Hello there, my name is Ronnie and welcome to the video. Today, I'm going to teach you
something that's very useful, as always, and important when you are having a conversation
with someone. I've entitled this "How to Improve Your Communication Skills" or "Your Conversation
Skills", but in general, how to make people understand that you understand what they have
just said to you. It's a very easy technique, it's very useful. I know in the Japanese language,
you do this a lot. These are called, in English, "hesitation devices". All hesitation devices
are either sounds or a few words that let the person know that you are thinking about
the answer. So, in Japan, in Japanese, you guys go, "ano, nandeka, ano, ano". Same idea,
but in English, we don't say, "ano", we say, "uh", or, "um". Let's see. So, if someone
asks you a question, and you are thinking of the answer in English, or you're thinking
about English vocabulary, instead of going like this, you can now go, "um", and it's
important to make a thinking face, so that the person knows that you have, one, understood
what they have asked you, and two, are paying attention to what they say. So, if someone
asks you a question, instead of going, you can now go, "um, hold on, yes, my favorite
color is purple." Or, if you're in mid-sentence, maybe you, it's not a question, maybe you
are telling a story, and you have a very exciting story to tell everyone, and you say, "so yesterday,
I went to the, the word, the word, park. I went to the park." These hesitation devices
will help your communication become more fluent, and you will talk more smoothly. What a great
art. I hope that you know how to use these now, and it will help you when you try and
communicate with people, for thinking of what word you want to say next. Go to www.engvid.com,
and you can find much more fun and exciting things there. Toodles. One very important
thing when you're using these hesitation devices, is it is for a very casual conversation situation.
If you are giving a speech, or a report in a business situation, it is not very good
to begin your presentation and say, "uh, good evening, uh, people, uh." These things are
annoying when people make presentations, and when people are trying to sound official-like.
So please, these are for conversation and casual things. Enjoy.