What comes to mind when you think of someone who is articulate?

Do you think about someone who's on stage talking in front of an audience of 10,000 people or maybe someone who's done a TED talk or at least someone who sounds really eloquent in their speech.

Today, I'm going to give you eight powerful ways to how you can become more articulate.

Being articulate is nothing more than being able to express your thoughts and ideas in a way that people can understand exactly what you're trying to say.

So it's nothing more than accurate communication.

Secret number one is to expand your vocabulary.

And I'm not talking about this dictionary of difficult words.

When I was, when I finished high school and I first went to college for the first time, I really wanted to sound more articulate.

And so what I did was I bought this dictionary, this is the same dictionary I bought in college and I wanted to learn more words, more difficult words.

So I studied this every day; I would work on a different alphabet and I would study these difficult words.

And what I found was that people didn't understand what I was saying because difficult words when you're expanding your vocabulary and you're using harder words,

the thing about being able to articulate is that you want people to understand what you're saying.

So if you're using difficult words, the less likely they're going to use those words in everyday language, so they won't understand what you're saying.

Being articulate means expressing your perspectives clearly.

So it's not about expanding your vocabulary to words that are harder but more to focus on words that express your emotions.

So focus on descriptive words, especially words that help express how you feel.

Secret number two is to practice improvising.

Learning how to be more expressive of your emotions will help you to convey the meanings behind what you're trying to say.

And really, people connect with how you're saying the words rather than exactly or precisely the words that you are trying to use.

One way you can practice improvising is to take an improv or an acting class because they teach you how to improve your expression, using your body language and your speech.

So after I bought my dictionary in college, what I did -- I was a very shy person and I really didn't feel comfortable talking in front of people,

let alone expressing my emotions or conveying my perspective on things.

So during the second half of my degree, I auditioned for a musical.

And that really brought me out of my comfort zone, but at the same time, it helped me to be more articulate in terms of being expressive.

Acting on stage and also singing too, that was what helped me bring me out of my shell.

And what after that experience of auditioning, even though I didn't get the part,

but that experience of auditioning for the part and training to become the actor that they would select,

that really helped me to free my mind to be able to express myself in an authentic way.

Secret number three is pause.

You want to strategically insert pauses before and after the points that you're trying to emphasize.

Using pauses is better than using filler words, but of course, if you are accustomed to using filler words or if that's a habit for you, it's okay to use them once in a while but not all the time.

And it's okay to use pauses instead of a filler words.

So what I mean is that get used to, you want to get used to having silence because not all silence is awkward.

So get used to inserting silence and pause strategically when you want to emphasize something you just said.

Secret number four is to pay attention to your tone and your accentuation.

Tone is simply a change in the pitch of your voice.

In some languages like Chinese, for example, tone is word specific.

If you change the tone, you change to a completely different word.

But in English, tone is statement specific, which means that if you change your tone, you're changing the meaning of what you're saying.

Let me illustrate what I mean by changes in tone and how it changes the meaning in English.

I'm going to be saying the phrase, " I didn't say your website was outdated."

So that's the phrase I'm going to use, and I'm going to change the tone for each word and you can see that it changes the meaning of that sentence.

And I'm not going to use, I'm not going to incorporate any body language to this at all, just verbally.

And you'll see when I change the tone that it changes the meaning of the sentence.

So the sentence that once again is "I didn't say your website was outdated."

OK, here we go.

First word is I.

If I say "I didn't say your website was outdated" versus "I didn't say your website was outdated," I didn't say it.

So that means it implies that someone else said it.

Or if I change the tone of the word, say, then "I didn't say your website was outdated."

So that means that I didn't say it, I might be thinking it.

Now, if I change the tone of when I'm saying the word website, it sounds like this:

"I didn't say your website was outdated."

So that means it's not your website that I think is outdated; it's something else of yours that I think is outdated.

Or if I change the tone of the last word; "I didn't say your website was outdated."

So it means that I didn't think it was outdated; I was thinking something else about your website.

So you can see how changes in tone, really change the meaning in English of what you're saying.

So pay attention to your tone in your speech and that will help you to become more articulate.

So that was tone.

Now, let's talk about accentuation.

Accentuation is when you simply make certain syllables more distinct by either saying them more loudly or putting more emphasis on them.

So to illustrate, let's choose the word PRESENT.

So if I were to accentuate the first syllable, it would be present (/ˈprez.ənt/) and that is one mean, right?

I give you a present; give me a present; give him or her a present.

If I accentuated the cell of a second syllable, it would be present ( /prɪˈzent/).

So it changes the word from a noun to a verb.

So pay attention to both your tone and accentuation to help yourself to become more articulate.

Secret number five is to listen to yourself.

So listen to yourself in normal conversation and pay attention to how you feel when you hear your own voice.

Do you feel energized or drowsy?

Do you feel pleasant or irritated?

Chances are, if you feel a certain way about yourself, then chances are other people feel the same way too.

And try recording yourself also in normal conversation so that you can have opportunities to listen to yourself more often.

Also, another good rule of thumb is to get feedback from other people that you trust and give them permission to give you their honest feedback, and criticism on how they felt when they listen to you in conversation.

And ask yourself in these instances, when you hear yourself and when you get a feeling for how you and others feel when you're talking to them,

ask yourself what can you do to improve so that you can come across more pleasant and give people a more positive feeling when you're talking to them.

Secret number six is to portray confidence and self assurance.

Because people don't see you through their eyes, they see you through your eyes.

So give them the impression that you're 100% confident that you're an authority in the subject matter that you're talking about and you also believe what you're saying.

Part of portraying confidence is to project your voice.

A good rule of thumb is to be able to talk so that someone who is 10 feet away from you can hear you.

So project your voice with such intensity that someone who is 10 feet away can understand what you're saying.

Secret number seven is to use variation; you want to vary the length of your sentences.

So for example, you want to, once you've used a long sentence, then follow it up with a short sentence and vice versa.

This also helps to get your message across more clearly.

Because for example, if you use three or more long sentences in tandem, then you might lose your audience due to overload of information.

You should also try to vary your speed and your volume.

This can help people to understand and follow what you're trying to say.

For example, you can slow down when you want someone to understand certain words and phrases,

and then speed back up again when you're sure that they understand and they've caught on to what you're trying to say.

Speed and volume will also help you become more expressive as well.

So for example, if you're trying to express something happy and exciting, then you can speak louder and faster.

But if you're telling a sad or serious story, then you can speak slowly and more softly.

Secret number eight is to understand yourself; get a solid understanding of why you have a lack of art articulation.

Maybe you've had some tensions or social anxiety that led to your perceptions of yourself.

Or maybe it's a fear of being at the center of attention and embarrassment.

But whatever it may be, you can work to overcome the root causes and give yourself the peace of mind and the confidence to get out there and articulate truly how you feel.

Comment below. What have you learned?

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