If you think that you can speak fluently only when you have a good vocabulary, you are wrong!

You know well that when a good speaker or a good story teller begins, everyone falls silent. Everyone knows that he or she will surely be entertained and informed. A good story teller or a good speaker is a fluent speaker.

Many people carry a wrong notion that fluency lies only in the vocabulary that the speaker has. They think that larger the vocabulary, the more fluent the speaker is.

Fluency is connected more to the way you think than to the words you know. There are good speakers who do operate with a limited range of words. The clearer you think, the more fluent you are in speaking. The word fluency comes from Latin fluere which means to flow.

When you speak do ideas flow? Does information flow? Do the emotions and feelings get translated into language in one good flow?

If you use fillers such as You know.., I mean..., er.., erm.., your ideas or information is not flowing evenly or even properly. That means your thoughts are either unorganized or disorganized; your thoughts are chaotic or not properly organized.

If the editor inside your mind works well, you can speak easily, effectively and fluently.

Most of us do not know what to say. At a job interview, we fumble not for words but for ideas. To a question such as Tell us about yourself, we do not know where to begin.

Should I begin from the day I was born?

Should I speak about my parents?

Should I speak about the subjects I opted for my masters'?

Should I speak about the project that I worked on?

...I do not know where to begin!

More than ideas or pieces of information, feelings and emotions are difficult to express. These do not lend themselves to easy organization. By their very nature, they are unpredictable.

Words, phrases and patterns are tools that anyone can learn to master. But, to organize ideas, information, feelings and perspectives in language requires clear and logical thinking. Above all, it requires a certain awareness of what is happening inside your mind.

Fluency is, then, a product of mind.

ganeshan ramachandran