Difficulty getting your words out?

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Yes!! ! I can never find the word that I want to say. Even if it is a simple as "book" I'll forget it. I have to stop and gather my thoughts, and then stop in mid speech and gather them again. Luckily the people I mainly talk to other than scripted speeches are used to this and patiently wait for what I was going to say. But in class I'm not so lucky sometimes and end up sounding like an idiot when I know the answer so I raise my hand, the teacher calls on me and suddenly I realize I haven't translated the answer into English (as opposed to the concept language in my head. English is my first language.) Ooops.

On the other hand, if I have "scripted" what I need to say, like my major in college, my plans, certain questions about my family, ect, I can speak pretty well I think.

And then, there is always the old backup. Smile and nod, smile and nod...

The smile nod smile nod smile nod is always useful!

YES at least 75% of the time for me on both questions, bumble.

And there are times I don't even get out what I intend to say to my wife! I'll say to her, "I just said that!" or something similar, and she'll say to me "No, you didn't, either!" It will turn out that I just thought I had, but didn't actually verbalize it...

Yes--I always have more trouble speaking with others than I do on my own. Not only that but I always have really great thoughts, but can never vocalize them properly, so I always sound so awkward.

Wow, I don't have this problem. I didn't know this was quite an issue

I've had problems with this since I was a kid - very frustrating.

I have that problem. Whenever I try to explain something to other people in real life, it feels like my tongue is malfunctioning and I can't find the right words to use. It's pretty obvious that I'm trying to "make the words come out", because I'll do things like wincing and rubbing my forehead (as though I have a headache), or wildly making hand gestures in a futile effort to get the point across.

When I'm by myself, particularly when I'm typing, I'm much more eloquent with my words.

I tend to scramble/combine/forget words when I'm stressed, tired, or in a social situation with too many eyes on me. It's like my brain decides to suddenly play a game of 52-Pickup with my thoughts.

...uh... what he said....

Yeah.

I think what is happening when I become tongue tied is that I am trying to both express and idea at the same time that I am trying to gauge the audience's reaction to what I am saying. If I look away and if I can avoid thinking about the person I am talking to, I can do a better job of speaking, but people think I'm weird if I don't look at them. At any rate, I seem to be good at doing things only if I can focus on the work to the exclusion of any other mental activity.

Yes, to both, although --

I also wonder if it just doesn't seem faster because I don't have another brain's speed to compare to.


All the bad-word-finding examples in this thread are cracking me up. "It's like that... thing? you know, kinda like that ...other thing..., but different..." My highest score (and it was pretty high) on the WAIS was vocabulary, but you would never know it hearing me speak.

This is me.

I had a feeling of ... (?? love? no... empathy?... something like that...) wash over me last night as I was setting my radio alarm. Because. The newscaster was talking. Like that. Like I normally do. Pausing in odd places, leaving moments of dead air (which you never hear on the radio! Ever notice that there's never a split second of silence?)

I don't even do the "um" and "uhhh" thing. I just stop. And then start. And stop. And continue. It's frustrating when people get impatient with me and start talking again before I finish what I have to say.

I even type like that, in incomplete sentences, because it reflects how I speak. It probably drives the grammar nazis crazy.

The only person I'm able to talk "fluently" with is my mother.

@ OP: That's called "social anxiety"

I first realized my performance at speech/interpersonal communications depended largely (but not entirely) on the target audience when I was arond 13, and that's definitely been the case since. That said, I might be on a roll with one audience today and in a communication tailspin (another term might be "ineffective damage control that makes communications even worse") for the following 3 weeks with the same audience. Around people I am comfortable with, I am a much better conversationalist and may actually come across as intelligent instead of as a scatter-brain.