)
Language & Communication (B2)
Power, Money & Inequality (C1)
The Hardest Questions (C2)
Vocabulary Notes
How to Use These Questions

1. Values & Happiness B2

In our sessions, this is where cultural differences surface fastest. Ask ten people from ten countries to define a good life and you will get ten different answers, often without anyone noticing they disagree until twenty minutes in. That gap is the discussion.

1. If you could have a guaranteed "happy life" by plugging your brain into a machine (Simulated Reality), would you do it? Or do you prefer a messy reality?

What exactly would you be giving up?
Would your answer change if your family did it first?

2. Is it better to be respected by everyone or loved by a few?

Which one have you actually been chasing?

3. Does money buy happiness, or does it just buy comfort? What is the difference?

At what amount does the effect stop?

4. Are you the same person you were ten years ago? If not, when did you stop being that person?

Was it one event or a slow change?

5. Is a life without risk a life half-lived, or is that just something people say to justify bad decisions?

What is the biggest risk you have taken, and would you take it again?

6. If you could remove one memory permanently, would you?

Would removing it make you a different person?
Is there a difference between forgetting and forgiving?

2. The Future & Technology B2

These questions rarely stall, because almost everyone has an opinion already. The difficulty is the opposite one: keeping the conversation specific instead of letting it drift into general predictions.

7. If AI takes over 90% of human jobs, how will humans find meaning in life?

Do you get meaning from your job right now?

8. Should we allow parents to genetically engineer their babies to be smarter and healthier? (Gattaca Scenario)

Where would you draw the line: disease, intelligence, appearance?
What happens to the children of parents who cannot afford it?

9. If you could live forever, would you want to?

Would you want everyone to, or only you?

10. Do you trust an algorithm more than a human expert? In which situations?

Medical diagnosis, job hiring, criminal sentencing. Does your answer change?

11. Social media has connected the world. Has it made us better at talking to each other, or worse?

Think about the last real conversation you had online.

12. Should there be a legal right to disconnect, meaning your employer cannot contact you after work hours?

Would you actually use that right?

3. Ethics & Society C1

Expect long pauses here, and let them happen. A speaker thinking before answering an ethics question is not struggling with English. Filling that silence is the most common mistake a host makes.

13. Is it ever okay to lie? Give an example of a "moral lie".

Who benefits from that lie, honestly?

14. If you found a wallet with $1,000 and no ID, would you really return it? Be honest.

Does the amount change your answer? What about $10,000?

15. Do you believe humans are naturally good, or do we learn to be good?

What evidence from your own life supports your answer?

16. Is it fair to judge historical figures by today's moral standards?

Will future generations judge you for something you consider normal?

17. If a machine could predict crime before it happens, should the police be allowed to act on it?

What would you accept as proof?
Would you accept being arrested for something you had not done yet?

18. Is loyalty a virtue or a weakness?

Have you ever stayed loyal to something you should have left?

19. Should people be held responsible for opinions they held twenty years ago?

Have you changed your mind about something important? What changed it?

4. Work & Ambition B2

There is a reliable split in this category. Students tend to answer idealistically, while people already working answer from experience, sometimes with visible fatigue. Putting both in the same room is what makes this set work.

20. Would you take a job you hated for three times your current salary?

How long could you do it before it changed you?
What would you tell someone who said yes?

21. Is "follow your passion" good advice, or is it advice that only works for people who are already comfortable?

Who gave you that advice, and what was their situation?

22. If you could see exactly how successful you will be in ten years, would you want to know?

Would knowing change what you do tomorrow?

23. Should companies be allowed to monitor what employees do on their computers?

Where is the line between management and surveillance?
Does your answer change if the company pays for the computer?

24. Do you work to live, or live to work? Has that answer changed as you got older?

What made it change?

25. Is retiring at 40 a dream or a mistake?

What would you actually do with those years?

5. Culture & Identity C1

This category demands hedging language. You will need phrases like "it depends on", "generally speaking", and "I can only speak for myself", because every answer risks over-generalising about millions of people.

26. What is something about your culture that outsiders always misunderstand?

How do you usually explain it?

27. Can you fully belong to a country you were not born in?

What would have to happen for that to be true?

28. Is cultural tradition worth preserving even when it causes harm?

Name a tradition from your own culture you would change.

29. When you speak a different language, do you become a different person?

Which version of you is more honest?
Which one do you prefer?

30. Is national pride a healthy thing or a dangerous one?

Where is the line between pride and superiority?

31. If your country's history includes something shameful, what do you owe that history?

Apology, education, compensation, or nothing?

6. Language & Communication B2

Question 29 produces near-universal agreement: almost everyone says they feel like a slightly different person in English. Among advanced speakers there is a stranger version of this. Some notice that the personality bleeding through is borrowed from characters in the shows they learned from.

32. Should English remain the global language, or is that unfair to everyone else?

What have you lost by having to learn it?

33. What is harder: saying something difficult in your own language, or in English?

Why do you think that is?

34. Is it possible to be funny in a second language?

Have you ever made someone laugh in English on purpose? What happened?

35. Do you correct people when they make mistakes in your native language?

Would you want to be corrected in English? Always, or only sometimes?

36. If a translation machine became perfect tomorrow, would you stop learning English?

What would you lose besides the language?

37. What is a word or expression in your language that English simply cannot translate?

Try to explain it anyway. That attempt is the exercise.

7. Power, Money & Inequality C1

The hardest category to keep civil, and the most rewarding when it works. Set the expectation early that the goal is to understand the other position, not to win.

38. Should there be a maximum wage, the way there is a minimum wage?

Who would decide the number?

39. Is inherited wealth fair?

Would you refuse an inheritance on principle? Be honest.

40. Do rich countries owe poor countries anything?

If yes, how much and for how long?
If no, what about countries they colonised?

41. Is it possible to become extremely wealthy without exploiting someone?

Name someone you think managed it. Can you defend that choice?

42. Should voting be mandatory?

What does a forced vote actually mean?

43. Who has more real power in your country: elected politicians or private companies?

What made you think so?

8. The Hardest Questions C2

One thing worth knowing before you start: at this level, English is rarely the bottleneck. What decides whether someone can hold their own here is whether they have thought about the topic before. A C1 speaker who has read about free will will outperform a C2 speaker who has not.

44. If you died today, what would be your biggest regret?

What is stopping you from fixing it this year?

45. Is suffering necessary for a meaningful life, or is that a story people tell to make suffering bearable?

Would you remove the hardest year of your life if you could?

46. Do you have free will, or does it only feel that way?

If you decided your answer, does that prove anything?

47. Is there a moral difference between causing harm and allowing harm?

The classic version: you can save five people by acting, but your action kills one. What do you do, and why?

48. What would have to be true for you to change your mind about something you believe deeply?

Has anyone ever done that to you?

49. Is it possible to truly know another person, or do we only know our version of them?

Who knows you best, and what do they still get wrong?

50. If you could ask one question and receive a guaranteed honest answer, what would you ask, and who would you ask?

Would you actually want to hear it?

Vocabulary Notes

Shallow (adjective): Not deep; superficial.
Guaranteed (adjective): Certain to happen; promised.
Genetically engineer (verb): To change the genes of a living thing scientifically.
Moral (adjective): Concerned with the principles of right and wrong behaviour.
Exploit (verb): To use someone unfairly for your own benefit.
Inherited (adjective): Received from a family member after their death.
Surveillance (noun): Close observation, especially of a suspected person.
Virtue (noun): A good moral quality in a person.
Compensation (noun): Something given to make up for loss or harm.
Justify (verb): To show that something is reasonable or right.
Bearable (adjective): Able to be endured or tolerated.
Colonise (verb): To take political control of another country and settle there.

How to Use These Questions

Reading a list of questions will not make you fluent. Using them will.

On your own. Pick one question and speak your answer out loud for two minutes without stopping. Record it. Listen back once, and note only the moment where you slowed down. That moment is what to work on.

With a partner. Ask the question, then ask a follow-up before giving your own answer. Most learners rush to speak. The harder skill, and the one that separates B2 from C1, is keeping someone else talking.

In a group. Choose one question per session, not five. A single question explored for thirty minutes produces more real language than ten questions answered in one sentence each.

Discuss These With Real People

You cannot practise these questions with a wall. Langclub runs live discussion sessions every day with B2 to C1 speakers from over 140 countries, using questions exactly like these.

Join a free session →

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