Good writing, bad speech

Guest · Good writing, bad speech

Hi All,

I've realised recently that my powers of on-the-fly speech and articulation vastly differ in quality to my writing capabilities. I know everyone has this difference, but I'm getting concerned that my English speech is degrading while my English writing is really flourishing.

You know when you get one of those incomprehensible speech days. Everything goes wrong; you can't remember the right word, all your sentences are riddled with 'errs' and pauses, and you can't think of what to say. You know what I mean. I'm getting those days more often.

While I'm sure it is nothing health wise, I'm betting it is down to lack of practise. Anyone have any thoughts?

Hecateh

I'm very much the same but I don't think yours is down to the same reason as mine - you're not menopausal are you? or pregnant?

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Actually I'm not quite so much the same as my typing follows the pattern. - and sometimes if my thoughts are way out.

Could suggest EFT but I don't somehow think you'll go for that! :lol: :lol:

What may help is reading aloud for a few minutes each day - particularly things like tongue twisters or Dr Seuss to get your voice working - even better if you record it and then play it back, then try again and see if you can get it better.

My voice used to be quite monotone - I was (yes really ) pretty shy and I think that was developed as part of my 'stay invisible' defence. Practising and recording it really helped me.

dingsy

I've no idea about your lifestyle-but do you work in a solitary occupation? If so then it's perhaps not too surprising that there's a difference between spoken/written language skills.

Your second last paragraph rang a few bells with me. I think by and large, society does not spend as much time communicating through speech as we used to, which I find sad. With so many ways of keeping in touch, it can often be easier to text or email, which minimises the need to actually speak. I was astonished, for example, when a close friend recently broke the news of her mother-in-law's death to me-by a text. I was quite shocked:it almost seemed to be lacking in respect for the deceased. It wasn't, but it struck me as bizarre, nonetheless.

I suspect that in general we spend much less time than we used to actually speaking to other people, and so it's not really surprising that we lose the ability to speak as coherently as we'd like.Sorry-i've rambled, and given you no tips:I could do with a few myself!

Guest

The voice recorder is a good tip that I've read about before. Something called "Image Streaming" where you basically voice what you are imagining rather than to something pre-written.

It kind of makes common sense; you are practising articulating what you are imagining, thus mimicking the processes of on-the-fly speech as I mentioned. This is not something I've ever tried, purely down to how crazy it would look to fellow tenants!

I guess the practice of speech would help - for example, joining a debating society or doing more presentations at work.

Reading aloud would exercise the jaw muscles and tonal bandwidth but I'm not sure it tackles the cognitive processes required of effective and creative speech.

Good tips though.

Nannyp

Firstly, I thought with your name you were male...and was interested in the menopausal/pregnant stance

I wonder whether you check/spell check and re write what you have written, as a matter of course? Sometimes when it is important for us to be absolutely perfect and correct, it's easy with technology to spellcheck etc...but when we're speaking publically, we can't check what we're saying and pause and err for fear of getting it wrong.
Just my thoughts :D

Hecateh

Oh - he's male ok - it's 'our Paul' from RISI admin - I was being facetious