How to Improve Your Communication Skills (In 5 Easy Steps)
Communication skills are the most difficult skill that we start building in the early childhood and which we keep improving throughout all our life.
If a person lacks communication skills, it limits the size of his possible audience and the variety of situations in which he may be successful. One of your primary goals as a future genius of communication is to constantly improve your skill and learn new ways to communicate with others. This way you will always be ready to interact successfully with any person. No matter if it’s your friend, relative, colleague or business partner.
Have you ever asked yourself why some people can find a common language and gain the trust of complete strangers in just a few minutes and without any problems? And why others are unable to agree with their own relatives? Why people often call “extremely pleasant man” someone, who on the first glimpse doesn’t seem to be very standing out? And why sometimes people avoid talking to a person who seems to be very smart, intelligent and nice? The answer to all these questions is one: these people have different communication skills.
Ability to communicate with people is one of the fundamental skills to develop successful relationships with people, succeed at school or work. Here are some of the best tips and tricks that will help you to improve your communication skills.
STEP 1: Be a good listener
This is the first step on your way to improving your skills. Even though it sounds quite primitive and fairly straightforward, yet for many people it won’t be so easy to implement this advice. The ability to listen doesn’t mean that you just need to close your mouth to give another person a possibility to insert few sentences. It means that you must actually listen attentively and be interested in what your opponent says instead of pretending that you’re listening. This will not only help you to make contact but also will show respect to your interlocutor.
When people feel such attitude, it immediately changes the atmosphere in your relationship. Just think about how great you feel when someone listened with attention and interest while you enthusiastically talked about some event that is important for you.
We all just want to be heard and understood, and if you give them this opportunity you will immediately gain a lot of friends and find common language at work!
STEP 2: Remember about body language
Our gestures often tell our interlocutor much more than what we say. You can try to make another person believe that you’re open to the conversation, but if your hands are crossed, it shows him your isolation. Or you can try to convince someone that you’re listening to him, but your eyes will wander.
This is called body language, and, more likely, your interlocutor will simply “read” your gestures. If you want to improve your communication skills, you should pay attention not only to what you say but also to how you act, what expression is on your face, what shows your posture and gestures, etc.
So to become better in communications, you should first learn how to understand body language, and later apply your new knowledge on practice.
STEP 3: Forget about interrupting people
You can be a smart and interesting interlocutor, but if you tend to interrupt other people – this won’t give you good reputation! This demonstrates person that you disrespect him or her, and what is even worse – that you don’t hesitate to show it.
By interrupting someone you are almost telling them: “Hey, I don’t care what you say because what I have to say is much more important.”
Read and memorize this phrase. And whenever you feel like you want to interrupt another person, ask yourself how you would feel if someone treated you this way.
STEP 4: Work on your speech
This advice will cover several nuances, each of which is very important to improve your conversational skills.
1. Try to avoid unnecessary conversation fillers
Do you want to succeed at work, be more persuasive, and look more confident during conversation? If your answer is yes, then you must learn how to stop using filler words! Usage of such words shows the audience that you feel uncomfortable and nervous, which can distract them from what you are trying to say.
2. Say every word clearly
Your speech should be distinct, expressive and completely devoid of mutterings. If you already noticed that during conversations with others you often have to repeat what you just said, then try to work more on your diction. You can attend some courses, watch videos or simply practice at home.
If you can devote at least ten minutes per day to practice, you will be able to achieve excellent pronunciation of sounds and words.
3. Pronounce words correctly
If you often incorrectly put accents, or not sure how one or another word should be pronounced – try not to use it. Otherwise, you risk ruining your reputation.
4. Use words correctly
Don’t insert words that are not clear to you, into the conversation. And at the same time try to constantly expand your vocabulary and learn something new. To do it you can read books, watch movies, or anything that you like, and, the most important – look up meanings of words that you didn’t know before.
5. Talk steadily
If you will talk too fast or swallow words’ endings, people can think that you are an unbalanced and unconfident person. Also, it can make your speech much less understandable for others. So try to get rid of trembling in your hands, gather your thoughts and try to speak confidently, steadily and calmly.
STEP 5: Set your phone aside
This advice may seem obvious, but today many of us developed a habit of looking automatically at our phones every ten minutes to check for notifications or messages. Try to avoid doing anything with your phone during a conversation. Remember that even short glance thrown towards the phone may offend your interlocutor and spoil conversation.
Communication in your own language is sometimes hard enough. What about when you need to learn a new languge while completely being incapable of that?
13 Tips on How To Learn Any New Language (Even When You Find It Hard to Remember Two Foreign Words)
The benefits of learning new languages are endless.
When we study other languages, it creates a positive attitude, develop excellent communication skills, improves one’s creativity and analytical skills, make an employee more valuable in the marketplace, makes an international trip easier and pleasant, and learning other languages open the door to music, films, art, fashion, science, and philosophy.
The necessity to learn a language is what we all face at some point in our lives. As business becomes international and everything aims to enter the globalized market, we have to know at least one foreign language. On top of that, opportunities to travel or move abroad are now very popular among young people, so they want to master the language used in the country they are willing to go to. Also, a lot of students are now willing to get a better education, so they choose to travel abroad and study at international programs.
Other than these benefits, when a layperson starts a business, he can expand it internationally more easily as compared to those people who don’t know foreign languages. Most people who love reading books and want to know other’s cultures and customs are keen to study other languages.
However, what can one do if he has no language skills whatsoever? Is it still possible for people like this to learn a language? And what are the best ways to do it? This is what we will look at in this article.
We have searched for answers from people familiar with the matter such as polyglots, international speakers, translators, and interpreters. They all had some struggling going on once they started learning a new language. Nevertheless, they overcame it – and here they are speaking several languages fluently. How did they do it? Here are the secrets they shared with us.
Tips on how to master a foreign language if you do not have language skills
1. Set goals
It all starts with a clear understanding of why you want to do this. You might be willing to travel more and visit the country where this language is spoken, or you might have a friend who speaks this language, and you want to be able to communicate with him more, or you want to watch movies and listen to the music and understand every word. Whatever it is, you need to see this goal and know why you are doing what you are doing. Otherwise, you will lose motivation and will stop moving forward once you meet obstacles on your way.
2. Find folks to study together
When you are learning something with a bunch of friends, it is not only more fun but also more useful. You can practice the new phrases and words you learned with each other by using them in a sentence. You can be accountable to each other, and this is priceless as you are likely to get bored or discouraged at one point or another. And also, if you are a competitor by nature you will get motivated to do more, better and faster than your companion just to lead this race. And it works perfectly well for the learning process.
3. Don’t be afraid to be silly
Mistakes happen. You cannot know the language perfectly well from the beginning. You will find yourself misusing the words or applying them to ridiculous situations. Just be ready to have a good laugh at your mistakes! Do not stop learning only because it feels that you sound too stupid. It is an essential part of the learning process, so don’t get demotivated. They say that kids are much better at learning a new language because they are not afraid to talk using a few words they know and sound silly. They quickly overcome these barriers and, therefore, have more chances to master this art. So, don’t be afraid to speak and feel free as a child. We do not expect too much of them from the very beginning, and they are doing great!
4. Have fun
If you only study the language in question with a pen and notebook in your hand, you will soon get bored with the process and quit. No wonder you will, as this practice is an absolute motivation killer. You need to have fun while learning. It is not only about drilling words and phrases, but rather playing around with them. Let’s say you are learning French.
So, to enjoy the learning process, you need to get a bottle of French wine, get a book of poetry and read it while taking a hot bath. Or if you are learning Spanish, make sure to add siesta to your schedule on the weekend, grab a children’s book while having a nap and read it out loud. You need to feel what it is like to be native to the culture of this language.
5. Listen
This is one of the basic rules you need to make for yourself: listening to people speaking this language. Students can turn on the radio and listen to it while working. You do not have to be concentrated on what exactly they are saying, but your brain will somehow get used to the way it all sounds. Make sure to add songs in this language to your playlist and listen to it while jogging, or working out in the gym, or riding a bike. Whenever you have a chance to listen to this language, seize the opportunity.
6. Find native speakers
The best idea for you is to make friends with those who speak this language. You can learn a lot from this friendship including culture, specifics of using the language and some specific phrases from it, traditional food, beliefs, etc. Steep yourself in a subject and try to make the most out of this friendship. However, do not be selfish and do not just be friends with someone only to get the taste of culture. Be friends because you like this person.
The best way of learning a foreign language is to speak it. Most people spend their time in memorising the list of words and studying grammar instead of practising. Try to speak with native people they can motivate you more for learning your target language. Speak with a native people will help you more instead of staring at grammar books or laptop screen.
Try to find out a colleague or friend near you who can speak your target language. You can even take online classes as one can hire online paper writer to score well in assignments or essays. Alternatively, you can hire a tutor. If you can’t find anyone near you, who can speak your target language, try to connect with someone on skype.
7.Put labels on it
One of the most popular yet very effective ways of learning the language is putting labels on all of the furniture items in your house, especially those you get to use very frequently throughout the day. And you can also make a rule that whenever you approach one of these items, you should use this word in a short, simple sentence. Seeing it and also saying it out loud will help you learn the phrases easier and faster because you are using different kinds of your memory here.
8. Use technologies in the learning process
There are a whole lot of techniques you can use to help you master a language. A lot of them are free of charge so that it won’t be a costly pleasure. For instance, you can download an app called Duolingo that has a lot of exercises for you to practice the language. It allows you both to listen to the words pronounced, see them, write them and pass tests to proceed to the next level. And it is suitable for almost any age, as the app offers you an opportunity to study in a playful manner. And also, you can switch the language of your cell phone to the one you are learning. The necessity to go through the settings or make calls with a language you are learning will give you another chance to practice it.
9. Have an imaginary friend
Okay, this might sound weird, but it works. What we suggest here is you talking to yourself or having a dialogue now and then with a person you don’t see. You can ask questions and give answers to them to practice both of these types of sentences. You will also get to practice using common words in everyday life. So, whenever you are walking home alone or are making a cup of tea by the end of the day, just strike up a conversation and “discuss” with this imaginary friend how his day was, how he feels at the moment, and what plans he has for the upcoming day.
10. Set a challenge
Let’s say you want to learn at least 50 words a week and want to use them in a sentence. Make sure to prepare a fitting reward for the hard work once you reach the goal you set. The following week you can aim to learn seventy words and use them all in speech. You need to be realistic when setting these goals, yet this should be challenging for you. This works especially well for those who are competitive by nature. Having high standards to comply with can be a good idea for you to pursue. However, remember that a reward you want to get for all your effort should something you want and are ready to fight for. And once you don’t achieve what you wanted to, you are not supposed to get it.
11. Read in a new language
Reading always helps. You see how words are united in a sentence and what logic stands behind it. However, do not try to get a massive historical novel for the beginning. What you want to start with are short books for children. The language there is very simple, and yet quite informative. So, grab a book or two from a library and enjoy the process of diving into a new culture with a paper friend.
These are the most practical tools for you that will make you a better learner and will add more fun to the process of mastering a new skill.
Many people complain that learning a new language takes a lot of time. Sometimes after studying for more than a year, they can barely speak ten to twenty sentences. We discussed it with language expert and asked them to shower some light on learning a new language in a short time. Following are the steps that can help every language learner.
12. Use Online Translation Tools
Technology and the internet have made things easy for us. When you start studying a new language, you need someone to guide you. These days free translation tools are available to help you convert target language words into your first language. In this way, you’re more likely to understand and learn a language fast.
13. Study Everyday
Most people complain that they have studied for many years and still not fluent. Why does this happen? The thing is when they say for many years, they actually mean that they studied once a week. Let’s make one thing clear if you want to learn a new language fast you’re going to study every day.
