English Language Learners Stack Exchange is a question and answer site for speakers of other languages learning English. It only takes a minute to sign up.
Sign up to join this community
When you are discussing something with someone especially over chat
and have written say around 10 sentences there. And now suddenly you want to mention
or talk about something else. I feel it's not a good idea to simply ping a piece of
next 10 lines which have no connection with the earlier 10 lines.
What should be sandviched in between? Should I write separate topic before beginning to write the other 10 lines or is there some other better way to begin writing about different topic?
If the new topic is still somehow related to what was said or written before (and that’s likely, I think, because that would ensure smooth and natural conversation or chat), you can use the phrase “speaking of which.” Note that it pertains to an idea or a single noun that was expressed in a prior sentence. For example,
Husband: The Johnsons have been married for about a year now!
Wife: Wow, really? I could have sworn we were just at their wedding yesterday.
Husband: Speaking of which… did we get round to sending them a wedding gift?
More about the phrase and its use is here https://grammarhow.com/speaking-of-which/.
By the way, you can also use “by the way” to introduce a new topic.
When I discuss over chat I often use similar phrases that I would use in speech. In this case of changing the subject, common phrases like "by the way" or "oh, did you see…" are natural.
There are ways to be verbose about deliberately changing the subject too. "Just to change the subject" works to indicate that you want to talk about something different.
If you think your friend would also like to talk about something else, then you can say "let's talk about something else."
