I‘m sure everyone knows an example of this: saying „uh“ or „like“ after every word, talking too fast, talking too slow etc. Especially some politicians seem to adopt a style that makes you forget the start of a sentence once they get to the end of it. But like any other person you meet, those people will know something that‘s worth listening to, which you will never get to, if you tune out halfway through each sentence. Sometimes I wish there were x0.5 or x2 speed options in the real world.
Just to make it clear: I‘m referring to situations where it‘s actually hard to follow what a person is saying because of those speech patterns, not because I don’t like them or what they’re saying.
Any useful tips?
1 comment
Only listen with half an ear. You can learn to follow a talk only halfway, focussing on pregnant parts and when they say something actually interesting and you can’t reconstruct the whole sense from that then just say: “Oh sorry, I don’t know where my thoughts were for a second, can you please explain the last thing again?” It is like very fast reading.
Although I don’t know if that would be the way for all speech patterns. I do that if someone talks a lot of nonsense or uses really many completely unnecessary details/ words, means if it is actually nit interesting. I don’t have a problem with fast or slow if it is interesting, and if they do something like “oh” “uh” far too often I just concentrate on my breathing but that’s because I am just easily annoyed by such, not because I had a problem to follow them.