Conversation Skills in English - Hesitation devices - uh... um...

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.