Writing and Speaking

March 2012 I'm not a very good speaker.

2012 年 3 月 我不是一个很好的演讲者。

I say "um" a lot.

我经常说“嗯”。

Sometimes I have to pause when I lose my train of thought.

有时候，当我失去思路时，我不得不停下来。

I wish I were a better speaker.

我希望我是一个更好的演讲者。

But I don't wish I were a better speaker like I wish I were a better writer.

但我不希望我是一个更好的演讲者，就像我希望我是一个更好的作家一样。

What I really want is to have good ideas, and that's a much bigger part of being a good writer than being a good speaker.

我真正想要的是有好的想法，这是成为一名优秀作家比成为一名优秀演讲者更重要的部分。

Having good ideas is most of writing well.

拥有好的想法是写好文章的基础。

If you know what you're

如果你知道自己是什么

talking about, you can say it in the plainest words and you'll be perceived as having a good style.

谈论时，你可以用最平实的语言来表达，人们会认为你很有风格。

With speaking it's the opposite: having good ideas is an alarmingly small component of being a good speaker.

对于演讲来说，情况恰恰相反：拥有好的想法只是成为一名优秀演讲者的一个令人震惊的小组成部分。

I first noticed this at a conference several years ago.

我第一次注意到这一点是在几年前的一次会议上。

There was another speaker who was much better than me.

还有一位演讲者比我讲得好得多。

He had all of us roaring with laughter.

他让我们大家哈哈大笑。

I seemed awkward and halting by comparison.

相比之下，我显得很尴尬，犹豫不决。

Afterward I put my talk online like I usually

之后我像往常一样把我的演讲放到网上

do.

做。

As I was doing it I tried to imagine what a transcript of the other guy's talk would be like, and it was only then I realized he hadn't said very much.

当我这样做时，我试图想象另一个人的谈话记录会是什么样子，直到那时我才意识到他并没有说太多。

Maybe this would have been obvious to someone who knew more about speaking, but it was a revelation to me how much less ideas mattered in speaking than writing.

也许这对于那些对口语了解更多的人来说是显而易见的，但对我来说，这给我一个启示，口语中的想法比写作中的重要性要少得多。

[ 1 ] A few years later I heard a talk by someone who was not merely a better speaker than me, but a famous speaker.

[1] 几年后，我听到一个人的演讲，他不仅是比我更好的演讲者，而且是一位著名的演讲者。

Boy was he good.

男孩他很好。

So

所以

I decided I'd pay close attention to what he said, to learn how he did it.

我决定密切关注他所说的话，了解他是如何做到的。

After about ten sentences I found myself thinking "I don't want to be a good speaker." Being a really good speaker is not merely orthogonal to having good ideas, but in many ways pushes you in the opposite direction.

大约十句话后，我发现自己在想“我不想成为一个好的演讲者”。成为一名真正优秀的演讲者不仅与拥有好的想法正交，而且在很多方面都会将你推向相反的方向。

For example, when I give a talk, I usually write it out beforehand.

例如，当我演讲时，我通常会事先写下来。

I know that's a mistake; I know delivering a

我知道这是一个错误；我知道交付一个

prewritten talk makes it harder to engage with an audience.

预先写好的演讲让与听众互动变得更加困难。

The way to get the attention of an audience is to give them your full attention, and when you're delivering a prewritten talk, your attention is always divided between the audience and the talk — even if you've memorized it.

吸引听众注意力的方法是给予他们全部注意力，当你发表预先写好的演讲时，你的注意力总是分散在听众和演讲之间——即使你已经记住了它。

If you want to engage an audience, it's better to start with no more than an outline of what you want to say and ad lib the individual sentences.

如果你想吸引观众，最好从你想说的内容的大纲和即兴的个别句子开始。

But

但是

if you do that, you might spend no more time thinking about each sentence than it takes to say it.

如果你这样做，你思考每句话的时间可能不会比说出来的时间多。

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