How to Make People Understand Complicated Ideas

All people are considered to be smart. It's just that we have different degrees of being smart. Some are smart in their own way while others are smart in a lot of ways.

However there are some people that have a hard time understanding technical concepts or even seemingly simple concepts. This inability to grasp certain technical things is not because of lack in intelligence but because these things are simply new and unfamiliar. Thus, learning an entirely new field may take time. This slow ability to grasp certain technical things may also be due to a lot of factors like culture, age and educational background, and even due to the teacher's or speaker's inability to explain in a manner that is easily comprehensible to the listener.

But people can be made to understand things even if the subject is so complicated or technical. Letting people understand complicated things is a very important skill to be developed. It can take you into new heights as a teacher, an author or simply as somebody whom people run to for information.

A person can be very smart in all varying degrees but not all smart people can explain what he understand to other people. What is important when explaining deep and technical concepts to people is that you can let them understand what you are trying to say. Learning how to explain complex concepts to people can be extremely helpful whether you are explaining the theory of relativity to a 7 year old or you are discussing to a 70 year old on how the internet works.

The following are tips on how to make people understand complicated things:

1.) Put yourself on the other person's shoes.

This means that you have to consider the mind of your reader or your listener. You sort of place yourself in their position. Consider their cultural and educational background. Once you have placed yourself in their shoes you can start to see things from their perspective, and talk in the language they are likely to comprehend.

2.) Use objects that they can identify with to explain abstract concepts.

Whether you believe in the Jesus Christ of the Bible is not the issue here. But you have to admit that when you read the Bible, Jesus Christ is the master when it comes to letting common people understand abstract concepts. When he spoke about the kingdom of God he told stories about birds, farmers, sheep coin and even about a prodigal son. He let people understand abstract concepts through relating it with concrete, tangible things that people encounter in their day-to-day lives.

This method can be extremely useful when explaining very technical subjects. Like for example, when explaining the concept of "Defragging" in order to make your computer much faster, you should not go into the technical details on how the hard disk behaves. Instead, let people picture their own rooms that are very messy wherein they have to sort things out and set things in place so that they can be very efficient in trying to find things in their room. Relate this to the concept of "defragging" and people will tell you what a "genius" you are.

3.) Use plain ordinary language

Use the day-to-day language that people use. Do not sound too scholarly with your choice of words. There are different ways of saying things which mean the same thing. If you speak as if you are the only one that understands what it is you are trying to say, people will never understand you no matter how simple the concept that you are trying to explain is. Doctors and lawyers tend to fall into this trap. In short apply the K.I.S.S principle. Keep It Simple Stupid.

4.) Use diagrams, pictures and tables. Use visual aids.

It has been said that pictures are worth a thousand words. People easily understand things when they are drawn or tabulated. It is even extremely helpful when they see a video on how things are done.

5.) Repetition and Purpose

People understand better, retain and remember what you said if you kept on repeating the main point or going back to what the point really is. Sometimes in a very technical or complicated subject, the main issue is muddled up with all the technical mumbo jumbo. You have to resist the temptation of "sweating out the small stuff."

If you apply these principles and people still do not understand what you are saying then you might as well consider if you have understood properly the subject you are trying to explain.