我也有话要说（二十六）为了学会讲，要先学会听

I Have Something to Say Too (26): To Learn to Speak, First Learn to Listen

> By Li Xiaolai · 2010-07-29 · [Original (web archive)](https://web.archive.org/web/20111113124255/http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/9821.html) (Chinese)
> Our translation from the Chinese original.

Just as the root of many people's inability to write is that they've never learned to read at all, the fundamental reason many people can't speak is that they've never really learned to listen.

Hard as it is to accept, the fact is: most people's listening is extremely poor—just as most people's reading ability fails to pass.

Imagine this very simple scene:

> You're on the phone with your friend. On the phone you hear him say "this signal is really...," and although it's broken up, you still make out these four characters, and after that there's a buzzing noise, and then the call drops. Although you didn't hear what came after these four characters, you can still "guess" that what your friend was saying should be "(this signal is really) bad!" or "(this signal is really) too bad!"

This is an innate ability we have as humans: "[pattern recognition](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7702.html)." We rapidly extract some important clues from the circumstances at the time (not necessarily from language), and then rapidly lock onto the necessary pattern, so as to rule out some possibilities that are certainly irrelevant. For example, since this sentence was heard on the phone, it can only be "bad" (can you imagine calling your friend and saying smugly, "this signal is really good!" and then the line drops?).

However, it's precisely this ability that often makes us defuse [Translator's note: the original writes 化解 ("defuse, resolve"); 解析 ("parse"), used in the next sentence, may be meant; translated as written] incoming information too quickly: "too" meaning that sometimes we carelessly use the wrong pattern to parse the incoming information and end up with a wrong result—so-called "misunderstandings" are very often formed this way.

In life we often see that when many people are arguing with each other, some people always butt in or interrupt the other party—the root reason is that these people "think" they've already obtained enough information (they've too quickly parsed the incoming information with patterns they already have, and reached a conclusion that may be right but may with equal likelihood be wrong), and so they really lack even a tiny bit more patience for "spending more time and energy obtaining other, unnecessary information."

Now imagine the opposite scene:

> You're on the phone with your friend. On the phone you say to him, "this signal is really...," and then after these four characters you say nothing more—and then quietly wait for the call to drop.

It seems unlikely you'd do that, right? In fact, nobody would.

This is the truth: **when taking input, we often rely on "fuzzy input"** (because we have the ability of pattern recognition), **but when giving output, we must do "precise output"** (and can't simplify our output because the audience has the ability of pattern recognition).

Many novices haven't thought this principle through. And so what they say is actually too "streamlined"—even though they themselves mistakenly think they've said it clearly enough, in enough detail, enough... And meanwhile the audience won't realize the speaker has overlooked this point; they'll "as always" rely on their pattern-recognition ability to do so-called "fuzzy processing."

So, in terms of effect, to use an analogy: the speaker should have provided the audience with a color picture, but because he didn't realize this principle, what he actually showed the audience was a black-and-white sketch lacking any color work, and what the audience saw was merely a messy black-and-white rough draft.

Very often, the truly important things are overlooked. Few books explaining "how to write" elaborate in detail on "how to read," and it's also rare to see books explaining "how to speak" elaborate in detail on "how to listen." But without effective input, how can there be effective output? [[1](#footnote_0_9821 "In the field of computer programming there's a famous term, \"Garbage in, Garbage out.\" To some extent our brains are like computers: if all that comes in is garbage, all that can go out is garbage—obviously, even if the processing ability is very strong, not all waste can be recycled. I've never seen any book on writing or public speaking mention that computing, a field \"eight poles' lengths away,\" actually has such an ingenious and useful creed.")]

Why not observe a little? Just as excellent writers are certainly excellent readers, excellent speakers are certainly excellent listeners too. Excellent writers certainly have a series of their own methods for obtaining effective information and then using it in their own creative work, and excellent speakers are the same: they've surely long mastered the skills of listening and are well versed in its subtleties, so much so that not only can they themselves capture important information through superb listening skills, they can also use the same skills and their insight to convey information effectively to audiences.

Below are several articles on "learning to listen":

> - [Learning to Listen (1): A Fast Brain Isn't Always a Good Thing](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7702.html)
> - [Learning to Listen (2): Self-Knowledge Is Always the Best Starting Point](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7705.html)
> - [Learning to Listen (3): To Listen Effectively, What Should You Least Do?](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7719.html)
> - [Learning to Listen (4): With Spare Processing Capacity, What Can We Do, and What Should We Do?](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7725.html)
> - [Learning to Listen (5): Helping the Speaker Get into a "Pouring Out" State](http://www.lixiaolai.com/archives/7736.html)

---

Footnotes:

1. In the field of computer programming there's a famous term, "[Garbage in, Garbage out.](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Garbage_In,_Garbage_Out)" To some extent our brains are like computers: if all that comes in is garbage, all that can go out is garbage—obviously, even if the processing ability is very strong, not all waste can be recycled. I've never seen any book on writing or public speaking mention that computing, a field "eight poles' lengths away," actually has such an ingenious and useful creed. [[↩](#identifier_0_9821)]

Copyright: © LookMinds. Our own edited text and translation, not a substitute for the original; rights in the original belong to the author and the platform. Please see the original link.