From his lips flowed such competent, clear speech, such intelligent and deep thoughts that from an old man he turned into a stately, representative speaker. Nobody noticed his thick glasses, bald head and threadbare suit anymore. Isn't it amazing?
Agree: clear, consistent and convincing presentation of your thoughts is a real art. And in order for your words to be listened to in the same way as that professor, you need to give a speech and learn to speak competently. This will be useful to you in any area of life.
Thanks to these skills, you can be the life of the party, easily convince a potential partner to sign a contract with you, speak effectively in front of an audience and achieve any goals you set.
Get rid of parasitic words
Make room for new expressions. Eliminate from your speech “uh-uh”, “well”, “as if”, “that’s the same” and the like, as well as obscene language and clichés. Send them overly meaningful expressions like “really”, “fuck” and “cool”.
The trouble with them is that they can replace a significant part of the vocabulary and make speech poor.
Be aware of unwanted words. Record your own speech on a camera or voice recorder, imagine that you are at an interview or presentation. Reread your social media posts.
Analyze all this and write down the words and expressions that you want to get rid of. Share this list with a friend or colleague, ask him to pull you down every time he hears forbidden language.
How to learn to speak beautifully and confidently
How to learn to speak beautifully and competently: the exercises listed below will help improve your skills in these matters.
Increase awareness, level of knowledge, qualifications
If competent speech is needed for study, profession, or in some complex matter, it is impossible without understanding the essence of what a person is talking about. A scientist cannot be confident when speaking unless he understands what he is talking about. Listeners will quickly “get it” and will listen with a grin. Increase your level of knowledge; if you understand the essence of the issue, your speech will be more lively and confident. At the same time, confidence should not develop into self-confidence, otherwise it pushes people away.
Do not hurry
Too high a speech rate indicates to listeners that the speaker is either worried or afraid of seeming uninteresting and is in a hurry to give out all his thoughts at once. A good way to break this habit is to quietly take a deep breath before each sentence.
Maintain eye contact with the listener
If, during a conversation, your gaze wanders to the walls, ceilings, chairs, and not to the audience, then there will be no connection with the audience. There are talented teachers who make this mistake, and they are not loved or listened to at all. When speaking, look at the audience, notice their reaction, respond adequately to it using facial expressions, additional explanations, jokes, etc.
Read more
How to replenish your vocabulary
This is the main task for a person who is worried about the beauty of his speech.
Only reading good classic books allows you to replenish your vocabulary and diversify your speech with new words and speech patterns. Many famous publicists and journalists have gathered their fans only by having a good vocabulary.
Connect with people different from you
Your usual social circle is constantly “cooking” in the same vocabulary, because you have the same interests and topics for discussion. You've probably noticed that when someone in your company finds another job or meets new people, their speech changes. He sprinkles unusual words, jokes, and even the manner of conversation can become completely different.
Every new person changes you. Therefore, strive to constantly expand your circle of acquaintances. Chat at the gym, in the store, attend more events and find people to talk to on the Internet. Don't push away those who are different from you.
Speech production
In addition to being well-read, combating parasitic words, reducing shyness, speaking technique is very important, how to learn to speak beautifully - without it, this issue cannot be resolved. In order to have a pleasant, beautiful speech, the delivery must be practiced. This is done in the following ways:
- Pronounce sounds and words more clearly. We must ensure that the conversation does not turn into mumbling, love whispers or unintelligible screams;
- You need to keep your back straight. This greatly affects the functioning of the diaphragm - the pouch partition dividing the abdominal and thoracic regions. In a slouched state, the diaphragm is pinched and overstrained;
- Do exercises to train your resonators. String a note, hum “mmmmmm” with an even tone, hum the melodies. All this trains the speech apparatus;
- Do breathing exercises. Proper breathing is the basis of a beautiful, strong voice. You don’t need to take in too much air before phrases; you should release your breath gradually. To do this, take in air and slowly pronounce the sound “sssss” or “shhhhhh”, exhaling as long as possible. Take three short breaths, one slow exhale.
Also practice in front of a mirror - looking at yourself from the outside allows you to correct many speech problems. If you have little time and urgently need to prepare for a serious speech, then any professional public speaking course will help, of which there are plenty both on the Internet and from various trainers and coaches in any city.
How to learn to speak beautifully
Write
Start a personal diary or blog on social networks. Write down your thoughts and events every day in great detail. Write about your goals and desires, come up with stories and stories. When communicating with friends, avoid jagged messages and do not use emojis instead of words.
First, writing is a great way to apply and reinforce what you've learned. Secondly, if you write by hand, this will help The Pen Is Mightier Than the Keyboard: Advantages of Longhand Over Laptop Note Taking remember new words even better.
How to learn to express thoughts correctly and speak beautifully
If you want to learn to speak beautifully and express your thoughts, you will need to make efforts to achieve such a result. To do this, use the following techniques:
- Read aloud. Reading of this type allows you to hear beautiful literary speech, without filler words, unclear sounds and inserts, with well-formed thoughts. The regularity of the exercise will force you to start speaking more competently and clearly;
- Write down your thoughts in your journal. All famous writers did this - they kept a diary. It helps you learn to form thoughts correctly, structure your speech, learn to highlight important and unimportant things;
- Speak out your actions, imagine yourself as a TV presenter, a commentator. You cut a salad - tell yourself about it, describe each action, repair a cabinet, do the same;
- Argue and talk more. There is no need to start squabbles, but when they try to contradict you and give you counterarguments, do not shut up or be shy, but prove your point of view. In learning how to speak beautifully and confidently, this helps a lot.
Speaking beautifully is an art. Without vocabulary, reading books, communicating with worthy people, this is difficult to achieve. There must be a thought behind every word, otherwise the speech will be chaotic. As they say: “speak without thinking - shoot without aiming.”
Use cards
If you can’t remember a very complex and interesting word, use the flash card method. Many people have been familiar with this method since school.
On one side of the card you write the word, on the other - its meaning. First you need to try to remember the answer yourself, and then turn the element over and test yourself.
This method is very simple and effective: the memorization process begins with preparation. Therefore, it is better not to use applications, but to create cards yourself and write on them by hand. And you can take a small stack with you anywhere.
Exercises for training
If you have all the conditions to speak beautifully and clearly, but your tongue still gets stuck, you need to train your speech. Not only the muscles of the tongue need training, but also the lower jaw, lips, and respiratory organs. To learn to speak competently, beautifully and for a long time, we recommend more often using exercises designed to develop “speech breathing”:
- For the diaphragm: take any comfortable starting position (lying, sitting, standing), place one hand on the abdominal area, the other on the chest. Inhale through your nose, trying to “inflate” your stomach and chest as much as possible. Exhale slowly through your nose - the stomach and chest “retract” back.
- Inhale quickly through your nose, hold your breath for a couple of seconds and exhale smoothly through your mouth. Repeat 2 times.
- Inhale quickly with your mouth wide open. Exhale slowly while pronouncing any vowel sound. Repeat with all vowels.
- Inhale evenly through your nose. Exhale slowly, counting to 5. If 5 is easy, count to 10, if 10 is easy, count back - 10, 9, 8, etc.
- Close your lips tightly, pronounce the sound “m” and extend it as long as possible, pronouncing it with different intonations of your voice.
- Do the same exercise for the sound “r” with your lips open.
The organs involved in the conversation need to “learn” to be mobile in order to speak beautifully. The following exercises will help train them:
- standing at the mirror, stretch your tongue as far forward as possible, repeat 5-10 times;
- alternately touch the tip of the tongue either the right or left surface of the cheek from the inside for 5-7 minutes;
- with closed lips, “polish” with your tongue the back side of the dentition with circular movements 10-15 times in different directions (from right to left and back);
- make circular movements with your tongue sticking out forward 15 times clockwise and counterclockwise (the exercise is not as simple as it might seem);
- for 5-7 minutes, either gather your lips into a tube, or stretch them into a smile;
- puffing out your cheeks, move the air in your mouth, first clockwise, then in the opposite direction.
The “Ball” exercise will also be useful.
Abruptly pronouncing the following series will help you get rid of “swallowing” letters and endings:
- ba-pa, beep, be-pe, be-py, boo-poo, bo-po;
- pa-ba, bee-bee, bee-bee, poo-boo, poo-boo, po-bo;
- wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait;
- Hello, hello, hello, hello, hello;
- kpta-kpto, kptu-kpte, kpti-kpty;
- mvti-mvste, mvsta-mvsto, mvstu-mvsty;
- bird-bird, bird-bird, bird-bird;
- tpka-tpka, tpka-tpka, tpka-tpka.
This fun workout actually “trains” the tongue to pronounce complex letter combinations, which will help you not stumble when pronouncing difficult words, but learn to speak them beautifully and naturally.
If you are preparing for a long speech or lecture, do not forget to breathe correctly, do not strain your vocal cords - start speaking only after taking 2 calm breaths through your nose and exhaling through pursed lips, take short (a few seconds) breaks.
Exercise
- Make sentences where each word begins with the next letter of the alphabet. For example: “The stork was a magnificent accordion player. Even the raccoons howled pitifully and nodded their curious faces, enjoying the charming songs. That skill became fatal, fatal. The gloomy heron ambitiously threw poison at the puny, selfish youth.”
- Make up stories from words belonging to one part of speech. Describe your morning using only nouns. “Ring, wake up, alarm clock, turn off. Getting up, searching, clothes. Approach, window, opening, freshness. Cheerfulness, spirituality, joy." Using the same principle, compose stories with only verbs, adjectives or participles. This activity seems simple only at first: if you set out to add more and more details, you will have to learn to carefully select words and pull them out of the passive vocabulary.
- Make tautograms. This is the name for sentences whose words all begin with the same letter. Here is an example from the work “Olgin Island” by Nikolai Kultyapov: “Onufry’s father, Osip Ostromirovich Ordynsky, graduated from Oxford full-time. He definitely refused to stay away from the Fatherland and went back. The possessed Ordynsky announced a survey of individual districts, regions, and vast outskirts.”
- Choose synonyms and antonyms for words. This exercise can be done anywhere and anytime. If you're bored in line or at lunch, come up with a synonym for the word. For example, “beautiful” is picturesque, wonderful, gratifying, wonderful, and so on. Do the same with antonyms.
Features of interlocutors and situations
It is important to learn to speak not only beautifully, but also to take into account the contingent with whom you will have to communicate. For example, when you need to convey your idea to representatives of the intelligentsia, the reasonable use of smart words will be appropriate and will increase the importance of a person in the eyes of his interlocutors.
When abstruse terms are used in dialogue with simpler people, the speaker may be mistaken for a “smart guy.”
Situations are different and this must also be understood if you want to start a dialogue. For example, in a rush situation, when work colleagues have rallied for an important project, you need to speak briefly and only to the point. Even some emotionality is acceptable, as it allows you to quickly establish contact with your interlocutor.
If this is a meeting without a strict time frame, then for the beauty of the speech you can insert relevant arguments based on personal or other people’s experience.
Expert advice
It is very easy to recognize literate speech. She is confident, but not loud, you want to listen to her and agree with the speaker in everything. Experts will tell you how to enrich your speech:
- Getting rid of parasitic words. Write them down on a piece of paper and evaluate your weak points. In everyday communication with people, try to avoid their pronunciation. Excessive use of them repels listeners. The words parasites are used due to the paucity of speech.
- Speech development involves reading books out loud. This not only develops memory, but also deposits information in the subconscious about what speech should be like in a literate and educated person.
- The question of how to develop your speech is irrelevant if a person is by nature tense and complex. You need to get rid of this first. If a person is unable to do this on his own, a qualified psychologist will help.
We talked about how to develop competent speech. Be confident in yourself, train on your own as much as you can, and within a month you will begin to reap the benefits of your efforts. Developing your speech and learning public speaking skills is not only pleasant, but also necessary for everyday life.
Online program "Modern Rhetoric"
In 8 weeks in this program, you will master and learn how to apply traditional and modern rhetoric techniques for speeches, presentations, vlogging, stand-ups and much more. You will learn to speak clearly, intelligibly, control your voice, behave correctly on stage and work with the audience, cope with the fear of speaking, prepare good speeches - from planning and searching for material to the actual text of the speech, and, of course, argue your speech. The program is suitable for both those who are just starting their journey as a speaker, and those who are already professionals but want to improve their skills. Find out more...
Working with words is work, but the work is interesting and exciting. The faster you immerse yourself in the process, the faster you will taste success. Go for it!
We also recommend reading:
- Storytelling
- Recommendations for learning Russian
- Preparing and delivering a speech
- Nora Gal's advice to those who work with words
- Five Canons of Rhetoric
- Orthoepy - why it is important to speak correctly and how these rules arise
- The power of words in practice
- How to develop eloquence: some tips
- Best Blog Content of 2021: Writing
- Learning your native language: a selection of useful materials
- Tips for working effectively with your audience
Key words:1Rhetoric
Nora Gal's advice to those who work with words
Any form of activity that requires the ability to find the right words is a difficult challenge for most of us. Whether we are writing a novel, composing a text for a rap battle, or thinking through a public speech, we are faced with the agony of choice: which word or phrase to choose? How to structure the text in such a way as not to sound like a robot? The answer is simple: you need to tirelessly monitor your speech, remove unnecessary things from it, be in a constant search for suitable words and read Russian classics. However, a person is lazy, and in the modern world he also has little time for this. Therefore, we need a book, after reading which you will be eager to learn Russian for the rest of your life, without considering it a waste of time. This book was written by Nora Gal. Read more…
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Exercises to help develop speech
They will help people at any age, no matter if they are a first-grader or a man in adulthood.
- Find a speaker whose speech you like . You should listen to and analyze several of his speeches. So you will notice what techniques he uses. The most suitable ones should be taken into account. Just be sure to test them when communicating with friends. This way you will see whether they work in your case, and correct your speech if necessary.
- Communication with yourself. When no one is around, try to prove something to yourself. Argue a little, putting forward different theories. This will help you quickly find the necessary words and thoughts when communicating with others.
- Make up short stories . Take 5 different words as a basis. Then make up a short story with them. This exercise develops logic and trains imagination.
Main causes of speech problems
It is impossible to achieve positive results in the development of diction if you do not understand the causes of speech disorders. Only rarely are they associated with health problems and develop, for example, due to an abnormal jaw structure or a short frenulum of the tongue.
For many people, speech problems are caused by incorrect pronunciation of whistling and hissing sounds, as well as the absence of the “L” or “R” sounds, or a violation of their pronunciation. A weakened articulatory apparatus may also be the cause.
Even if a person can speak well, pronouncing all sounds correctly, in particularly significant situations his speech may become slurred and unclear. After all, when pronouncing words, the articulatory apparatus needs to very quickly switch from one movement to another. This can only be achieved through active and intensive work of the muscles that need to be trained, for example, by regularly pronouncing tongue twisters for diction.
However, the main reason for slurred, quiet speech is a person’s shyness and lack of self-confidence. In such a situation, the development of diction is a secondary problem. First of all, you need to work on your own character and fight complexes.
