如何像說話同樣去寫做 -- Ray Dalio

Here's a simple trick for getting more people to read what you write: write in spoken language.

這裏有個小技巧可讓更多人去閱讀你的寫做：用口語來寫做。

Something comes over most people when they start writing. They write in a different language than they'd use if they were talking to a friend. The sentence structure and even the words are different. No one uses "pen" as a verb in spoken English. You'd feel like an idiot using "pen" instead of "write" in a conversation with a friend.

大部分人開始寫做的時候都會遇到一些問題。若是他們和朋友交談，他們會用不一樣的語言來寫做。這些句子的結構甚至詞語都是不一樣的。在英語口語中沒有人把「筆」當作一個動詞。當你和朋友對話時，用「筆」來代替「寫」，你會以爲本身像個傻子。

The last straw for me was a sentence I read a couple days ago: The mercurial Spaniard himself declared: "After Altamira, all is decadence." It's from Neil Oliver's A History of Ancient Britain. I feel bad making an example of this book, because it's no worse than lots of others. But just imagine calling Picasso "the mercurial Spaniard" when talking to a friend. Even one sentence of this would raise eyebrows in conversation. And yet people write whole books of it.

對我來講的最後一根稻草是我前幾天讀到的一個句子： 反覆無常的西班牙人本身宣稱：「在阿爾塔米粒以後，一切都是墮落。」 這是來源於尼爾·奧利弗的《英國古代史》。我不喜歡用這本書來舉例，由於他並不比其餘人差。可是想象一下，當你和朋友交談的時候你說畢加索是「反覆無常的西班牙人」。即便是這樣的一個句子在對話時也會引發人們的注意。然而人們卻寫了整本書。

Ok, so written and spoken language are different. Does that make written language worse?

因此，書面語言和口語語言是不一樣的。他們會使得書面語言變得更糟嗎？

If you want people to read and understand what you write, yes. Written language is more complex, which makes it more work to read. It's also more formal and distant, which gives the reader's attention permission to drift. But perhaps worst of all, the complex sentences and fancy words give you, the writer, the false impression that you're saying more than you actually are.

若是你想讓人們去閱讀而且理解你的寫做。是的。書面語言會更復雜，這使得它須要花更多精力去閱讀。它也更加正式和有距離感，使得讀者容易轉移注意力。可是更糟糕的是，複雜的句子和花哨的詞語會給你、做者一個錯誤的印象，就是你所表達的要比你實際想表達的要多。

You don't need complex sentences to express complex ideas. When specialists in some abstruse topic talk to one another about ideas in their field, they don't use sentences any more complex than they do when talking about what to have for lunch. They use different words, certainly. But even those they use no more than necessary. And in my experience, the harder the subject, the more informally experts speak. Partly, I think, because they have less to prove, and partly because the harder the ideas you're talking about, the less you can afford to let language get in the way.

你不須要用複雜的句子來表達你複雜的想法。當專家在他們的領域和其餘人談論深奧的話題時，他們不會用比他們在談論午飯想吃什麼時更復雜的句子。固然，他們用不一樣的詞語。可是即便如此，他們也只會在必要時候使用這些不一樣的詞語。在個人經驗中，越難的話題，專家越會用非正式語言去表達。我認爲，一部分是由於他們沒有太多證據，另外一部分是由於你所說的想法越難，你越難讓語言來組織你表達。

Informal language is the athletic clothing of ideas.

非正式語言是思想的外衣。

I'm not saying spoken language always works best. Poetry is as much music as text, so you can say things you wouldn't say in conversation. And there are a handful of writers who can get away with using fancy language in prose. And then of course there are cases where writers don't want to make it easy to understand what they're saying—in corporate announcements of bad news, for example, or at the more bogus end of the humanities. But for nearly everyone else, spoken language is better.

我並非說口語語言老是好的。詩歌和文字就像音樂同樣，因此你能夠說一些你不會在對話裏說的。而且有少數的做家能夠在散文中使用花哨的語言。固然，有些狀況是，做者不想在他們宣佈一些很差的新聞的時候讓人們太容易明白他所說的內容，例如，在人文科學中更虛假額一端。但幾乎對全部人來講，口語更好。

It seems to be hard for most people to write in spoken language. So perhaps the best solution is to write your first draft the way you usually would, then afterward look at each sentence and ask "Is this the way I'd say this if I were talking to a friend?" If it isn't, imagine what you would say, and use that instead. After a while this filter will start to operate as you write. When you write something you wouldn't say, you'll hear the clank as it hits the page.

對於大多數人來講用口語語言來寫做彷佛很難。因此或許最好的方法是用你習慣的方式先寫一遍草稿，而後先後看一下各個句子而且提問「若是我向朋友說的時候，我是否會這麼說？」若是不是，就設想一下你會怎麼說，而後替代掉。過一段時間後，這個篩選器將會你寫入時開始運行。當你寫的一些內容是你不會這麼說的時候，你將會聽到叮噹聲敲擊這個頁面。

Before I publish a new essay, I read it out loud and fix everything that doesn't sound like conversation. I even fix bits that are phonetically awkward; I don't know if that's necessary, but it doesn't cost much.

在我發表一篇新的文章以前，我大聲朗讀而且修正全部聽起來不想對話的內容。我甚至修復了發音上笨拙的部分；我不知道這樣是否有必要，可是它不會耽誤你過久。

This trick may not always be enough. I've seen writing so far removed from spoken language that it couldn't be fixed sentence by sentence. For cases like that there's a more drastic solution. After writing the first draft, try explaining to a friend what you just wrote. Then replace the draft with what you said to your friend.

這個技巧可能有的時候是不夠的。我看到至今爲止寫做已經從口語中脫離出來，沒法一句一句的固定下來。對於這種狀況有了更爲激烈的解決方案。當你寫了第一遍草稿以後，試圖向一個朋友解釋你剛剛寫了什麼。而後用你向朋友說的內容來替代你的草稿。

People often tell me how much my essays sound like me talking. The fact that this seems worthy of comment shows how rarely people manage to write in spoken language. Otherwise everyone's writing would sound like them talking.

人們常常問我多長時間個人文章能像講話同樣。實際上，這彷佛更值得評論，他說明了人們不多呢可以用口語來進行寫做。不然，每一個人的寫做聽起來都像是在說話。

If you simply manage to write in spoken language, you'll be ahead of 95% of writers. And it's so easy to do: just don't let a sentence through unless it's the way you'd say it to a friend.

若是你能輕易地用口語來寫做，你將超過95%的做者。而且這是很容易作到的：就是不要讓任何一個句子經過除非這個句子是你能向朋友說的方式。

Thanks to Patrick Collison and Jessica Livingston for reading drafts of this.

謝謝Patrick Collison 和 Jessica Livingston閱讀了這些草稿。