How to learn to speak beautifully and express your thoughts correctly

What does it mean to “speak beautifully” and why is it important to learn it?

We all want to communicate freely with other people, easily convey our thoughts to them, be able to interest the interlocutor and look decent in his eyes. This helps us achieve a certain level of success and become popular.

Let's describe a well-delivered speech:

• leisurely;
• easy, without long awkward pauses and unexpected hesitations;
• it does not contain profanity or filler words;
• the narrative can be called meaningful;
• accompanied by moderate gestures and facial expressions;
• sounds emotional, not monotonous.

The ability to speak clearly, consistently and convincingly will be useful in all areas of life and will help out in any situation. Whether you are a professor at an institute or a teacher at school, a businessman, a sales manager - with the help of speech you can attract the attention of the audience or get an important contract signed.

The art of eloquence is useful to any person. It allows you to influence people, control their actions and actions, and charge the audience with your energy and mood. Ultimately, having mastered this art, you will easily become the life of the party, be able to speak brilliantly in front of people and successfully negotiate.

For a speech to sound beautiful and convincing, the speaker himself must be an energetic, educated, well-read and self-confident person. Only in this way can he captivate the audience, inspire trust and sympathy, penetrate human souls and motivate people. And it’s good if a person knows how to develop charisma. Then listeners will certainly want to make their secret dreams come true and begin to take active action.

But this is the emotional side of the issue. It is often discussed at various motivating and inspiring trainings, where they teach how to become a leader. However, sometimes a person simply needs to deliver a clear, intelligible, confident speech with a competent and logically structured narrative. It includes the following required elements:

• diction (clear pronunciation of sounds);
• pace (the ability to speak slowly or quickly, without slowing down or chattering);
• voice volume;
• intonation;
• literacy;
• rich vocabulary;
• purity (absence of parasitic words);
• accuracy (use of the most appropriate words to express thoughts, structured narration without “water”);
• expressiveness (metaphors, comparisons, synonyms, figurative expressions and other linguistic means).

A person begins to develop speaking skills from birth. Parents constantly communicate with the child, read fairy tales to him, teach him poetry - all this contributes to the formation of correct and beautiful speech. But an adult will have to develop his speaking skills on his own.

Why do you need to communicate well?

You might think that a speaker is a separate, specific profession, the skills of which are not needed by all people. However, every day you have to conduct dialogues with an impressive number of people. And the ability to correctly express your thoughts will solve many problems:

• Your circle of friends will expand.

Who doesn't love interesting storytellers? People adore comrades who are not afraid to pull the blanket over themselves and publicly voice their personal opinions or useful information. Moreover, as mentioned above, the context itself is not that important. The main thing is that you express your thoughts correctly.

• The fear of public speaking will disappear.

This is a very popular phobia among modern people. If you understand that any need to give a speech, report, or simply your own opinion drives you into panic, it’s time to start learning the art of monologue.

How to learn to formulate thoughts?

When feedback and understanding are felt from the public, fear will gradually begin to pass, giving way to self-confidence. And what could be more fascinating for a listener than a passionate and competent storyteller?

• The gift of persuasion will develop.

You can voice your position in different ways. A vague presentation of information will most likely be ignored by opponents. No matter how correct your position may be, they will not support it, simply because it sounds completely unconvincing.

If you still want to gain like-minded people and captivate other people with your ideas, you should start mastering the art of oratory. It's not as difficult as it might seem at first glance. And you will feel the result immediately.

• There will be an opportunity to take a leadership position.

All charismatic personalities know how to correctly express their thoughts and captivate every listener with them. This ability will help you become a leader among your colleagues and receive universal calling. But do not forget that all ideas promoted must, first of all, be sensible and useful. Otherwise, sooner or later trust will be undermined.

• Self-esteem will increase.

When they listen to you carefully, catch every word, understand and agree, confidence appears. The ability to correctly express your thoughts is a great help for all modest girls who believe that they cannot captivate anyone with their ideas.

In fact, this ability is inherent in everyone. It's enough just to learn to speak correctly. When it becomes clear that people begin to ask for advice and respect your opinion, self-esteem will certainly take a higher position.

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• Leaders will begin to listen.

Firstly, people holding management positions always value individuals who can competently and clearly voice their position. This is the first indicator of education and social communication skills.

Secondly, respect and recognition from superiors is the shortest path to career advancement. In any case, the correct expression of your own thoughts always leads to interest from smart and influential people.

• It will be easier to organize any joint project.

You will be able to unite colleagues and convince them to use their mental and physical resources to the maximum to achieve a specific goal. An adequately presented idea will definitely be supported by other employees.

Working on speech technique

Form and content are the main aspects that characterize speech. The form represents the technical side of the issue. These include: diction, voice volume, speech rate. Content means semantic content, i.e. correctly formed thoughts, well-structured speech, ability to lead a discussion, rich vocabulary. For a speech to sound beautiful, it must be thoughtful.

Working on speech skills is a fairly lengthy process. It includes the following areas:

• diction training;
• practicing speech techniques;
• speech development (increasing vocabulary, clearing parasitic words).

Diction training

Diction is the correct and clear pronunciation of sounds. If you have problems in this area, you can identify them in one of the following two ways:

• independently, using a voice recorder of the conversation;
• with the help of a pronunciation specialist - speech therapist.

In the first case, you need to read aloud an excerpt from the text (it is better if it is the text of an audiobook spoken by a professional actor) and record it on a voice recorder. Then listen to the recording, compare it with the actor’s and highlight the shortcomings. To be safe, let someone else close to you listen to this recording. Let them share their opinions too. This will help you identify diction flaws that you will have to work on in the future.

In the second case, I advise you to contact a speech therapist - a specialist who diagnoses and corrects speech defects in people of different ages. Basically, parents whose children have difficulty pronouncing words most often turn to a speech therapist. It is at preschool age that it is easiest to get the correct pronunciation. However, you should not be embarrassed by a speech therapist if you have not been a child for a long time, and problems with diction have not gone away.

The most common diction disorders:

• burr;
• lisp;
• stuttering;
• fuzzy whistling sounds;
• “swallowing” individual sounds, etc.

Regular classes with a speech therapist will help you quickly establish correct pronunciation and consolidate it.

Systematic training of the speech apparatus is also important. Be sure to do the following exercises at least once a day:

• perform articulatory gymnastics;
• read poetry or prose aloud, pronouncing each sound clearly;
• speak tongue twisters.

While saying tongue twisters, place nuts or candy behind your cheeks. It will most likely be very difficult to understand what you are trying to say at first. But gradually you will overcome the resistance, and the pronunciation will become clearer. This exercise is regularly performed by announcers and actors.

Practicing speech techniques

To make your speech sound beautiful, in addition to diction, you still need to work on its elements.

1. Intonation . With its help, speech becomes “alive,” emotionally charged and expressive. Reading aloud with expression is a great way to practice. Read plays as if you were performing on stage, trying to express the emotions of the characters as believably as possible.
2. Rate of speech . The speed of pronunciation greatly influences how your interlocutors perceive what you say. Speech that is too slow puts people to sleep and people lose the thread of the conversation. And the too fast pace forces you to listen intensely to the conversation in order to catch the main idea. As a result, the listener has to ask again.
3. Volume and strength of voice . It is very important to learn to control the strength and volume of your voice so that during a conversation you do not whisper or scream. It is usually advised to speak 30% louder than usual, as if you want to be heard by the person standing behind the interlocutor. By the way, most people involuntarily begin to speak louder, especially when they meet friends or acquaintances on the street.
4. Volume of voice . Volumetric is called a “chest” voice, which sounds as if from the chest. It is deeper, more sonorous, stronger and more pleasant. The following exercise will help you achieve a voluminous voice: place your hand on your chest and pronounce the vowels “a”, “u”, “s”, “o”, “e”. As you speak, you will feel a vibration in your chest with your hand. Try to strengthen it. To achieve the effect, perform this exercise daily for 5-10 minutes.
5. Breathing . During a conversation, try to breathe calmly and measuredly. Then the voice will sound confident, the timbre will become softer, and the speech itself will be calmer. If you breathe too quickly and intermittently, your voice will sound weak and unsteady. Proper breathing can be learned through special practices.

Let's take a closer look at one of the most common mistakes related to pronunciation - too fast a speech rate. When a person jabbers, it is very difficult to perceive him by ear. In addition, in a hurry to tell everything as quickly as possible, he begins to swallow individual words, and in general he may blurt out too much.

To stop chattering and swallowing words, you need to learn to control the pace of the conversation. Proper breathing will help a lot here. Before you say anything, try to take a moderately deep breath, calm down and think that you have absolutely no hurry. To practice speaking speed, you can say out loud at a slow pace, for example, a sequence of numbers from 1 to 100. The more often you practice, the faster you will get used to speaking slowly.

How to develop a behavior strategy against manipulators

Such people are needed in order to better understand themselves, learn about their vulnerabilities, and become stronger. Taking advantage of their “hint”, we will try to build a defense, develop a different line of behavior so that they cannot be taken by surprise.

1. When a manipulator wants to lead you into a conflict situation, do not fall into the trap. Look at what is happening as if from the outside. This will give you the opportunity to think about whether it’s worth getting into trouble.
2. You must clearly understand that you are dealing with a provocation. If, after communicating with a person, every time you feel confused, offended, wounded, and want to run away from him, you have a real manipulator in front of you.
3. The manipulator respects only his own opinion and tries to impose it. Is it necessary to enter into conflict with him? No need, because that’s all he wants. Mentally protect yourself and show detachment, especially if the provocateur begins to piss you off.
4. It is more difficult to deal with work colleagues, because they most often act behind your back. Such a strategist may spread gossip in order to advance in his career. He has many goals. It is better to stay away from such a person, but not to lose sight of him. This way you can avoid his snares.
5. There are also “power seekers” who, through “good” intentions, want to maintain power over you. Their ability to find vulnerable spots is very great. But they have a great sense of who can be controlled and who cannot. They will not touch people with a strong psyche, and they will try to keep the weak in submission. Don't let them get too close to you, keep your distance from them.

Behavior strategy

When faced with a manipulator, know that his goal is to throw you off balance. In order not to become an object of manipulators, you need to develop a behavior strategy:

• Ask him directly: “Do I understand correctly that you are provoking me to…”;
• Calmly, without nerves, say: “I don’t like that you discuss my mistakes in front of everyone”;
• Often they do not understand any arguments, so remain calm in any situation. A recommendation will be very helpful here: count to 10 or take 5-6 deep breaths. This is difficult to do when everything is boiling inside, but it is necessary. This will calm our thoughts, which means we will be able to deceive the expectations of the provocateur. And this is what is required. Perhaps he will fall behind and switch to others!

Speech development

More and more people cannot formulate sentences correctly, do not know the meanings of many words, and abuse filler words and profanity. I think this is mainly due to the fact that most people prefer to watch TV or go to the movies instead of reading an interesting book. But you and I are not like that. At a minimum, you are already reading this article, and I am writing it for you. Therefore, we continue to develop speech.

Correct sentence construction

It is very difficult to understand a person who, during a conversation, jumps from topic to topic, tries for a painfully long time to find the right words and cannot form sentences correctly, depriving his story of logic.

But the order of words is of great importance. This is taught at school during Russian language lessons. Due to incorrect word order, the meaning of the sentence is distorted and may even cause laughter. Let me give you a few examples of semantic errors.

1. Residents of the house demanded troubleshooting and repairs (What did the residents demand? Make repairs or eliminate them?).
2. The owner kicked the dog, which immediately took offense and ran away (The leg got offended and ran away?).
3. A few years later he met her again. This was, unfortunately, a 39-year-old married lady (Is it a pity that she is already 39 years old? Or that she is married?).

To avoid such mistakes in a conversation, I advise you to do the following:

• improve literacy with the help of Russian language textbooks and reference books;
• Read at least 30 minutes every day - preference is best given to fiction, journalism, and special books on development.
• retell what you read - just be sure to check how consistently and logically you repeat the text.

Increasing vocabulary

A meager vocabulary does not allow one to fully express thoughts, forcing a person to constantly stumble in search of the right word. Such speech sounds choppy and monotonous, because the same words are used, and overall produces a repulsive impression.

Regular replenishment of vocabulary will be ensured by the following actions.

1. Read quality literature daily. Be sure to get yourself a notebook where you will write down your favorite phrases and clever expressions. At the right moment, the right quote will come to mind and embellish your speech.
2. Working with an explanatory dictionary. As soon as you come across a new word, be sure to check its meaning in a dictionary. You can write down the word and try to remember it, but only in context, in order to avoid incorrect use of the term in the future.
3. Solving crosswords, scanwords and other games that require an extensive vocabulary.
4. Selection of synonyms. This is great practice for completing a thesaurus and will help you avoid tautology when speaking. Now there are various applications for smartphones that help you select synonyms.

Getting rid of parasitic words

Parasitic words include words and phrases devoid of any semantic meaning:

• Well;
• Briefly speaking;
• exactly this;
• type;
• Here;
• as if, etc.

Most often, a person pronounces them unconsciously to fill the pause that has arisen. The insidiousness of parasite words is that their use becomes a bad habit. It can be eradicated only by making conscious efforts. Here are some tips.

1. Record any conversation you have with friends or relatives on a voice recorder.
2. Listen to the recording and identify the filler words.
3. Train yourself to speak a little slower than you are used to, so that you have time to realize the moment when you want to utter a harmful word. It's better to take a short break.
4. Ask relatives, friends and acquaintances to make comments to you as soon as they hear the parasitic word. And so that the motivation of your interlocutors is even stronger and they listen more greedily to your speech, pay them 50 rubles for each “parasite” that slips through. This way you will have better control over yourself, otherwise you will go broke.

It will be difficult at first. After all, eradicating a bad habit requires enormous effort, powerful self-discipline and control. It will take 2 to 3 weeks of hard work to clear your speech of “slag.”

Can you build sentences?

Even if a person knows many different words, but has difficulty constructing sentences, then listening to him is boring and uninteresting.

To learn how to construct sentences, retell movies and books more often to friends or to yourself. Watch your speech patterns, do not pour water, speak briefly but clearly.

Add emotions, watch your friends' reactions. If your story is bad and uninteresting, then their attitude towards your story will immediately be reflected on their faces.

To become an interesting conversationalist, this technique will help: write down in your diary your impressions of a movie you saw or a story you read. Do this as often as possible until you like the sentences you use to express your thoughts. Make sure that parasitic words: “like”, “this”, “so to speak” disappear forever from your vocabulary.

Speech training

The best exercise for speaking is quality speaking practice. Someone who just talks a lot doesn't always talk really well. Strive to ensure that during any conversation your speech is coherent, thoughtful, and reasoned. Dialogues are good for building a logical train of thought. Discuss with friends the books you read, the movies you watched, and various events.

Here are a few recommendations that will help you with your speech.

1. Read and retell . I have already written that reading helps to enrich vocabulary, develops memory and thinking. By retelling what you read, you will better understand and remember the material, learn new words and phrases, and various figures of speech.
2. Write . If you need to speak in front of an audience, be sure to write down your speech on paper. Re-read it, see what else you can add or remove, whether the logic is broken, whether there are any semantic errors. Remember that the best improvisation is a well-rehearsed one.
3. Watch performances by famous speakers . But not with the goal of motivating yourself, but to analyze the performance. Notice all the important details: how the speech is structured, how the speaker moves, what are his gestures, facial expressions, timbre of voice and pace of speech. If a speech particularly resonates with you, try writing it down on paper from memory. Then imagine yourself speaking in front of a large audience and read your speech out loud. Record your performance on camera. Review it, noting mistakes and points that need to be worked on.

As you can see, there are no special secrets in delivering a beautiful speech. To achieve a good result you need to work on yourself and constant practice.

Finally, I recommend watching a video in which a radio host and speech technique teacher shares the secrets of good diction.

How not to give in to provocation

There are so many verbal provocateurs around us, just have time to dodge them. Verbal provocateurs can be not only strangers, but also relatives. The favorite pastime of provocateurs is to make people emotional, so that they themselves become the ruler of people who have been driven to irritability.

Provocateurs are capable of manipulating people, depriving them of sane reasoning, suppressing it morally, forcing them to constantly worry and make excuses. It is a great pleasure for them to induce a feeling of guilt. With the help of verbal provocation, they can find out any information, even other people's secrets.

A provocateur can easily lead a person to action, even at the risk of life. There is great power in their “skillful hands,” but there are ways to learn to resist them.

How to protect yourself from provocateurs

Such individuals know our weak points and take advantage of it. How to recognize a provocateur? The personality watches you too closely even during a seemingly friendly conversation. Her eyes just light up.

Observing, the provocateur immediately notices what exactly can upset you, confuse you, confuse you. Their joy will know no bounds if they succeeded. They will do this as long as our inability to resist them dominates us.

This means we need to find methods so that they give up all attempts to manipulate. But manipulators will not put up with this, but will begin to look for new weak points. They do not want to lose their superiority; they prefer to always be the master of the situation.

Use specific words

Concrete words are terms for things that can be seen, heard, tasted, smelled, or touched. For example, “table”, “hot”, or “dance”. Use concrete words and avoid abstract terms whenever possible. Abstract words and phrases are inaccessible to the reader’s feelings and personal opinion (“wonderful,” “one of the best”). Behind such abstract words there is often simple rhetoric. Just because you call something “great” doesn’t mean that others think the same. If you must use abstract words, back them up with evidence from reliable sources.

Define your audience

Don't start writing until you know exactly who you are writing it for. Who is your target audience? What problems and needs do these people have? What gender are they? Where do they live? What is important to them? Will what you write solve any of their problems? During operation, it will not be enough to determine only one of these factors. Before writing, consider the issue from all sides. If you can do this, then the task is half done. You have already become a conscientious writer.

Determine your main ideas

Introduce the main idea, or at least hint at it, in the first few sentences of your introduction. Don't make the reader wait too long and wonder what you're writing about. People are impatient and will not waste time reading nonsense. Likewise, avoid starting your story with general phrases.

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Remove everything unnecessary

When editing your work, eliminate all unnecessary words and phrases in the text. You need to make sure that everything you say gets straight to the point and you don't beat around the bush. Nothing is more boring than using extraneous, verbose terms when writing. Removing all unnecessary words will improve readability and make the text easier to understand.