Get started telling anecdotes
(Especially if the idea really scares you)
Take the plunge.
Storytelling is human. Of course you want to be able to share things that happened to you, tell a story you love, make someone laugh.
Stop holding yourself back and learn some phrases that help you start telling a story, learn some tips from master storytellers, and practice until it feels natural to share whatever comes into your mind.
Everybody is talking about storytelling.
It’s almost a cliche at this point. But this one is true: stories are quintessentially human.
If you want to touch someone, impress them, or (very often) sell them something, the best way to do it is to start with a story.
I think there are three reasons that telling anecdotes in a foreign language is so tricky:
Doing it spontaneously is really scary.
You feel that you don’t have the vocabulary to tell the story right.
You don’t know how to keep your listeners’ attention and highlight what’s important.
I have a quick tip for each of them:
Don’t start with the scariest situations. If you’re thinking about how difficult it is to tell anecdotes, you are probably imagining high-stakes settings: a company presentation, a team workshop, a date with someone you really want to impress. Well, maybe start smaller. Practice telling anecdotes in settings where you feel safer (maybe around friends, or with strangers outside work), collect positive experience and work your way up.
Build your vocabulary for describing people and situations. Think about the storytellers you like and absorb as much of their input as you can. The more you surround yourself with certain kinds of language, the more readily it is available to you. For me, these are writers who are great at situational comedy, like David Seders, Jonathan Franzen, or Lydia Davis. If you prefer audio, I recommend storytelling podcasts like The Moth or long-form shows like This American Life (here are the links to my favourite ever episodes for each of them: one about travelling and one about culture and family).
Direct your listeners’ attention and make it easy to follow your story by using ready-made phrases. Learning and repeating whole sentences that are standard expressions is one of the best, clinically-proven, surefire ways of boosting your fluency and making it easier to speak English spontaneously. To find them, you can Google something like “phrases for storytelling” or download my PDF below.
Enjoy telling your stories! :)
