The Secret to Speaking Fluently Without Having to Study
M. Zakyuddin Munziri
@zakiego
Originally written in Bahasa Indonesia.
Surroundings
Recently, I've been diligently observing the people around me. I haven't neglected observing myself either.
I'm someone who is quiet in a crowd. However, there was a time when I was surrounded by people who could talk a lot in the middle of a crowd, and guess what? Suddenly, I gained the ability to talk a lot too.
From this, I realized that communication is a skill passed down from the people around us. Communication here means broadly, from what topics we usually discuss, the language we use, how we respond to others, etc. We absorb all of this unconsciously from the people around us.
And this happened to me, unconsciously, over a long time. As someone who lives in front of a screen, I don't have many conversation partners. I only face inanimate objects. Nevertheless, there's one thing that allows me to easily share many stories, what is it? I listen to a lot of people telling stories.
Influential
The two people who most influenced my speaking style are two people both named Iqbal. The number of hours I've spent listening to them is probably in the tens of hours.
The first is Iqbal Hariadi on Podcast Subjective, and the second is Iqbal Farabi on YouTube Insinyur Online.
I feel strongly how the thought patterns used, hand gestures, terminology, even the pauses between sentences, are very much copy-paste from the two people above. This happens unconsciously. It all happens just from listening frequently.
Takeaway
The essence of the story above is, if you want to be able to tell stories fluently, then frequently listen to people telling stories.
A good speaker is born from a good listener. A good writer is born from a good reader.
Speaking with people directly is very good. But if not, there are many podcasts we can listen to, to inspire ourselves to be able to speak fluently as well.
Written on a slightly cloudy afternoon in Banjarmasin, November 4, 2023.
