Pratica di Shadowing: I learned a system for speaking articulately - Impara a parlare inglese con i video

Creazione lezione...
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If you want to be articulate like world-class podcasters,
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speakers, and leaders, I'm going to share this seven-stage journey that has taught me to speak with greater exactness and clarity.
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It includes understanding three problems invading your speech, the aha moment that immediately will improve your choice of words,
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and three thinking modifications that brought a verbal freshness and intelligence to my sentences.
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The first problem was my addiction to overusing dead phrases.
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Dead phrases are phrases and expressions that we use in such a recreational way
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that they have been stripped of all power in life.
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Popular dead phrases include We use dead phrases because they save us the time and trouble of hunting for more precise words.
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This introduces the first of seven articulacy rules.
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Rule number one, articulacy increases when you practice conscious selection with your words.
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If you hastily choose ready-made phrases and gum them together in your sentences, like the sections of a prefabricated IKEA table,
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they deaden and dole your sentence.
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Ultimately, you want to learn how to engineer sentences that are fresh,
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homemade, and excavate that richness and texture that often gets buried beneath dead phrases.
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The second problem holding me back was my small surface lexicon.
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The term lexicon refers to your personal vocabulary.
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Your surface lexicon are those 500 to 1500 words that your brain unconsciously and effortlessly defaults to when you compose sentences.
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The concert was amazing.
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It was a really good book.
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These words you've heard, seen, said so often, they ooze out of your mouth.
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Beneath your surface lexicon is your deep lexicon.
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Your deep lexicon is made up of those 20,000 to 35,000 words you recognize but don't use.
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We know this because you recognize most, if not all, words that articulate speakers use.
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Why is it then that you struggle to think of those same words in conversation?
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Because those words don't register in your surface lexicon.
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This introduces the second rule of articulacy.
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Effortless articulacy is limited to the size of your surface lexicon.
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Now this does not mean inflating your surface lexicon with flowery, sophisticated words.
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Articulate speakers recognize that you can use ordinary words and still be articulate.
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Think of your lexicon as a box of crayons.
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You can easily use a wide color palette to design a vibrant picture, or you can create something profound with just three colors,
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or choose an uncommon color to substitute for a common one.
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The same is true with your words.
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You don't always have to prostitute ordinary words down to obvious and common meanings.
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The third problem eroding my speaking was thought retention.
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When you can't retain a thought in your mind for longer than 10 seconds, your speech is like a kite, following every new wind current,
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never climbing high in the sky.
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Articulate speakers are able to hold a thought in their mind as they work to peel away the layers
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that lead to understanding.
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You can't grip a thought in your mind.
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your thinking and speaking become superficial and scrambled.
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This is the third rule of articulacy.
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The longer you engage a thought, the greater depth you achieve with words.
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These are the three thorns in our tongue that prevent us from producing articulate speech.
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How did we come to this?
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Why do we battle with these issues?
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One day, I remember asking myself this after a particularly frustrating time of sounding juvenile and vague.
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I went to YouTube and researched the most articulate speakers I could find.
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It was then that I had an epiphany.
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Was my substandard speech the result of poor language inputs?
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I asked myself that question
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and wondered how much would I have to change the sources of language I expose myself to
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in order to influence my speech.
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To understand how my language was potentially being invaded by poor language sources,
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I began writing down each source of language that I exposed myself to for more than 10 minutes a day.
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I rated each on a scale of 1 to 10 on how articulate and intelligent I considered each to be.
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If you want to do this for yourself, you can use this worksheet that's freely linked below.
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This exercise revealed that I didn't have any language inputs higher than a five, which is approximately the level of articulacy of an average conversation.
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I quickly realized the fourth rule of articulacy.
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The quality of your speech is a product of your language environments.
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The books you read, videos you watch,
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music you listen to, etch language patterns in your mind that unconsciously are imitated in your speech.
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And since most people aren't articulate or thoughtful with their words, you're constantly exposed to high doses of vague,
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vapid, and oftentimes vulgar language.
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Your surface lexicon is the size that it is because you encounter those 500 to 1500 words daily.
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When we first learn language as children, we absorb three to five new words every day.
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By adulthood, it takes a deliberate effort to expose ourselves to new and creative word combinations.
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In fact, the battle is preventing the shrinking of our surface lexicon.
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Think of your surface lexicon as an expanding and contracting circle.
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Interacting with fresh word combinations, such as when you read a book, temporarily expands the radius of that circle to usher in those newfound words.
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If those words are not put to use, they lose their place within the circle as its nature is to contract to include only your most actively used words.
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This is why great speakers read profusely.
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It is to keep that language heartbeat pulsing, expanding, and fortifying their surface lexicon.
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We can begin to improve our verbal health with the first modification I made to my speaking, the 3x5 language diet.
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This consists of three five-minute sessions for a total of 15 minutes per day focused on enriching your language.
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The first five minutes is spent reading an article
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or book chapter that's at least one level beyond your current average language input.
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This exercise will expose you to richer language and help you solve poor thought retention,
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which is a symptom of constantly fracturing your attention like we do on social media with bite-sized content.
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You don't know what material to begin with?
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Start with this list.
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The second five minutes includes reading poetry aloud with the intent of learning rhythm and cadence.
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There's a misnomer that articulacy is memorizing the dictionary and vomiting flowery words.
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It's not.
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The fifth rule of articulacy is sentences sound articulate when words flow and fit into eloquent molds.
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If you want to learn to effortlessly fit words together in beautiful and creative ways, your speaking apparatus, your mouth,
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your teeth, your tongue, your jaw, need to feel what it's like to say beautiful sentences.
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This is precisely why dead phrases are terribly difficult to prune from your speaking.
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You're trying to resist engaging a pattern of muscles in your mouth that's been activated a thousand times.
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It's like trying to change pre-cut lines on a cardboard box.
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When you tear the flap, it's expected to seamlessly follow the line, and we're trying to tear in a new direction.
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Recognize that you can create lines for other types of speaking.
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That's what reading poetry aloud accomplishes.
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Check out this list of poems linked below.
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I also have a popular poems playlist available on Spotify.
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The final five minutes is spent consciously attuned to the word choice of any podcast or audiobook you consume.
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Ignore the content, the substance of what's being said, and visualize in your mind the words being said.
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This will help you understand the difference between intelligence and eloquence.
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Intelligence is the knowledge communicated.
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Eloquence is how pleasing and persuasive the words sound.
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Here's a list of brilliant speakers who, in my opinion, have an unrivaled command of the English language.
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This 3x5 language formula invites the question, how do I use the creative words and phrases I encounter to enrich my speaking?
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I struggled with this myself and was inspired to build the ultimate tool to accelerate articulacy.
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This tool is called Nouns.
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Nounc allows you to create a word bank where you're able to log words
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and phrases that you want to stitch into your surface lexicon.
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You can practice retrieving those words from memory and use them in creative ways as you would like to in natural conversation.
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Nounc also has a library of popular online speakers that you can learn from.
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If you want to speak with the clarity of Steve Jobs or the eloquence of Martin Luther King Jr.,
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King Jr. Select a speaker and you'll be guided through using their communication structures to develop clear answers automatically.
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Nounce was built out of a desire to give myself
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and the viewers of this channel a way of efficiently practicing producing clear and creative speech.
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Visit nouns.ai to use this tool for free or message me on Twitter
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if you'd like to be part of our team in helping others build a better world with their words.
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The second modification will reduce your dependence on dead phrases.
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The reason why we aim to reduce dead phrases is not because they're overused.
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It's because they slip us into a state of mental anesthesia where we choose words without serious thought.
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Noises come up from our larynx, our speaking instrument, but our brain is not as involved as if we were selecting the words for ourselves.
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The only way to gain back full consciousness is to descend past the dead phrase and into the heart of our thought.
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We accomplish this by increasing the consciousness per sentence.
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Think of a sentence as a mold that is filled with different levels of consciousness.
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The longer you think, the more saturated the words and overall sentence becomes.
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The more familiar a word or phrase is, the less consciousness is required to use it.
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Think of all the phrases and words you say automatically.
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Because of how little thought is required to use them,
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they often bruise our sentence with dull, colorless blocks.
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An articulate sentence is one where each block is vibrant and intentional.
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Listeners can feel this.
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We increase our consciousness per sentence by one being on guard
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against dead phrases i've included below this video a list of the common dead phrases
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that frequently invade our sentences secondly before you commit to responding to a question
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or sharing your opinion repeat the question
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or topic aloud what do i think about this topic why do we do this
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because that topic or the way it was phrased is a new or at least an unfamiliar set of words.
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Hearing those words spoken aloud with your own mouth begins to warm up your conscious mind.
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Most of us cold start our speaking engine with a few familiar phrases that we cast out
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into the soundscape in an attempt to find an opinion worth developing.
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Those phrases include, I don't know, I guess it just like, you know, maybe I should, right?
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We're not thinking about what we're saying.
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It's not a bad answer, it's just not articulate.
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Remember, the first rule of articulacy, Articulacy increases when you practice conscious selection of your words.
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This is why pausing before speaking has long been considered a hallmark of articulate speakers.
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They are affording conscious thought to the sentence they're about to produce.
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The most unconscious part of our sentences is the beginning.
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The greatest communicators realize that the first few sentences, really the first few words, are where we are finding our opinion.
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Finding our opinion is like driving with a frosted windshield.
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It's hard to see the road ahead until the windshield is defrosted.
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Only then do you drive straight with confidence.
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The quickest way to begin warming up our conscious mind is to repeat the topic or question aloud.
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The final modification I made was learning the secrets of intellectual humility.
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This is the brilliant practice of using your speaking weakness to supercharge your responses.
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When we listen to articulate speakers, what we perceive as them being articulate is less often about the precise,
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eloquent words and more about how they begin their sentences in a way that illustrates that they can creatively navigate challenging situations.
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Watch this clip from the American film director Orson Welles.
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That's a better question than I have an answer for.
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Honestly, it is.
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I don't know.
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I would want to think about it.
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I think, I think my answer would be frivolous, and I'd like to think about it.
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It's a, it's a, it's a worrisome question.
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Notice in this clip how candid Orson was about not having a great answer and requiring time to think.
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This is what makes articulate speakers so captivating, their ability to be forward with their communication needs.
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This is the sixth rule of articulacy.
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An admission of limitation is often the most articulate answer.
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This single realization takes some people decades to internalize.
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If you can admit your limitations and be honest and forthcoming with them,
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them, you unlock a bulletproof level of confidence that most people will never possess.
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There are two steps that have helped me cultivate this intellectual humility.
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One is identifying your main communication insecurity.
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These are the eight common insecurities we encounter when speaking.
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I'll share mine with you.
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I understand that I don't think quickly and require time to process information before I compose an answer.
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The quality of sentence I deliver after 10 seconds of thought is far more articulate than my instantaneous answer.
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How do I communicate this when I speak?
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Once you've identified your insecurity, find the right combination of words that allows you to articulate that weakness.
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What I often say is some variation of, give me a moment to process that.
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If you're like me, you might know the weakness that you do battle with,
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but you lack the right words that would give you the confidence to commit to sharing that weakness.
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Many of us would be far more assertive in our communication
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if we simply had the right verbal runway for the answers that we would like to give.
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To help you with this, for each of those eight speaking insecurities,
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I've assembled the creative phrases and responses that world-renowned communicators have used in interviews and conversations that you can use yourself.
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These phrases are not intended to devolve into a dead phrase.
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We use them only for the purpose of having alternative ways of articulating our thoughts instead of being locked into just responding.

Vocabolario e note di pronuncia per questa lezione

Questa lezione di conversazione di livello B2 si basa sul video “I learned a system for speaking articulately”. Le parole che ritornano più spesso: word, phrase, articulate, sentence, language. Questo video contiene 184 frasi e 2430 parole da ripetere con lo shadowing. Il parlato dura 16:26. Chi parla mantiene un ritmo costante di circa 148 parole al minuto, comodo per lo shadowing. Solo il 79% delle parole rientra nelle 3.000 più comuni dell’inglese, quindi il lessico è impegnativo.

Vocaboli chiave di questo video

Le 15 parole più avanzate del video, con pronuncia e significato:

ParolaPronunciaSignificato
lexicon sostantivo/ˈlɛk.sɪ.kɑn/lessico
aloud avverbio/əˈlaʊd/a voce alta, ad alta voce
consciousness sostantivo/ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/conoscenza, coscienza
conscious aggettivo/ˈkɑn.ʃəs/cosciente, conscio
weakness sostantivo/ˈwik.nɪs/debolezza, cagionevolezza
eloquence sostantivo/ˈɛl.ə.kwəns/eloquenza
invade verbo/ɪnˈveɪd/invadere
verbal aggettivo/ˈvɜː.bəl/verbale
expose verbo/ɪkˈspoʊz/esporre, evidenziare
compose verbo/kəmˈpəʊz/comporre
effortlessly avverbio/ˈɛf.ɚt.ləs.li/senza sforzo, facilmente
eloquent aggettivo/ˈɛl.əˌkwənt/eloquente
unconsciously avverbio/ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəsli/inconsciamente
windshield sostantivo/wɪnˈʃiːld/parabrezza
humility sostantivo/hjuːˈmɪlɪti/umiltà

I phrasal verb che sentirai

ParolaSignificato
check out verboinvestigare
write down verbosottoscrivere, annotare

Frasi da ripetere

Frasi brevi e complete del video che puoi riutilizzare nella conversazione di tutti i giorni:

  • Because those words don't register in your surface lexicon.
  • How did we come to this?
  • Why do we battle with these issues?
  • You don't know what material to begin with?
  • How do I communicate this when I speak?

La grammatica di questo video

Le strutture che chi parla usa di più, con le parole esatte del video:

StrutturaNel video
Forma passiva be + participio passato — conta ciò che accade, non chi lo fahave been stripped · is made · is limited
Present perfect have/has + participio passato — un’azione passata che conta ancora adessohas taught · have been stripped · you've heard

Pronuncia a cui fare attenzione

Chi parla usa 29 contrazioni e forme ridotte, come don't, you're, we're. Pronunciale nella forma breve, così come le senti.

  • I suoni “th”: anesthesia /ˌæn.əsˈθi.ʒə/, forthcoming /fɔɹθˈkʌmɪŋ/, thoughtful /ˈθɔːtfəl/, rhythm /ˈɹɪð.əm/
  • I suoni “sh” e “zh”: consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, modification /ˌmɑdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, unconsciously /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəsli/, windshield /wɪnˈʃiːld/
  • Parole lunghe — attenzione all’accento: articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, modification /ˌmɑdɪfɪˈkeɪʃən/, communicator /kəˈmjuːnɪkeɪtə/, effortlessly /ˈɛf.ɚt.ləs.li/, unconsciously /ˌʌnˈkɑnʃəsli/

I suoni difficili per chi parla italiano:

  • /h/ — va soffiata, non è muta: humility /hjuːˈmɪlɪti/, heartbeat /ˈhɑɹtˌbit/
  • Consonante finale — senza aggiungere una vocale dopo: articulate /ɑːɹˈtɪk.jə.leɪt/, aloud /əˈlaʊd/, consciousness /ˈkɑnʃəsnəs/, conscious /ˈkɑn.ʃəs/, weakness /ˈwik.nɪs/
  • /æ/ — più aperta della “e”: clarity /ˈklæɹ.ɪ.ti/, anesthesia /ˌæn.əsˈθi.ʒə/, candid /ˈkæn.dɪd/, captivate /ˈkæptəˌveɪt/, navigate /ˈnæv.ɪ.ɡeɪt/

Come esercitarsi con questo video

  1. Ascolta tutto il video una volta senza parlare e annota le parole che non conosci.
  2. Fai shadowing frase per frase a velocità normale, ripetendo ognuna finché il tuo ritmo coincide con quello di chi parla.
  3. Registrati e confronta con l’originale, facendo attenzione a parole come lexicon, aloud, consciousness.

Cos'è la tecnica dello Shadowing?

Shadowing è una tecnica di apprendimento delle lingue supportata da studi scientifici, originariamente sviluppata per la formazione dei traduttori professionisti e resa popolare dal poliglotta Dr. Alexander Arguelles. Il metodo è semplice ma potente: ascolti un audio in inglese di madrelingua e lo ripeti immediatamente ad alta voce — come un'ombra che segue il parlante con un ritardo di solo 1–2 secondi. A differenza dell'ascolto passivo o degli esercizi di grammatica, lo shadowing costringe il tuo cervello e i muscoli della bocca a elaborare e riprodurre simultaneamente i modelli di discorso reale. La ricerca dimostra che migliora significativamente la precisione della pronuncia, l'intonazione, il ritmo, il discorso connesso, la comprensione dell'ascolto e la fluidità del parlato — rendendolo uno dei metodi più efficaci per la preparazione alla prova di speaking dell'IELTS e per la comunicazione reale in inglese.

Tecnica dello shadowing: leggi la guida completa passo dopo passo →