How to improve your eloquence and expressive ability

My friend, the following is my lecture to students, with abridgement for your reference.

According to my observation, eloquence has the following problems:

One is timid, afraid and afraid to say.

Second, I don't know what to say.

Third, there is nothing to say.

Fourth, the words are at sixes and sevens, and the words are not satisfactory.

Fifth, boring.

Sixth, I think silence is golden, and I am afraid I will make more mistakes.

In view of the above, I would like to make some comments.

Rule number one: timid, afraid, afraid to say. You can talk and laugh at ordinary times, but on formal occasions, you dare not speak, you can't say anything, and cold sweat breaks out. This is a psychological factor, probably because I am introverted and I don't like to talk since I was a child, which gradually forms a vicious circle. The less you say, the worse you say, the less you dare to say, the less you dare to say, and the less you have confidence. In my opinion, the key is to have the first time, and it is easy to break this vicious circle with the first time. Find an opportunity and make up your mind to speak for the first time. For example, if there is a meeting and everyone needs to speak, it is necessary to make preparations and make a draft before the meeting. To be more extreme, you might as well write a speech and memorize it. The first time may not be so smooth, but with the first time, the second time and the third time, it will be easy, and it will definitely get smoother and better. In addition to formal occasions, you can also practice intentionally on other occasions. In front of three or more friends and colleagues, tell a joke, a joke or something you have experienced personally. If you talk more, you will become more confident, and you will become more fluent and infectious.

Here is a method for you to practice: telling stories.

Everyone has heard stories, but haven't they all told stories? It seems easy to tell a story, but it's not that easy to tell. As the saying goes, "it's easy to see flowers, but difficult to embroider"! Listening to other people's stories is very attractive. Some friends can even forget to eat and sleep when listening to stories, but it seems that it is not the case, dry and unattractive. Therefore, storytelling is also a gift, and not everyone can tell a good story. Learning to tell stories is a good way to practice eloquence. The best target for telling stories is the preschool children in your family or relatives' home. Children like to listen to stories, but they won't laugh at you for not telling them well.

Therefore, the key to practicing eloquence is to build confidence. Anyone can speak, that is, dare to speak. Meanwhile, don't be afraid of other people's jokes. A well-meaning joke should be regarded as a reminder. Malicious people don't have to pay attention to him, because such people are not worth caring about. If you lose confidence just because someone is afraid to tell jokes, it's because you choked on food and wasted it.

Secondly, there is nothing to say. This performance is that the brain is blank and can't say anything. This is related to a person's knowledge accumulation and experience accumulation. If a person has poor knowledge and little experience, it is really difficult for him to have a good eloquence. From this perspective, the more knowledge, the more experience, the better. So this requires us to study all aspects of knowledge more seriously and improve our knowledge level. People often say that 2 1 century is a new era of knowledge economy. The era of knowledge economy is also an era of learning. Because we are in this century, technology is changing with each passing day, and knowledge and information are exploding. It is estimated (as if it were Li Zehou) that the knowledge a college graduate learned during his school years only accounts for about 10% of the knowledge he needs in his life, and the remaining 90% of the knowledge must be continuously learned and acquired at work. And this 90% is still being updated. For people with low knowledge level and relatively old knowledge, continuous learning is even more urgent. As young people, especially enterprising young people, learning is more important, which is not just a question of eloquence. So if you have time, you should read more newspapers and study more, and learn professional knowledge, professional knowledge, scientific and technological knowledge, political theory, law and management knowledge. Some people don't have to be proficient, they can browse, they can understand a little, and they can not understand at all. Read more books and you will naturally gain something. Some people don't understand for the time being. If they read more, they will gradually understand and even master it. If there is something in your mind, there will be something to say, and there will be no blank in your mind.

Third, I don't know what to say. This is different from the above. I have something in my head, but I don't know how to choose and organize it. It depends on the occasion. If it is a meeting to speak or discuss topics, it depends on the theme of the meeting and what the topics are discussed. Determine what you want to say around the theme and center. Actually, it's just like writing an article. Determine your argument, and then find some arguments or reasons to explain or prove the correctness of your point of view. This is the best choice when you have certain views and opinions. If you really don't have a valuable and meaningful point of view, or can't remember what to say at the moment, listen to others' speeches first, get inspiration from them, or affirm or refute someone's point of view, or draw more general and meaningful conclusions from them. This requires energy, listening to what others are saying, taking notes, combing and summarizing to form your own 1, 2,3 views, briefly writing them in a notebook in the form of an outline, and then speaking according to the outline.

This is a formal meeting. As for other situations, what songs are sung on what mountains and what words are said to whom.

Fourth, the use of words is confusing and unsatisfactory. This is a question of level. To solve this problem, we must think clearly and improve our Chinese level. Here, I will focus on the question of language ability. Some people feel that their Chinese level can't be improved after graduating from school for so many years, so they have to complain that they didn't study hard before. Actually, it's not like this. From my personal experience, I think a person's Chinese level is not mainly obtained in class. But through a lot of reading, accumulate over a long period. In the third grade of primary school, I read several times as many books as my peers around me. This is not bragging. There is a small bookstore in our town, which is about 20 meters away from my home. Many books in the bookstore are on the bookcase to be opened. As soon as I have time, I go to read books, especially literature. There are 100 thousand why and what, and I have basically finished reading them. It's usually time for dinner, I don't know, but my old grandmother will grab my ear and bring me back. During the Cultural Revolution, when I was in the fourth grade, I had to eliminate feudal literature (interpretation), except books on Marxism-Leninism, Mao Zedong Thought and political theory, and put away and burned those books on literature, history and even science and technology. On one occasion, the neighborhood committee collected a pile of books to burn, including an adventure in the swamp. When it was burned, the scene with the cover rolled up was still clearly left in my memory. The middle school in our commune (as it was called at that time) put away the books to be burned and filled two classrooms. I stole more than ten books from it, which was the first and only time in my life. However, Kong Yi said that "a scholar stealing a book is not stealing", and I later forgave myself. Reading more books will naturally improve the level of Chinese. When I was in junior high school, Chinese teachers didn't dare to attend my class, because rural primary schools there lacked teachers, and they often taught primary schools after graduation, and it was really not good to teach junior high schools after graduation. So when I am in Chinese class, I often quarrel with my teacher for the explanation of words and the meaning of the text. Once, in a class about Shajiabang, because Mrs. A Qing said that Hu Chuankui was a windbreak in the text, she argued with the teacher for a whole class to explain the meaning of windbreak, and finally made the teacher angry, saying that they should write together and asked the author to see who was right. After a lot of gossip, I want to make it clear that the improvement of Chinese level mainly depends on reading more books. Moreover, I think reading is to read some famous books and things written by famous writers. Now some friends like to read online novels, and it is not impossible, but these things that have not been washed, practiced and tested in time are often mixed, even mixed, leading people astray and misleading. Now there are not only things on the Internet, but also seriously published books, many of which are hard to read. The typos and sick sentences often make people suddenly feel like eating sand. The same is true of newspapers and periodicals. I don't read those gossip publications and tabloids. Maybe I'm too old to keep up with the times and I don't accept new things enough, but I speak by feeling. Reading more classics that travel through time and history can save a lot of detours. With the improvement of Chinese level, your thinking will become clearer and clearer, and you can express yourself better and more accurately.

The fifth is boring. Seriously, speaking is really an art, the same thing, some people can spit lotus flowers on their tongues, which is very vivid, can make people laugh, can also make people cry, and make people feel immersive; But some people can't. They talked for a long time and didn't know what to say. Here are some suggestions on how to make words more vivid, tasty and enjoyable:

One is to have a sense of humor. Humorous language is humorous, witty and meaningful, which makes people feel spiritual pleasure and satisfaction. A sense of humor may have a natural flavor. Some people are born with a sense of humor and can make people laugh when they open their mouths. Others may never say a word that can make people laugh. But in any case, it is ok to be humorous as long as you are willing to learn and imitate. Here are some ways to create humor.

The first is to deliberately use ambiguous words to form humor. The so-called ambiguous words refer to words with several different interpretations or even opposite meanings. The ambiguity of Chinese can best satisfy the contradiction of humor. Deliberately choosing ambiguous words causes contradictions in thinking logic and produces humorous effects. This is the most common way of humor. For example, you may have seen such a notice in the parking lot: "Stop for less than an hour, press it for a full hour". At this time, you can ask the owner of the parking lot to give him a quiet silence. You don't have to pay, and you can ask him to give you an hour's foot massage. Didn't the notice say "press for an hour"! His foot means enough, and we deliberately understand it as a hand and a foot, which leads to humor.

The second is to use homophones to create humor. This kind of humor can only be played orally, but not written. It uses the speaker to say a word, while the listener listens to it as another homonym (or deliberately listens). For example, after the doctor examines a patient named Jiao, tell him that you can't share the same room in the future. The patient is a farmer in a remote mountain village and doesn't understand the meaning of sharing a room. When the doctor explained it again, he just couldn't have sex and the patient didn't understand. In desperation, the doctor said, "I just can't have sex!" " The patient was even more anxious and said, "My father's surname is Jiao, my grandfather's surname is Jiao, and they have been named Jiao for generations. Why can't I be surnamed Jiao? ! "The patient listens to" sexual intercourse "as" surname Jiao ".

Sometimes you can also use dialects, or Mandarin is not allowed to create humor. This is also a kind of homophonic humor. If there is such a joke, a group of freshmen are in military training. On this day, the instructor said in dialect, "Today, class one kills chickens and class two steals eggs. I will cook porridge for you! " "The students looked at each other, don't know what is this training content. Later, a classmate didn't understand until he saw the instructor's movements: "What he said was shooting in class one and playing in class two. I'll show you!" " "

The third kind deliberately does not complete the words, leaving room for imagination and extension for others. Before the reform and opening up, some units in Beijing regarded organizing bathing in bathhouses as a kind of welfare. On one occasion, the trade union of a certain unit organized two activities, one was to take a bath in the bathhouse and the other was to visit the museum. Because there are many people, they will be divided into morning and afternoon and men and women groups. The chairman of the trade union announced at the meeting that "lesbians take a bath in the morning and gay men visit." In the afternoon, gay men take a bath and lesbians visit. Be disciplined and don't take pictures! "The chairman of the trade union intentionally or unintentionally didn't tell the whole story, which formed a strong humorous effect. When the young female leader just took office, the former leader introduced every comrade in the unit to the female leader at the welcome meeting. When introduced to me, I said, "No need to introduce, we are old friends-"There was a deliberate pause here, and the word "old frame" must have popped into everyone's mind. I slowly went on to say, "I'm an old acquaintance" and everyone laughed. This is neither more nor less, creating some humorous atmosphere.

Fourth, telling the truth in vain, deliberately confusing the original meaning with the extended meaning; This can be achieved in the following ways: first, the original metaphor is difficult to understand as metaphor ontology or vice versa; Second, abstract concepts are difficult to concretize, and concrete things are also difficult to abstract, or they are regarded as one thing.

Example of the first case:

Child: "Dad, have you ever been a captain?" Dad: "No" Child: "Then why does mom say that you have two feet on both sides?" One foot on two boats is a metaphor for inattention, opportunism and innocence, but children understand it as a real boat.

An example of the second situation:

A philosophy graduate returned to his country home, where he killed a chicken to welcome him. At the dinner table, my old father asked him what was the use of philosophy. He said, "For example, this chicken is regarded as a chicken by ordinary people. People who have studied philosophy can see two chickens, one is a concrete chicken and the other is an abstract chicken. " After hearing this, his old father put all the chickens on the table in front of him and said, "Then I'll eat concrete chickens and you eat abstract chickens!" " "This is deliberately confusing abstract concepts with concrete things, thus producing humorous effects.

The fifth is to steal the concept. Directly use an extreme example to illustrate;

Hong has something to do tomorrow and asks the unit leader for a day off. The leader will settle accounts with Hong like this:

You can work 365 days a year. 52 weeks a year, you have two days off every week, leaving 26 1 day to work. You are absent from work every day 16 hours. If you subtract 170 days, 9 1 day remains. Spending 30 minutes on makeup and going to the toilet every day adds up to 23 days a year, leaving 68 days. The time you spend on lunch every day is 1 hour, 46 days and 22 days. Usually you take two sick days a year, so your working hours are only 20 days. There are 9 holidays every year, no work. You only work 1 1 day. The street also generously gives you annual leave of 10 days a year. After calculation, you will work 1 day, and you still need to ask for leave on this day? ! I haven't calculated last year's wedding leave with you. !

This is the concept of stealing, stealing the actual 24-hour solar day into an 8-hour working day.

There are many ways to be humorous. Here are some common and easy to learn.

Second, we should pay attention to the rhetoric of language. It is not enough to have a sense of humor to say good things, and if you are humorous in solemn occasions, people may think that you are glib and shallow and uneducated. So we should also pay attention to the rhetoric of language. Generally speaking, the commonly used rhetorical devices in oral expression are analogy, exaggeration, parallelism, numerical induction and so on. These methods, if used properly, can make the speech lively and interesting, rather than dry. For example, I want to praise Hong. I can say "Hong, you are so beautiful" or "Hong, you are as beautiful as the snow lotus in Tianshan Mountain". Hong definitely prefers to listen to the latter sentence and then use metaphors. Of course, the metaphor should be fresh, repeat what others say, spit on others, and it will be tasteless. Everyone has heard the saying that the first person who compares a woman to a flower is a wise man, the second person who compares a woman to a flower is a mediocre man, and the third person who compares a woman to a flower is a fool. Exaggeration is also common. One of my former colleagues has a bright forehead, and we often make fun of his shiny forehead. On a trip to Hebei, he asked me to take a picture of him on Baodu Mountain. I looked at him with my camera for a few seconds, then put it down and stared at his forehead, so that he noticed that I was looking at his forehead, and then said, "I can't take pictures, it's too reflective." This is exaggeration. And peace of mind. Parallelism can give people an imposing manner and a feeling of having to listen.

Read the following typical parallelism sentences, from which you can realize:

"Swallows have gone, and there is a time to come again; Willow withered, there is a time to green again; Peach blossoms are thanks, and there are times when they bloom again. "

"If you lose money, you just lose a part; If you lose your health, you only lose half; If you lose your integrity, you will be almost penniless. "

"Staring at the Yangtze River, you will forget the loss and have fresh blood; Staring at the sea, you will forget your bitterness and be open-minded; Staring at the mountains, you will forget your sadness and have a tall image; Staring at the distance, you will feel that all setbacks and pains are not worth mentioning, and you will have the world and warm sunshine. "

"Life is like a river, flowing down the river, but there are reefs everywhere; Life is like a song, it will never stop singing, high-key, but low-key everywhere; Life is picturesque, continuous and colorful, but it is dotted with gloom everywhere. "

Listen, this is a beautiful alliteration.

Third, we should have certain literary accomplishment and historical knowledge. Proper use of idioms and allusions, poems and songs, famous sentences of celebrities, etc. in your speech can make your speech appear knowledgeable and high-level. By the way, it's right to be proficient in culture, but you can't help pretending to understand and joking. Some words that are not sure about pronunciation must be looked up in the dictionary. Now some friends don't care about reading typos, which surprises me. When speaking at appropriate times and occasions, using idioms and allusions and famous poems and sentences intentionally can achieve unexpected results.

Fourth, it is best to speak with a certain philosophy. This difficulty is relatively high, but it is not unattainable. The so-called philosophy is that it can embody a comprehensive and dialectical point of view, grasp the essence of things, point out the internal laws, be forward-looking, concise and enlightening. Philosophical language, a seemingly simple sentence, often contains profound content, which makes people chew more tastefully. A few examples can be cited: Hegel, Marx's most respected dialectic master, once said, "the same is a maxim, and young people and old people have different broadness when they say it." This is a very philosophical statement. It means that young people can say the same life motto, and so can old people. But the meaning of their experiences is quite different. Although young people can correctly express this motto, he will never realize the profundity and broadness in its connotation. Because for an old man, this motto is not only a language, but also embodies his whole life experience and life experience. For example, the motto "failure is the mother of success" is understood as "constant struggle" in the minds of young people at most, while when the elderly speak, their minds will be filled with countless scenes of life failures and successes, in which the bitterness and joy of success will come to mind and make footnotes for this motto. You see, his words contain so much content. This is philosophy. Let's quote another sentence from Hegel. He once said that it is not easy to achieve early results in philosophical research. He said: "Philosophy is like an owl sent by Minerva, which takes off in the evening." This sentence has rich connotations. This means that philosophy is not like mathematics or physics. In their twenties and thirties, they can achieve results even earlier, and even become famous and married. Philosophy is more a summary of life and experience, and a summary of various disciplines and knowledge. Therefore, it takes a lifetime of energy to produce results. Evening is a metaphor for old age, so it takes off in the evening. I studied philosophy, and I didn't get any results when I was young, so I comforted myself until my later years, but I still couldn't fly.

Let me give two examples of Hegel. Of course, it doesn't mean that what philosophers say is philosophy. In daily life, among ordinary people, of course, there are many philosophical words. I copied a few words here:

1, bloom is not for falling, but for the glory of that moment.

What makes people sad is not the thing itself, but people's views on it.

A person's happiness is not because he gets more, but because he cares less.

Happiness is a state of mind, not a state.

5. Remember what should be remembered and forget what should be forgotten. Change what can be changed and accept what cannot be changed!

These words contain the philosophy of life attitude. It is a higher requirement to make what you say philosophical. To reach this height, you should have rich knowledge, wisdom and rich experience. There is a "shortcut" here, that is, you can read more famous speeches by historical celebrities and memorize some famous sentences intentionally. You can even read some popular philosophical works.

Finally, say "silence is golden". There are indeed many people who believe this sentence and even regard it as a philosophy of life. I also appreciate the philosophy contained in this sentence. It should not be said that "silence is golden"; When you shouldn't say it, "silence is golden"; On occasions that should not be said, "silence is golden"; Should not say the object, "silence is golden"; When expressing silent protest, "silence is golden". Other than that, when will you be silent? Is that you will be silent when you don't understand, don't know, are uncertain and have nothing to say. So not all silence is golden. Too much silence will make people feel that you don't know anything, have no opinion and position. Therefore, exports are still necessary. You can take silence as the principle, but principle should also be combined with flexibility.