Words can last, and good wordings make sure it does.
I just came back from SHIP Toastmasters club, very impressed by Clarence’s General Evaluation. I made an audio record of 80% of the content, but the priority is my impression in general.
To put it shortly: wording/措辞.
He used a variety of words and sentence structures for similar contexts. His job was to offer feedback to, like, a dozen speakers in terms of their shinning points and rooms for improvement in 8 minutes. It’s a long speech and you can see the difficulty in keeping the audience awake from repeated patterns.
Here are some notes from Clarence's evaluation speech:
I appreciate your punctuality.
Make sure you are the center on the stage, not the screen.
You spent a lot of time on recap – repetition of the speeches - maybe you can reduce the recap and increase your suggestions.
The way you provide to the speaker can really facilitate her to further development.
I observed...; I would suggest...; merely about (one aspect); focus on the xxx responsibility;
Hospitable (for guest intro and IE session), dynamic, earnest (report), concrete (evaluation), fluent delivery, ...
To quote from Sound of Music, these are a few of my favorite things.
今晚去了SHIP Toastmasters的英文会议，加上又想练一下英文写作，所以这里以英文为主了。大意就是我注意到来自英国的Clarence君在演讲时有着一套严谨而风趣的英文措辞，深感羡慕，回来我就搜索了一下如何改善语言表达中的措辞、遣词造句问题。
一方面措辞很重要，好的措辞可以把你的态度、观点表达准确，避免“词不达意”，也能与读者、听众保持良性的互动；另一方面，该怎么改善呢？大概就是多读、多写，学习新单词并多加使用——最方便的做法就是多去头马俱乐部（Toastmasters）做演讲啦。
所以我赶紧报名了下周三Shekou Imagine俱乐部会议的grammarian一角，期待发现更多语言上的灵感！
I immediately signed up for the Grammarian role in Shekou Imagine's club meeting next Wednesday, and did a quick research on wording improvement.
I found these cool tips to advance your word/sentence choices: (The words after the asterisks (*)are my notes.)
1. Quick solution
Make use of synonym websites, such as https://www.thesaurus.com
2. Tips
...that I like:
1. Learn & Use new words (*immediately after you learn it)
2. Read every day (*in English or your target language)
3. Learn roots (*of words)
4. Use a thesaurus (* ←New word! )
(Dictionary check: ”a book containing a classified list of synonyms”- Ah that’s the website above! – Root check: “(It is) derived from 16th-century New Latin, in turn from Latin thēsaurus, which is the Latinisation of the Greek θησαυρός (thēsauros), "treasure, treasury, storehouse".)
5. Keep a journal (*Thanks to my friend Aaron Leung for reminding me about this much earlier)
6. Do word puzzles
7. Take writing courses /college preparation tests
8. Edit your own writings + Ask for feedback (*aka. Join Toastmasters)
9. Move words from comprehensive to expressive vocabulary (*e.g. I am fine. → I just had a fun and progressive evening learning from my friends’ stories and ideas.)
(Tips)...that are not really memorable unless you take this out before writing:
1. Avoid writing that is pretentious and jargon heavy. (*...which is not pretentious at all since there’s only 1 jargon that I can’t read without a dictionary)
2. Strive for clarity by using appropriate and concise language. (*That’s very concise too)
3. Tone is important in all writing. It conveys the author’s attitude towards the topic.
4. Diction (word choice) and syntax (writing style) influence tone.
5. The audience should always be considered when establishing tone.
3. Serious study (as mentioned inthe tips)
Since you are reading all the way here, I guess you are more serious than interested. I found this page with concrete suggestions on wording, or writing in general:
https://courses.lumenlearning.com/boundless-writing/chapter/the-importance-of-wording/
And there are other courses, videos, programs, etc. for wording improvement based on your preference.
In short, to better your language expression with flexible ways of saying:
Read, Write, Study, and actively go toToastmasters.
Kindly welcome your feedback :)
