Doing The Easy Parts Fast Impairs Communication
Photo by Clark Young on Unsplash When someone begins to learn a musical instrument they play the easy parts fast and the hard parts slowly. When doctors had to sign a lot of paper prescriptions their signatures were quick to scrawl but impossible to read. Elementary school teachers write beautiful, regular, even letters on the board. I grew up with a stutter and spent years in speech therapy about it. So I've had a lot of guided practice on listening in detail to what I'm saying and how I'm saying it. I've had a lot of coaching on paying attention to how I sound to others. Most people don't realize that the things they say most often are the hardest to understand. Language learners might study sentences for shopping, "Did you find everything you needed? How will you be paying?" then be thwarted at hearing "Dja finerrythin y'need? Cəshr card?" Most people haven't worked on speaking more slowly nor enunciating more clearly so if you ask...