How to be a wonderful conversationalist
From ArticleWorld
To Be a Wonderful Conversationalist does not require you to be straight-A student but a person who knows how to talk; more importantly a person who knows how to listen and pay attention while listening. To talk well and have great conversations is a learned skill and anybody with time and practice should be able to do it. Here are some suggestions to help you.
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A few thumb rules
- Learn to Listen. In any conversation listening is more important than talking and if you learn to listen well you are already half way there to becoming a great conversationalist.
- Pay attention to the person while you listen, before you know it you will be interested in what they are saying and may be will learn something new. You also must look the person in the eye while you listen to them and make suitable responses like, ‘Yes’, ‘I know’ or ‘how interesting’.
- Ask interesting questions based on the conversation and you will find that the person whom you are having the conversation with really thinks that you are really a great person to talk to.
- Learn to forget yourself when you are talking to another person. If during conversations you wait for breaks where you can quickly put a word in or wait for the other person to finish so that you can start your talk then you need to go a long way before you become a god conversationalist.
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Do’s
- Before going to a place where you know you might be asked to speak about your point of view, read up on the topic that will be discussed so as to be able to talk about it intelligently.
- Know when to end a conversation. Beating a conversation to death only makes it boring and uninteresting.
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Don’ts
- Don’t pounce on every pause to start talking and put in your bit of what you know about whatever you are discussing.
- Don’t argue. You might disagree with what the other person is saying but arguing will weaken your stand rather than strengthen it.