And that really brought
me out of my comfort zone, but at the same time it helped
me to be more articulate. What comes to mind when you think
of someone who is articulate? Do you think about someone who's on stage talking in front of an audience of 10,000
people or maybe someone who has done a Ted Talk or at least someone who
sounds really eloquent in their speech. Today I'm going to give you eight powerful ways how you
can become more articulate. Being articulate is
nothing more than being able to express your thoughts and ideas
in a way that people can understand exactly what you're trying to say. So it's nothing more than
accurate communication. Secret number one is to
expand your vocabulary. And I'm not talking about the
dictionary of difficult words. When I finished high school, and I first
went to college for the first time, I really wanted to sound more
articulate and so what I did was I bought this dictionary, this is the same dictionary I bought in
college and I wanted to learn more words, more difficult words. So I studied this everyday. I would work on a different alphabet and
I was study these difficult words and what I found was that people didn't
understand what I was saying because difficult words,
when you're expanding your vocabulary and
you're using harder words, the thing about being able
to articulate is that you want people to understand
what you're saying. So if
you're using difficult words, the less likely they are going to use
those words in every day language, which they won't understand
what you're saying. Being articulate means expressing
your perspectives clearly. So it's not about expanding your
vocabulary to words that are harder, but more to focus on words
that express your emotions. So focus on descriptive words, especially
words that help express how you feel. Secret number two is to
practice improvising. Learning how to be more expressive of your emotions will help you to convey the
meanings behind what you're trying to say. And really people connect with how you're
saying the words rather than exactly or precisely the words that you are trying to use. One way you can practice
improvising is to take an Improv or an acting class because they teach you
how to improve your expression using your body language and your speech. So after
I bought my dictionary in college, I was a very shy person and I
really didn't feel comfortable talking in front of people, let alone expressing my emotions or
conveying my perspective on things. So during the second half of my degree, I auditioned for a musical and that
really brought me out of my comfort zone, but at the same time it helped me to
be more articulate in terms of being expressive, acting on
stage. And also singing too, that was what helped me
bring me out of my shell. And after that experience of auditioning,
even though I didn't get the part, but that experience of auditioning for the part and training to become
the actor that they would select, that really helped me to free my mind to be able to express
myself in an authentic way. Secret number three is pause. You want to strategically insert pauses
before and after the points that you're trying to emphasize. Using pauses
is better than using filler words, but of course if you are
accustomed to using filler words or if that's a habit for you,
it's okay to use them once in a while, but not all the time. And it's okay
to use pauses instead of filler words. So what I mean is that get used to, you want to get used to having silence
because not all silence is awkward. So get used to inserting silence and
pause strategically when you want to emphasize something you just said. Secret number four is to pay attention
to your tone and your accentuation tone is simply a change in the pitch of your voice. In some
languages, like Chinese for example, tone is word specific.
If you change the tone, you change to a completely different word.
But in English, tone is statement specific,
which means that if you change your tone, you're changing the meaning
of what you're saying. Let me illustrate what I mean by changes
in tone and how it changes the meaning in English.
I'm going to be saying the phrase, I didn't say your website was outdated. So that's the phrase I'm going to use
and I'm going to change the tone for each word and you can see that it changes the
meaning of that sentence and I'm not going to incorporate any body
language to this at all. Just verbally and you'll
see when I changed the tone
that it changes the meaning of the sentence. So the sentence once again is I
didn't say your website was outdated. Okay, here we go. First word is I. If I say I didn't say your website is
outdated versus I didn't say your website was outdated. I didn't say
it. So that means it implies
that someone else said it. Or if I changed the tone of the word say, then I didn't say your
website was outdated. So that means that I didn't say it.
I might be thinking it. Now if I change the tone of when
I'm saying the word website, it sounds like this. I didn't say your website was outdated. So that means it's not your
website that I think is outdated. It's something else of yours
that I think is outdated. Or if I change the tone of the last word,
I didn't say your website was outdated. So that means that I didn't
think it was outdated. I was thinking something
else about your website. So you can see how changes
in tone really change the meaning in English
of what you're saying. So pay attention to your tone in
your speech and that will help you to become more articulate.
So that was tone. Now let's talk about accentuation. Accentuation is when you simply make
certain syllables more distinct by either seeing them more loudly or putting more
emphasis on them. So to illustrate, let's choose the word P. R. E. S. E. N. T. So if I were to accentuate the
first syllable, it would be present. And that is one meaning, right? I
give you a present, give me a present, give him or her a present.
If I accentuated the second syllable, it would be present. So it changes the word
from a noun to a verb. So pay attention to both
your tone and accentuation to help yourself to become more articulate. Secret number five is
to listen to yourself. So listen to yourself in
normal conversation and pay
attention to how you feel when you hear your own voice.
Do you feel energized or drowsy? Do you feel pleasant or irritated?
Chances are if you feel a certain way about yourself, then chances are
other people feel the same way too, and try recording yourself also in normal conversations so that you can
have opportunities to listen to yourself more often.
Also, another good rule of thumb is to get
feedback from other people that you trust and give them permission to give you their
honest feedback and criticism
on how they felt when they listen to you in conversation and asked herself in these
instances when you hear yourself and when you get a feeling for how you and
others feel when you're talking to them, ask yourself what can you do to improve so that you can come across more pleasant
and give people a more positive feeling when you're talking to them. Secret number six is to portray confidence
and self assurance because people don't see you through their eyes. They see you through your eyes. So give them the impression that
you're 100% confident that you're an authority in the subject
matter that you're talking about. And you also believe what you're saying. Part of portraying confidence
is to project your voice. A good rule of thumb is
to be able to talk so that someone who's 10 feet
away from you can hear you. So project your voice with such intensity that someone who's 10 feet away
can understand what you're saying. Secret number seven is to use variation. You want to vary the length of
your sentences. So for example, once you've used a long sentence then follow up with a short
sentence and vice versa. This also helps to get your message
across more clearly because for example, if you use three or more
long sentences in tandem, then you might lose your audience
due to overload of information. You should also try to vary
your speed and your volume. This can help people to understand and follow what you're trying to say.
For example, you can slow down when you want someone to understand certain words and phrases
and then speed back up again when you're sure that they understand and they've
caught onto what you're trying to say. Speed and volume will also help you
to become more expressive as well. So for example, if you're trying to
express something happy and exciting, then you can speak louder and faster. But if you're telling a sad or a
serious story, then you can speak slowly and more softly. Secret number
eight is to understand yourself. Get a solid understanding of why
you have a lack of articulation. Maybe you've had some tensions or
social anxiety that led to your perceptions of yourself, or maybe it's a fear of being at the
center of attention and embarrassment, but whatever it may be, you can work to overcome the root
causes and give yourself the peace of mind and the confidence to get out
there and articulate truly how you feel. Comment below. What have you
learned? If you'd like my content, give me a thumbs up and remember to subscribe to my channel and
also hit the bell below so you receive notifications each
time I upload a new video. If you're interested in these
topics and you want to hear more, or a deeper dive into other topics,
subscribe to my podcast, which is Career Revisionist with Dr. Grace
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Subscribe to me there, and I look forward to hanging out with
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