Shadowing Practice: Articulate Your Thoughts Clearly: 3 PRECISE Steps! - Learn English Speaking with YouTube
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Have you ever thought that you don't make sense when you speak,
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Have you ever thought that you don't make sense when you speak,
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that you get your thoughts muddled or that you can't express yourself clearly?
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If that sounds like you,
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then you are not alone and this video is absolutely perfect for you.
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We're going to talk about a three-step sequence to help you articulate your thoughts so you can communicate them clearly.
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Now if you follow this three-step sequence and you do it on a regular basis,
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it's going to help you organize your thoughts better
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so you can articulate them well and communicate them verbally in a clearer way.
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Because at the end of the day,
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our speech is a reflection of our thinking.
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If your thinking is muddled,
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if it is confused, then your speech is going to come out confused as well.
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Whereas if your thinking is clear,
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if it is organized, then your speech will come out clear and organized and articulate as well.
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So in order to communicate and articulate clearly.
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We need to start with our thoughts.
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We need to organize our thoughts in a clear way,
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in a very structured way.
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So when we communicate, those thoughts come out in a very clear and easy to understand manner.
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If you like what you're going to learn in this video,
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there are two things you can do to help out my channel.
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You can hit the like button below this video,
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which tells the algorithm that people like you like this video.
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So it's shown to more people on YouTube.
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The second thing is you can subscribe to my channel.
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Every week I release videos on leadership to help people like you in their leadership journey
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and I would be honored to share this content with you as well.
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Now let's move on to how to articulate your thoughts clearly.
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So the first thing you need to do is to read.
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Reading is the first step in this three-step structure.
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Reading is a fantastic way to fill your mind with new ideas,
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to learn new vocabulary, rich vocabulary,
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good structure, good sentence structure and structure of ideas as well.
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And it's essential if you want to learn how to organize your thoughts better
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because you can learn how other people organize their ideas and organize their thoughts.
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So every time you read a book,
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whether it's fiction or nonfiction,
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you expose yourself to all of these things.
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There is no way that you could come up with all of this rich vocabulary or good structure on your own.
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And why would you?
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It's not necessary when you can learn from other people who have gone through this process to write those fantastic books.
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The way I see it is books are really a gateway into the world of organized thoughts and good structure.
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I mean, think of how long it takes somebody to write a book.
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How many revisions do they do?
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How many other people are involved in the process to improve on their ideas or improve on their structure?
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There is a lot of time,
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money and effort put into writing books,
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you can leverage this and use this final product to enrich your mind with rich vocabulary,
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with good structure and with organized thoughts.
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You can basically learn from these high level authors or from the high level work that other people have created.
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Now, what kinds of books should you read?
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Well, you've probably guessed I'm not talking about comic books,
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I'm not talking about children's books.
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The kinds of books I recommend you to read are nonfiction or also fiction books,
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biographies, classical literature, books about historical events,
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business books, or literary fiction.
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All of these are the types of books
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that have had a lot of work put into them
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that are using a level of vocabulary and structure that you probably want to aim for.
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Since you are working to become a leader,
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you probably want to sound more intelligent and sound more structured and organized as you speak.
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These are the kinds of books that you can use to draw those ideas from
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and to get the vocabulary from as well.
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I do encourage you to read books that you don't normally read.
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This will help to expose you to new ideas,
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new ways of thinking, new ways of structuring your ideas as well.
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So if you normally read biographies,
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then maybe opt for books about historical events.
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Or maybe if you read business books a lot,
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you can learn a lot by reading classical literature.
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How often should you read?
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This is a question I get asked quite a lot.
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I recommend you read five to 10 pages every day.
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The way I do it is over breakfast.
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Generally, as I am eating my breakfast,
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I have a book beside me instead of my phone,
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instead of Instagram, I have a book beside me and I am reading the book,
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book going through the pages of the book as I eat my breakfast.
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As to when you read,
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it's really up to you how you like to fit it into your daily schedule,
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but I recommend you read five to ten pages every day.
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This way you are filling your mind with new vocabulary,
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with good sentence structure and new ideas as well.
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You're probably wondering if I have any recommendations for you as to what books you should read.
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This is definitely a question I'm going to be getting once you are at this point in the YouTube video.
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So I wanted to share with you this one book,
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which is one of my favourite books to read.
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It's called Profiles in Courage by John F.
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Kennedy.
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I will put some information about it in the description below.
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It's an old book.
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It was written in 1965 in a very classical style of English like people used to write back then.
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I absolutely love the way people used to write books during that time or even prior to the 1960s.
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I find it so intelligent,
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the vocabulary used is so rich,
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the phrases that are used.
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One of the phrases in this book that I came across
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and I absolutely love and I thought was so intelligent was independent courage,
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the phrase independent courage.
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So there's many more phrases like that in this book.
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There's many more things you can learn in this book.
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It's an extremely, this particular one I got is extremely old.
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I picked it up in a second hand store.
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If I were to flick through the pages,
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you can probably see that all of the pages have actually started to dislodge from the spine.
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They're coming out, So I have to be really careful with this book.
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But Profiles in Courage by John F.
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Kennedy is a really good book that I would recommend you to read.
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If you wanted to start getting into reading books with a higher level of vocabulary,
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definitely opt for the ones that were published a long time ago.
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So even in the early 1900s,
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the way they used to write back then,
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the way they used to organize their thoughts back then,
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the vocabulary they used back then was at another level.
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You hardly even see that nowadays in the books that are published.
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So I highly recommend this one or any other topic
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that was written around that time or before that time to help yourself,
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enrich yourself with the vocabulary,
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the sentence structure to really organize your thoughts better.
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So reading is definitely the first step that you need to fill your mind,
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to fill your subconscious with the tools,
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with the vocabulary, with the ideas and the structure that you need to move on to the second step,
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which we're going to talk about right now.
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Writing is the second step in this three-step sequence.
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And this is a fantastic way to help you organize your thoughts better,
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get it on paper, so can actually see whether the thoughts you have in your mind are truly organized or not.
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It also helps you to identify your thoughts.
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So sometimes when you have those thoughts in your mind, they're all muddled.
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It's hard to identify clearly what those thoughts are.
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Writing is one of the best ways you can get clear on those thoughts and identify them too.
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As I mentioned at the beginning of this video,
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our speech is a reflection of our thinking.
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So we first need to get our thoughts organized.
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And we do this by writing before we actually jump into speaking,
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which is the next step we'll talk about in a couple of moments.
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When you don't do this,
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this is what leads to muddled communication.
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When you have those muddled thoughts in your mind,
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and then you go from those muddled thoughts straight to speaking,
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that's what leads to muddled speaking and not being able to articulate your thoughts clearly or communicate them well.
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Basically what writing does is it allows you to take the time to organize your thoughts well.
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It allows you to draw them from your mind,
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to put them on paper and to see whether they are organized or not and whether they're good thoughts or not.
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You can put those thoughts in order,
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you can organize them and you can eliminate thoughts that aren't important or that don't add anything to the discussion.
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If you feel that you don't make sense when you speak?
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Well, it's probably because you haven't spent the time organizing your thoughts like you do through this writing process.
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You've just jumped straight into speaking without organizing them first.
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And that is what has led to muddled communication and you not making sense.
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I want you to get into the habit of writing your thoughts.
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Now, how do you do this?
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Well, it should be something that you do every day,
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just like reading, part of your everyday routine.
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And it's something that can directly follow your reading schedule.
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You can do journal writing,
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you can do formal writing,
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whatever type of writing suits you better.
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I recommend you write one page every day.
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So reading is five to 10 pages every day.
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But writing, because it takes more time,
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you are allowed to pause,
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you're allowed to organize your thoughts a lot more,
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write one page per day.
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I usually do my writing in a book much like this.
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It is just a plain notebook.
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I'll open it up.
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The pages are plain.
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There is no lines whatsoever in this book.
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And I find that this works much better for me to not have lines drawn on the page.
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I find that when I am working or writing with lines,
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it limits my thinking in a way.
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It prevents me from thinking freely, from writing freely.
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So I like to have the space
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and the opportunity on a blank page like this to just scribble down my thoughts
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and write them in a more coherent way.
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What can you write about?
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So that's no doubt your next question.
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You have this book.
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What do you actually write about?
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Well, you can reflect on the past.
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So think of things that have happened yesterday, last week, last month.
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Perhaps there were fears you faced,
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conversations you had with people,
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challenges you faced, achievements you made,
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your desires, goals that you're working towards,
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goals that you have achieved,
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disagreements you had with someone or agreements you had with someone.
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There are a number of things you can use as inspiration for your writing.
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As well as reflecting on the past,
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you can also look to the future.
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You can write about your future goals,
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your future dreams, your desires,
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conversations you want to have with people.
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And this is a fantastic point for people who are looking to communicate more assertively.
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If you have a conversation you need to have with someone that's an assertive conversation,
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you're a bit nervous about that assertive conversation,
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you can write the conversation down using your journaling,
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your morning journaling that you do.
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If you're going for a job interview,
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you can use it for exactly the same thing as well.
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So there are a number of things that you can write about.
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It's really just about you deciding on what the subject is,
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what the topic is that you want to write about.
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And this is where you can start to get creative.
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But this process, when it's done on a daily basis,
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it will definitely help you to organize your thoughts,
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to structure them better and help you communicate them more clearly as well.
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How long will this whole process take?
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How long will it take you to start seeing an improvement in the way that you communicate?
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Well, I would recommend you wait for a couple of weeks at least.
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I think it takes most people two weeks to start to see improvement in their communication.
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So remember, it's a whole process that you have to go through and you're basically retraining your brain.
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You're retraining the way that you think about things,
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the way you have your thoughts in your mind,
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the way you structure them them and the way that they come out as well when you communicate.
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And the way you notice whether you are improving with your thoughts
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and articulating them better is if you start to feel less and less that you are communicating in a muddled way.
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If you start to feel more and more
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that you are clearer with your communication
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and you're also noticing through the reactions of other people that they're really understanding what you're saying.
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So look out for these signs,
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the way you feel, the way the other person reacts to detect
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and understand whether you're starting to see an improvement with your own communication.
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And the third step in this sequence is to speak.
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So we have filled your mind with rich vocabulary,
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with good structure, with new ideas through step one, where you read.
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Then we have transferred all of that knowledge and all of that intelligence onto paper through the process of writing.
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And through the process of writing,
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you have started to organize your thoughts better,
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identify good ideas, reject bad ideas as well.
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This has led to clearer thoughts in your mind, leading to clearer communication.
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So the next step in this process is to actually speak.
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And this is where you move your thoughts from your mind,
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from paper, out into the world in conversations with people you interact with.
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This is your ultimate goal.
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This is the whole purpose of this three-step process,
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to speak clearly, to articulate your thoughts well,
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and to communicate clearly to the other person.
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One of the things I've noticed about people who speak very well,
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who can articulate their thoughts very clearly is that they've been trained to do it.
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Now, sometimes this training happens formally.
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They might go to a school where they learn how to do it.
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But most of the time it happens informally.
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It happens through their upbringing,
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through their family background, through the education that they get.
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A lot of those people are exposed to debates,
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to people who have fantastic communication skills.
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They get involved in those conversations with those people and through the way they communicate,
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they can learn from those people.
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They learn the vocabulary.
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They learn how to communicate their thoughts.
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They learn how to argue points.
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There are many families in this world,
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every night over dinner, they regularly have rich conversations.
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They have deep conversations, whether it's about politics, about music, about history.
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They debate a lot their ideas.
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And through this process, if you do it every night,
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it's normal that they would naturally develop really good communication skills over time.
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They're being exposed to people who are good communicators.
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They themselves are picking up all of these skills,
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all of these tools, and they are bringing them to their conversations in the world as well.
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They learn how to have intelligent debates with people.
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They know how to argue their point.
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They know how to speak in a persuasive way.
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They know how to influence people or influence their ideas.
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They know how to explain complicated concepts because they've had experience and training in doing this.
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Through practicing speaking, these people can gain invaluable skills in communication,
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in all types of communication and communicating with all types of people as well.
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But not everyone has this same upbringing.
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Not everybody is exposed every night at the dinner table to
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intelligent debates where they're listening to people argue their point and where they have a chance to argue their point as well.
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Not everyone is exposed to this growing up.
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I certainly wasn't.
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I will admit that to you.
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I was not in a family where we had these kinds of conversations at the dinner table.
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So I didn't learn how to do this through my family upbringing as well.
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The strategy I used is reading,
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it's writing, and it's finally speaking,
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just like I'm teaching you in this video.
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So we've been through the process of what to do for the reading,
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what to do for writing.
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Now, how do you practice speaking?
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If you don't have access to this type of family environment that I just described to you,
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how do you actually practice speaking?
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Well, I'm going to share with you and activity on exactly how you can do that.
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I want you to choose someone you feel comfortable with.
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It could be a work colleague,
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it could be a friend in your personal life or your partner,
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somebody you feel comfortable with.
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And I want you to speak to that person for five minutes straight.
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It's an impromptu style speaking for five minutes straight about a topic that is important to you.
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So it could be the same topic that you wrote about in your journaling stage.
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You could have that morning written about a certain topic and you would like to tell the person,
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your conversation partner about that topic.
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So you could choose that.
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It could be about a conversation you recently had with somebody.
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It could be an experience you recently had,
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a challenge you recently faced.
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The topic you choose is really up to you.
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But if you find it hard to choose a topic to talk about,
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then I recommend you choose the same topic you wrote about that morning in your journal.
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You can write out your thoughts in your journal,
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how you are going to discuss them,
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how you are going to present them to your conversation partner.
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You can do all of that organization and all of that planning in the second step when you write.
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Remember, we need organized thoughts to have clear communication and to articulate well.
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So you can organize your thoughts when you write then
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when you speak you can follow the structure the exact structure
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that you wrote about that morning
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when you do this on a regular basis it will help
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you to organize your thoughts it will help you to master how to communicate them clearly
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and how to articulate them well i do have another video
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on my channel about how to be more articulate i'll put a card on the screen above
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so you can check it out once you finish watching this video.
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In that video, I share nine tips on how to be more articulate and communicate clearly as well.
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We have gone through a lot of content in this video.
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I would love to know how all of these ideas and this three-step process works for you.
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Once you've tried out this three-step process,
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please let me know in the comments.
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Jump back to the channel and let me know in the comments how it has worked for you.
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Have you seen an improvement in your communication?
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Have you noticed other people are reacting differently?
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Or maybe they're even commenting that you sound a lot more articulate and a lot clearer when you speak.
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Let me know in the comments the benefits that you see.
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Thank you so much for watching and I'll be back next week with another video.
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Context & Background
In the video titled "Articulate Your Thoughts Clearly: 3 PRECISE Steps!", the speaker provides valuable insights for individuals who struggle with expressing their ideas clearly and coherently. Many English learners face challenges in organizing their thoughts, leading to confusion in verbal communication. This tutorial introduces a structured approach that emphasizes the importance of clear thinking as the foundation for articulate speech. By focusing on reading, expanding vocabulary, and learning sentence structures, learners can improve their communication skills significantly. This engaging talk highlights that clarity in speech reflects clarity in thought, creating a powerful incentive for watchers to enhance their articulation abilities.
Top 5 Phrases for Daily Communication
- “I often find it difficult to express my thoughts.” - A common concern among language learners.
- “Can you help me articulate my ideas more clearly?” - A request that encourages collaborative learning.
- “Let’s structure this discussion.” - A useful phrase to facilitate organized dialogue.
- “I appreciate your feedback on my speech.” - Demonstrates openness to improvement and understanding.
- “Reading has really helped me expand my vocabulary.” - A reflection on the connection between reading and language skills.
Step-by-step Shadowing Guide
To tackle the challenges presented in this video and improve English pronunciation through shadowing, follow these steps:
- Start with Reading: Choose a piece of literature—be it fiction or nonfiction—that interests you. Pay attention to the sentence structures, word usage, and the flow of ideas. Utilize a shadowing app to listen to audiobooks or lectures that parallel your reading material. This will enhance your understanding of how articulate thoughts can be expressed.
- Practice Shadow Speech: As you read aloud, use the shadowing technique. Speak along with the speaker in real-time or repeat phrases after hearing them. This method allows you to internalize the rhythm and intonation of fluent speakers, improving your overall pronunciation and articulation.
- Reflect and Record: After practicing, record yourself speaking about the content you read. Listen back to identify areas for improvement. Were your ideas communicated clearly? If not, revise your statements and practice them in a structured way.
By regularly implementing these three steps—reading, shadowing, and reflection—you can enhance your ability to articulate your thoughts clearly. Consistent practice will not only improve your English pronunciation but also help you navigate everyday conversations with confidence. Remember, the key to effective communication is a well-organized mind, so nourish it through rich reading and focused speaking.
What is the Shadowing Technique?
Shadowing is a science-backed language learning technique originally developed for professional interpreter training and popularized by polyglot Dr. Alexander Arguelles. The method is simple but powerful: you listen to native English audio and immediately repeat it out loud — like a shadow following the speaker with just a 1–2 second delay. Unlike passive listening or grammar drills, shadowing forces your brain and mouth muscles to simultaneously process and reproduce real speech patterns. Research shows it significantly improves pronunciation accuracy, intonation, rhythm, connected speech, listening comprehension, and speaking fluency — making it one of the most effective methods for IELTS Speaking preparation and real-world English communication.
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