Food

Food is one of those topics that gets everyone talking. These questions cover everything from favorite dishes to cultural traditions around eating.

Questions are organized by level from beginner to advanced. A printable PDF of all the questions is available at the bottom of the page.

Beginner (A1-A2)

1. What is your favorite snack? What do you like about it?
2. What unhealthy food do you love? Why do you like it so much?
3. What is the best food to eat when you are sick? Why is it so good to eat when you don’t feel well?
4. What is your favorite food that your mother or father cooks? What makes it special to you?
5. Do you prefer to eat unhealthy or healthy food? Why?
6. How often do you eat out? What kind of restaurants do you usually go to?
7. If you could have any food right now, what would it be? What is so good about that food?
8. What is your favorite food? What’s in it?
9. What do you usually eat for breakfast? Why is that your typical breakfast?
10. Who do you usually eat dinner with? What do you talk about?
11. Do you cook at home or order delivery? What’s good about each?
12. Do you like spicy food or mild food? Why?
13. Where do you buy your food? Do you go there often?
14. What’s your favorite restaurant? What do you usually order there?
15. Do you eat a big lunch or a small lunch? What does it usually look like?
16. What’s the most popular street food in your city? Where can you find it?
17. Who cooks most of the food in your home? What do they cook best?
18. What’s the last thing you cooked? What did you put in it?
19. What’s a dish from your country that’s easy to make? What do you need to cook it?

Elementary (A2)

1. What food did your mother always tell you to eat and not to eat?
2. What foods do people in your country eat when they’re sick or have health problems? Why those foods?
3. What kinds of food did you eat when you were a child? Do you eat the same things now?
4. How would you describe your country’s food?
5. How often do you eat foreign food and how often do you eat your country’s cuisine?
6. Where is the best place to eat in your town? Why is it so good?
7. Do you eat a healthy diet? Why or why not?
8. Describe your favorite food. What ingredients are in it? Why is it your favorite?
9. Do you eat different foods depending on the season or weather? Give me some examples.
10. What kinds of food can you cook? Would you like to learn how to cook more types of food?
11. What food do you refuse to eat? Why?
12. Have you ever tried to cook something and it turned out badly? What happened?
13. What’s the strangest food you’ve ever eaten? What did you think of it?
14. What food makes you feel better when you’re sad or stressed? Why does it help?
15. What food did you dislike as a child but like now? What changed?
16. What’s the worst meal you’ve ever had at a restaurant? What went wrong?
17. What time do you usually eat dinner? Why do you eat at that time?

Intermediate (B1)

1. What dishes from your country often confuse tourists or foreigners?
2. What foods in your country were influenced by other cultures? How did these dishes become part of your country’s cuisine?
3. What is your favorite foreign food? How is it different from your country’s cuisine?
4. What could you do to improve your diet?
5. Have you ever gone on a diet to improve your health or lose weight? How well did it work?
6. Do you like trying new foods or do you prefer familiar foods? Why?
7. Do you check food labels when you shop? What do you check for?
8. Do you think people in your country eat too much processed food? What are some popular processed foods?
9. Should parents force their children to eat vegetables? Why or why not?
10. What do you think makes a meal special or memorable? Give some examples from your life.
11. Do you think traditional cooking methods are better than modern ones? Why or why not?
12. Do you think expensive restaurants are worth the money? When are they worth it?
13. What do you think about vegetarian or vegan diets? Are they common in your culture or country?
14. Should schools provide free lunch to all students? Why or why not?
15. If you had to give up one type of food forever, what would you choose and why?
16. What do you think makes someone a good cook? Give some examples from people you know.
17. How do you feel about eating alone versus eating with others? Is it common in your culture or country?

Upper-Intermediate (B2)

1. What is the future of food in your country?
2. How has food delivery technology changed eating habits in your country? What do you think about those changes?
3. What are the advantages and disadvantages of eating locally-grown food versus imported food?
4. How do food trends spread globally, and what impact does this have on local food cultures?
5. Compare how your country’s food culture has changed over the past 30 years. What factors drove these changes?
6. How do social media and food photography influence what people eat and where they dine? How much do they affect you?
7. How is the concept of ‘healthy eating’ different across cultures? What factors shape these different perspectives?
8. Compare street food culture in different countries. What does it reveal about different societies?
9. How do economic conditions affect what people eat? Think about times of both prosperity and difficulty.
10. Compare how your grandparents’ generation ate with how people eat today. What has changed and why?
11. How do food prices affect different groups in society? Consider both immediate and long-term effects.

Advanced (C1)

1. How might the globalization of food simultaneously preserve traditional cuisines and threaten their authenticity?
2. What tensions exist between food as cultural identity and food as commercial commodity in modern society?
3. To what extent do our food choices reflect broader values about health, ethics, and environmental responsibility?
4. How does the romanticization of traditional food cultures both honor and distort the realities of historical eating practices?
5. How might food scarcity and food abundance both create forms of social inequality, despite being opposite conditions?
6. How do food taboos and dietary restrictions both unite communities and create social boundaries?
7. To what extent does our relationship with food reveal underlying assumptions about class, identity, and belonging?
8. How do cultural attitudes toward food waste reflect deeper values about consumption, morality, and environmental stewardship?
9. What does the commercialization of ‘authentic’ ethnic cuisines reveal about cultural appropriation, appreciation, and economic opportunity?
10. How do our emotional connections to food from childhood both enrich and complicate our ability to make rational dietary choices as adults?

PDF: Download a PDF of all the questions