What comes to your mind when you think of someone 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 Ted talk or at least someone who sounds eloquent in their speech?
Today, I'm going to give you 8 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 are trying to say. So, it's nothing more than accurate communication.
1)
Expand your vocabulary.
Am not talking about the dictionary of difficult words. Being articulate means expressing your perspective clearly. It is not about expanding your vocabulary to harder words but more about focusing on words that express your emotions.
Focus on descriptive words, especially words that help express how you feel.
2)
Practice Improvising.
Learning how to be more expressive of your emotions will help you to convey the meaning behind what you're trying to say. 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 acting class because they teach you how to improve your expression using your body language and your speech.
3)
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. It's okay to use pauses instead of filler words.
What I mean is that you want to get used to having silence because not all silence is awkward. Get used to inserting silence and pause strategically when you want to emphasize something you need to say.
4)
Pay attention to your tone and accentuation tone.
The tone is simply a change in the pitch of your voice. In some languages like Chinese for example, the tone is word specific. If you change the tone, you change to a completely different word. But in English, the tone is statement-specific. This means that if you change your tone, you're changing the meaning of what you're saying.
Pay attention to your tone and it will help you to become more articulate.
Accentuation is when you simply make certain syllables more distinct by either saying them more loudly or putting more emphasis on them.
Pay attention to both your tone and accentuation to help yourself to become more articulate.
5)
Listen to yourself.
Listen to yourself in normal conversation and pay attention to how you feel when you hear your 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. Try recording yourself also in normal conversation 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 permit them to give you their honest feedback and criticism on how they felt when they listen to you in conversation.
Ask yourself what can you do to improve so that you can come across as more pleasant and give people a more positive feeling when you're talking to them.
6)
Portray confidence and self-assurance.
People don't see you through their eyes. They see you through your own eyes. Give them the impression that you're 100% confident. That you're an authority in the subject no matter what you are talking about. You also believe what you are 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 10feet away from you can hear you. Project your voice with such intensity that someone who's away can understand what you are saying.
7)
Use variation.
You want to vary the length of your sentences. 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. For example, if you use three or more long sentences in tandem, then you might lose your audience due to an 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. For example, if you are trying to express something happy and exciting then you can speak louder and faster. But if you are telling a sad or serious story, then you can speak slowly or softly.
8)
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 perception of yourself or maybe it's a fear of being at the center of attention and embarrassment. 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.