How to improve diction and clarity of speech: 5 effective exercises

Hello dear readers! Lyudmila Redkina is with you. Take your time, you are walking along the embankment and a lebenak approaches you. He shouts: “Auntie/uncle, mother, how I am doing!” Give me some kaaku!” Which means: “Aunt/Uncle, watch me play! Give me some candy!” It’s probably unusual for you to read such words, right? And hearing them is even more fun! Today we’ll talk to you about how to improve your diction and clarity of speech, so that there won’t be something like this: “password”, “do you have a muse? - but I don’t have a muse, that’s such a bad thing in life!”, “girl, huh?” do you like Kafka?, – yes, especially Grefneva…” and so on.

COMPLETE LIST OF HUMAN SKILLS

Why do you need good diction?

First, let's figure out what diction is and why we should care about it.

Diction is a clear, clear pronunciation when a person pronounces words and phrases clearly and legibly. A person with good speech does not “suffer” from a lisp, nasal tone, or stuttering.
Good diction is not a requirement only for TV presenters and teachers. Everyone needs it in life and everyday life. We all get a job, communicate among our circle of acquaintances, we don’t know, in the end, where we will be “taken”, where and with whom we will interact.

A very striking example of a person with “good” diction was from 2016 to 2019 in the Supreme Council of Ukraine - A. V. Parubiy. Everyone who could laugh at his speech, because it’s not often that you hear a SPEAKER (from the word “speak”) of a country’s council with such diction! This is exactly what I mean: we need to take care of improving the quality of speech now, learn to speak beautifully, so as not to make people laugh later...

Word pronunciation speed

Speaking quickly is a bad habit, and for listeners, fast speech can become difficult to understand, which means that communication with you will be unproductive. If it is difficult to listen to your interlocutor, and what he says is not clear, then the most natural reaction is to stop listening.

It is necessary to slow down the pace of speech if you want to be listened to more attentively, and also do not forget about pauses between words and phrases. A pause also gives you the opportunity to take a breath and continue speaking. But nevertheless, you should not speak too slowly, otherwise it will become difficult to listen to you again, as your speech will become too monotonous. Slow down the pace when you need to emphasize a part of the speech, and speed up when you need to add emotion and convey enthusiasm.

Exercises to improve diction and speech clarity

Philologists have studied the issue of the development of diction and come to the conclusion that many people need to improve the articulation of speech of the Russian-speaking population. This is due to the fact that the Russian language is distinguished by “lazy” articulation, unlike English, for example.

There are even certain ways to check if you have good articulation for clear speech:

Take a mirror and, looking into it, pronounce vowel sounds (a, o, i, e, u, s). Do your lips change position and shape? If they move well and change shape, then you are on the right track.
Tongue mobility is important for good articulation. Roll it up into a tube. If it does not work out, it is due to muscle weakness or a congenital feature. But you can develop!
It is also important to open your mouth well. To check this, prepare your palm without the thumb. Then open your mouth as much as possible, slide 4 fingers inward between the upper and lower jaw. If you managed to do this, then your mouth opens without clamps, which means the muscles are ready to work.

So, we’ve sorted out the diagnostics, now let’s decide what to do to develop speech and improve articulation. I present to you several effective exercises to help you achieve your goal.

Warm-up

Take a pen or pencil between your teeth and say any sentence or phrase of 10–15 words. In this case, the pencil must be squeezed as hard as possible. Then take out the stationery object and say the phrase again. You will hear the difference immediately! The entire articulatory apparatus will be tuned to correct speaking, precise and accurate.

It is enough to warm up with a pencil for up to 5 minutes before exercises; this exercise is necessary to “pump up” the articulation muscles.

You can also warm up with nuts. Demosthenes in Ancient Greece developed a unique method of training speech with stones. On the seashore, he picked up a mouthful of stones and shouted words into the stormy sea, trying to pronounce them clearly. Practicing with nuts does almost the same thing. You put them in your mouth and try to pronounce the speech-improving words as best you can.

Warm up with a pencil

Tongue Twisters

At home, you can perfectly improve your speech pronunciation, because everyone has pencils and access to tongue twisters. This is the minimum set of articulation development. But let's move on.

Tongue twisters are used for children aged 4–6 years. This is a very effective way. Tongue twisters are also used to improve the diction of adults; below I will write the most effective of them. In addition, with such phrases you improve not only your speech, but also your vocabulary. Select the tongue twisters you need, just focus on working out all the letters and their combinations.

Listen to a recording of your voice

Oh, I don’t really like listening to my records. I remember how I once heard my childish and funny voice on the recorder, and I was saying quite serious things... I and all my friends laughed at the recording.

But for the development of clear and competent speech, listening to your voice on a recording is a very useful activity. Almost every person will want to change it, work on diction. You need to do it this way: you take some passage from the text, then clearly try to read it, recording it on a voice recorder. If you didn’t like the entry, repeat reading. And so on until you perfect your pronunciation.

The same can be done to improve your English speaking. You can also bring in a good friend who speaks English to listen to an “expert” opinion.

A prerequisite is diaphragm training.

For vocalists and people who stutter, the diaphragm is a condition for success. Who would have thought that some kind of bridge over the stomach determines a lot of money in show business! But for correct speech and singing, mandatory training of this very diaphragm is necessary. A trained diaphragm makes it possible to finish a phrase and finish singing it.

You can train it this way: take a deep breath, then draw out the vowel sound until there is no breath left at all.

When you reach 25-30 seconds of this “pulling”, change the pitch of your voice, try to draw out the sound in a thinner voice.

When and under this condition you stretch the vowel to 25-30 seconds, proceed to inflating balloons. It’s good for your body, and you’ll please those around you! Well, jokes aside, inflating balloons very well develops the diaphragm and increases lung volume.

Combination of different sounds

In addition to tongue twisters, correct speech and diction can be achieved using special combinations of sounds. These combinations use consonants and vowels. By repeating them 5 times, you practice diction. Well, competent speech is added by the experience of reading different books (I’ll give a list below). What combinations will be useful:

bgi-pki, bga-pka, bge-pke;
vzdri-fstri, vzdro-fstro, vzdry-fstro;
stri-ztri, stra-ztra, stro-ztro;
gkru-khkru, gkro-khkro, gkra-khkra, etc.

Do vocal exercises

For greater effectiveness, such exercises should be done in front of a mirror.
You can start such exercises by yawning, this helps to relax the vocal cords. Then move your jaw left and right. Don’t forget to massage your throat with your fingers while humming a sound. After the exercises, you need to take a deep breath and exhale slowly, combining this with pronouncing the letters of the alphabet, until you feel the tension in your abdominal muscles. Next, hold your breath for 10-15 seconds and try to stretch out any sound until the volume of your voice completely decreases.

Recommendation from the author of the blog – Pavel Butor

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How to learn to speak clearly and beautifully.

1. The art of speaking culturally, brightly and convincingly Having developed the appropriate skills, you will learn to speak brightly, convincingly, culturally. To do this, it is important to exclude parasitic words from your vocabulary, read more fiction (aloud and with expression), communicate with smart interlocutors, and watch intellectual TV shows. However, let's consider these points separately. 2. Down with parasitic words, patois or local vocabulary. Such words seriously clog our speech, but not everyone understands this. Some people even deliberately insert various slang expressions into conversation, believing that they add color to the dialogue, but in reality this often sounds inappropriate and, at times, repulsive. Note that words like “like,” “like,” “well.” " “This is it,” “in short,” and the like often distract from the thread of the story. Sometimes we ourselves don’t notice how often we use such expressions. To get rid of these “parasites” you will have to constantly control yourself, which requires considerable self-discipline. Be that as it may, over time, everything will return to normal. 3. Learning to express your thoughts correctly To learn how to express your thoughts beautifully, it will not hurt to acquire the ability to listen carefully to those speakers whose speech you like. Also, don’t forget about such a useful skill as reading. Choose books that will help you tune your brain in the right direction. In addition, these can be a variety of textbooks, as well as scientific articles. Reading aloud can also be no less effective, because this is how you will learn to practice diction. Opt for classic works of art by famous writers - as a rule, they are distinguished by their richness of speech. 4. Developing beautiful speech Most of us speak quite normally in normal situations, however, when some kind of stressful situation arises, many lose confidence, as if “losing the gift of speech.” When you develop competent and beautiful speech, you will stop getting lost in any situations. How to do this? You probably know that there are people who are able to talk interestingly about any, even the most unremarkable, subject. An example is Anton Chekhov and his story “The Ashtray”. Alas, nature has not endowed everyone with the talents of a famous writer, but almost all of us can still learn to express thoughts beautifully. If your line of work involves writing texts, public speaking, and the like, then a rich vocabulary will form on its own over time. It is more difficult for people who do not work in the humanitarian field - they have to put in a little more effort. Listening to the radio, reading books, watching good films and documentaries can help. It is important to pay attention not only to what information is conveyed to you, but also to how exactly the phrases are constructed. Read a short story and try to retell it. Record your retelling on a voice recorder, listen to it and determine whether your speech sounds beautiful or whether there are some shortcomings. Such training out loud is very important, because it will gradually form melodic speech and enrich you with a stock of new interesting expressions. Such a game is also useful for the development of beautiful speech. Pay attention to some ordinary object - a notepad, a frying pan, a table, etc. For a minute or two, try to write a story about this subject in literary language, without obvious hesitations. 5. Learning to control your speech The ability to keep your speech under control will make any person stand out from the crowd. It is not surprising that people with such talent at one time turned out to be leaders of nations, whom thousands of people were ready to follow, listening to every word of their leader. Most likely, training will take you some time, but it’s worth it - this is the only way you will not only have full control of your own speech apparatus, but will intuitively learn to feel how best to address a particular person, what words are best to choose, and so on. You will also be able not to get lost even in the most unexpected situations, maintaining composure.

The most effective tongue twisters for improving diction in adults

I wrote above about the importance of tongue twisters for the development of ideal diction for an adult. I will only note that after recording your voice, you must decide which speech sounds do not suit you. Perhaps it will be hissing or “l-r”, or other sounds. And in accordance with your observations, select tongue twisters that work specifically on them. And for prevention, you can train them all.

The Ligurian traffic controller regulated in Liguria.
The protocol about the protocol was recorded by the protocol.
Don’t smoke, Turk, pipe, better buy a pile of peaks, better buy a pile of peaks.
The angry widow put the firewood into the barn: once firewood, two firewood, three firewood - all the firewood could not fit, and two woodcutters, two woodcutters, for the emotional Varvara, expelled the firewood across the width of the yard back to the woodyard, where the heron withered, the heron withered, the heron died .
Just as you can’t ring all the bells, you can’t beat them again, you can’t beat all the tongue twisters, you can’t speed them up, but trying is not torture.

Well, something easier.

Tell us about your purchases, about which purchases, about your purchases, about your purchases, about your purchases.
The bull was blunt-lipped, the bull was blunt-lipped, the bull's white lip was dull.
The pig snouted, white-nosed, blunt-nosed, dug up half the yard with its snout, dug, dug.
Advertising for grips has seams with coverage, but potholders without coverage have been snatched up.
In the shallows we lazily caught burbot, in the shallows we caught tench.
Their pesticides are not comparable to ours in terms of their pesticide effectiveness.
We ate and ate ruffs at the spruce tree, we barely finished them off.
Appreciates the flail cut by the braid.
The hedgehog has a hedgehog, the snake has a squeeze.
From the clatter of hooves, dust flies across the field.

Tongue twisters are good for developing memory and attention in adults, in addition to speech.

Tongue twister to improve diction

He began to speak slurredly. Difficulty speaking (speech disorder, speech disorder, speech problems)

Difficulty in speech can be expressed either in a complete absence of speech or in a partial violation of the pronunciation of words and phrases. Speech impairment is expressed in the fact that a person:

speaks slowly and vaguely, unintelligibly;
has difficulty finding words and naming things;
speaks without hesitation and quickly, but is meaningless;
speaks hastily and incoherently;
excessively separates syllables and emphasizes each of them.

If it becomes difficult for a person to speak and understand someone else’s speech, most likely he is sick or has damage to the speech center of the brain. Gradual difficulty speaking can occur due to Alzheimer's disease and some other diseases of the nervous system. The causes of a sudden articulation disorder can be a stroke, alcohol or drug intoxication, head injury, or poisoning. If a person suddenly begins to speak slurred, he needs urgent medical attention.

Books that improve speech and vocabulary

To improve your speech, you need to read texts on different topics. In this situation, speech is enriched with new words, logic appears in statements, and speech literacy improves. You won’t find a professor who couldn’t connect two words or said “here”, “there”, “tuta”, “Thursday”, “sERtse”. This is because books improve the rhetoric of speech and help formulate thoughts.

I have made a selection of books that can become for you lessons in the Russian language, literature, as well as an excursion into linguistics and other philological sciences.

Vadim Khrappa “From Adam’s apple to the apple of discord.”
Korney Chukovsky “Alive as life.”
Larry King: How to Talk to Anyone, Anytime, Anywhere.
Nigel Brown "The Oddities of Our Language"
Natalya Rom “I want to speak beautifully! Speech techniques.”
Victoria Volodina “Album on speech development.”
Lev Uspensky “A Word about Words.”

These books will help you improve your spoken Russian, and with their help you will determine how to use unfamiliar words for their intended purpose.

How to learn to express your thoughts clearly and clearly. Important qualities for correct formulation of thoughts

People may not express their thoughts entirely correctly for a variety of reasons. This is usually due to the fact that the speaker has a limited vocabulary, which is not enough to pronounce the phrase correctly. A person may select synonyms that are not entirely clear in meaning or use words that do not suit the style of the narrative. Speech variety is a determining factor in learning how to correctly express your thoughts in conversation.

In its absence, choosing the right word may take the speaker some time. To avoid awkward long silences, you need to train your speech function. To do this, it is important to use the following techniques (they are often given in response to the question “how to learn to express your thoughts”):

The quality of memorizing information should be trained. To clearly express your ideas, improve attention and memory, learn poetry effectively, memorize the longest sequences of numbers, learn the lyrics of your favorite songs.
It is necessary to increase the volume of a person’s linguistic reserve. Reading fiction can help with this. When a person reads books, he learns to formulate thoughts correctly, which can then be spoken (this will help anyone who does not know how to learn to clearly speak phrases that can immediately arouse the interest of the interlocutor).
Increasing concentration of attention on a specific thought. It is important to be able to concentrate on what needs to be said - this will help to reproduce the thought out loud without inaccuracies, accidentally spoken words, or erroneous expressions.

It is especially important for the speaker not to lose attention or weaken it, since otherwise he may make mistakes in his speech. To understand how to correctly express your thoughts, you need to eliminate the causes of the difficulties that have arisen.

How to improve your child's speech

I once wrote many articles about improving the speech of a child aged 4 years and older. And now this is really a problem for many parents. We will not discuss the reasons, mechanisms and various nuances of this topic; this article is not about that. I’ll just say that you need to try hard to improve the oral speech of preschoolers and teenagers. That's what speech therapists are for.

And at home, your task is to teach kids to pronounce all sounds, and schoolchildren to formulate their thoughts and communicate in complete sentences.

Correct pronunciation of sounds is not an easy task for many. Here articulation exercises, gymnastics, massages, songs and the development of fine motor skills of the hands will come to the rescue - this, by the way, also develops memory and attention. There are actually a lot of ways.

By the age of 5, children should be able to pronounce all sounds. Older children already need the help of a speech therapist or psychologist. You can improve the speech of a child aged 6 years and older in terms of vocabulary and expressing his thoughts only with books and communication. After all, no gadgets can replace live communication, sudden questions and their explanations, presentations of characters from fiction books and their descriptions out loud.

How to learn to express your thoughts clearly. What will help you learn to formulate thoughts

Reading will help you learn to formulate thoughts. The benefits of reading are obvious. Read good, varied literature. Read and re-read Russian classics - Dostoevsky, Tolstoy, Pushkin, Turgenev, Bulgakov, Chekhov, Pasternak, etc. You need to read thoughtfully, analyzing what you read, so that it doesn’t work out as Alexander Sergeevich wrote: “I set up a shelf with a bunch of books, read and read, and that’s it.” uselessly".
A rich vocabulary, a good assistant in the ability to formulate your thoughts beautifully (read - “How to increase your vocabulary”), replenish it.
It’s one thing when, trying to express your thoughts, you are looking for the right word and your meager vocabulary does not allow you to find it, it’s another thing when you simply cannot quickly remember to find the right word. Pay attention to the development of memory and reaction.

Keeping a diary or blog will help you learn to express your thoughts. Write eloquently, vividly, about what is happening in your life, about what worries you, about your mood, your emotions.
Take part in discussions on various forums and speak out. Learn to debate and develop the ability to defend your point of view.
The 19th century English philosopher John Mill wrote: “Logic is the great persecutor of dark and confused thinking; it clears away the fog that hides our ignorance from us and makes us think we understand a subject when we do not. I am convinced that in modern education nothing is more useful for developing precise thinkers who remain true to the meaning of words and sentences and are constantly on guard against vague and ambiguous terms, like logic.” Study logic, it will teach you to look at what is happening more deeply and understand it, and this will be useful in the ability to express thoughts.
An important fact in the ability to formulate one’s thoughts is a person’s environment, his social circle. It is clear that those who cannot connect two words with each other will not teach you anything in this regard, and if such people are the majority in your environment, this will only aggravate the situation. Looking at how people around you correctly express their thoughts, take your cues.
It is always easier for a sociable person to find words to express his thoughts. If you do not consider yourself one of these, develop your communication skills.

How to develop diction and clarity of speech with the help of training

School of speech technique and voice production @LABVoice includes 6 main blocks:
Speech breathing.
Working with diction, articulators, resonators.
Manipulation, intonation and expressiveness of speech.
Self-presentation, improvisation and speech logic.
Speech therapy exercises.
Public speaking, fear of speaking, discomfort in communication.

The training was developed by Maria Savicheva, an expert in speech technique and voice production (more than 20 years of experience).

Suitable for people who:

a quiet, expressionless, unconvincing voice;
there is misunderstanding on the part of colleagues and relatives;
difficulties with pronunciation, sluggish, unclear diction, sore throat, loss of voice;
relationships with the opposite sex do not work out;
no career growth;
They don’t listen, they interrupt, they don’t give a chance to speak in company.

1,273 students were surveyed after classes. Of them:

100% have become more confident in themselves.
84% began to earn more.
100% strengthened leadership skills.
94% felt much sexier and more attractive.
88% no longer have stage fright.

This is 100% online learning. More than 7,000 participants have already completed it.

How the training works:

First you will conduct a Voice and Speech analysis. Receive personal recommendations and additions to the course program.
Follow video lessons and strictly follow the expert’s instructions.
Interim analysis of voice and speech with program adjustments.
Final voice analysis with an expert’s conclusion and further recommendations.

For 249 rubles. You can get a voice test right now. Then they will create an individual program for you depending on your results. The price of training will depend on this (3,500–26,900 rubles). You can pay immediately or in installments over 4 months.

The training time is approximately 1.5–2 months.

If you don't like the training, you can get your money back within 14 days.

You can also get access to a free trial lesson for 5 days.

Also, if you want to powerfully improve your voice, I recommend taking courses at the Ostankino Show School.
First, you will pass a test and get into a free casting.
On course:
Improve diction, articulation, eliminate speech defects.
Learn to dub films, cartoons, podcasts, YouTube videos.
Improve your acting skills and voice intonation.
At the end of the training you will receive a diploma and assistance in finding orders.

Smiling and public speaking

If information is presented to a person in a friendly tone, the speech becomes pleasant, inspires confidence and is better perceived.
Be sincere in your emotions, this will help change your speech for the better. The key to success as a speaker mainly depends on the ability to win over the audience. When speaking in public, most people feel very nervous. If you manage to pull yourself together and understand that you are in a hurry and worried, calm yourself down and try to speak more slowly. Breathe correctly, this will help you analyze your speech and be calm.

Remember that it is important for people to hear and listen to what you have to say.

Watch your intonation and pronounce each word with pauses. This will allow people to hear and understand you. Write several sentences on a piece of paper and underline the last letter of each word. When reading the text, focus on these letters, after taking a short pause.

The Greek thinker Demosthenes, to combat stuttering, spoke with a mouth full of pebbles. You can also practice with something more edible. Be careful not to choke.

When speaking in public, it helps a lot to think carefully about all the words before pronouncing them and get unnecessary thoughts out of your head.

Practicing speech techniques

Working on speech technique involves practicing some of its equally important components:

Intonation
Intonation shapes a sentence and colors speech emotionally. Intonation helps a phrase acquire a certain meaning and makes it easier to understand. The most important words in the statement are highlighted with semantic emphasis. Diction becomes “lively” and colorful. Intonation expressiveness reflects the emotional state of the speaker (dissatisfaction, approval, anger, favor, ridicule, etc.).
Professional work on intonation is carried out using sounds, small phrases, and poems. Some effective exercises:
Pronounce the sound “a” with different intonations:

Sad;

Funny;
Scared.
Model the situation and answer “yes” to a fictitious question:
Thoughtfully;
Indifferent;
Sadly;
Decisively;
Boldly;
Ironically;
Sorry;
Kindly;
Regretfully.
Say phrases with different feelings in your voice, example:
Interrogative: What? There? Here? Where? Who? Where? Can? For what?
Affirmative: Yes. No. Hello. Goodbye. It's time.
Petitioningly: Give. Help. Draw. Write it down. Read it. Sorry. Save! Help!
Enthusiastic: Great! Shine! Beauty! Great! Well done! Bravo!
Say phrases with different feelings:
“Well done” - enthusiastically, anxiously, sadly, with joy, with mockery.
“Sit down” - affectionately, with surprise, warily, sadly, rudely.
Read texts and poems with expression. Imagine yourself as an actor on stage, try to express the emotions of the characters as convincingly as possible.

Rate of diction
The basic skills of public speaking include the ability to vary the speed of pronouncing phrases. When speaking too slowly, the interlocutor becomes uninterested and the thread of the conversation is lost. Fast - makes you strain your ears, the meaning escapes. By the way, it has been noticed that the more often a speaker changes the tempo of his speech during a speech, the more interesting it is to listen to him.

Tempo is strongly related to a person's temperament and is often difficult to adjust. To transform your diction, you need to strive for an optimal pace and be able to vary it depending on the semantic load.

There are exercises for changing the tempo of speech. Take any poem, for example, “Near Lukomorye there is a green oak tree...”. Read it at different speeds - sometimes slowly, as if in a chant, sometimes at the maximum possible speed, sometimes at a normal pace. Complicate the task by pronouncing at diametrically opposite speed every 2 lines. After a while, you will be able to recite the text at any pace. To slow down the pace, you can read the so-called “slow talkers”. These are phrases from classical works, arranged from long to short. Say them as slowly as possible, never speeding up the tempo. You can slow down the pace either by stretching out vowel sounds, or by increasing pauses and breathing. Various slow talkers of all styles can be found freely available on the Internet.

Voice volume and strength
A person who whispers or screams is unlikely to interest the interlocutor. It is important to monitor the volume and strength of your voice. This is especially important during public speaking. Flexible changes in voice strength make diction more interesting and varied. The level of voice volume depends on who you are communicating with and where, as well as the distance between the interlocutors. If this is confidential communication with a friend or comforting a person, then you need to speak quietly, not loudly. If you need to attract the attention of the audience, then a loud voice will be more appropriate. At the same time, loud speech in a public place will be regarded as bad manners and bad form.

One of the simplest exercises for vocal strength is to play a train whistle. Make the sound “U-oo-oo” first as the locomotive approaches, then as it departs. Do this systematically, reaching the minimum and maximum volume possible.

Volume of voice
A volumetric or chesty voice, sounding as if from the chest, is considered more pleasant. It is much lower, deeper. A simple exercise will allow you to develop and obtain a three-dimensional voice: placing your hand on your chest, you need to pronounce the vowels - A, O, Y, U, E. During pronunciation, vibration should be felt in the chest. It needs to be strengthened. Do these exercises daily for 5-10 minutes to get the effect.

Breathing
Breathing is the basis of speech, as sounds are made when we exhale. Normal breathing is different from speech breathing. During a long monologue, normal physiological breathing is not enough. Speech requires a large supply of air and its efficient use. Therefore, it is important to learn to breathe correctly and develop your breathing capabilities. There are a large number of breathing techniques. One popular exercise is to blow out three imaginary candles on a cake. The goal is to distribute the air so that you get air into each candle carefully, rather than greedily grabbing it with your mouth. Gradually increase the number of candles, inhaling more and deeper. You can also read a poem as a breathing exercise, using one exhalation for each part of the verse.

Breathe! Don't breathe!

To prevent problems with your voice, muscle tension, spasms, a “coma” in the throat that prevents you from speaking freely, and simply to avoid shaking in your arms and legs, you should control your breathing and strive to position it correctly. Staging your voice and speech is impossible without breathing exercises.

To pronounce an entire sentence or a large fragment in one breath, you should learn to draw a large volume of air into your lungs, then, if necessary, either retain it or use it sparingly. The breathing apparatus is easy to learn with regular exercise.

During a pause, the speaker must again draw in enough air until a new logical pause occurs. Voluntary breathing makes reading the text unemotional and illogical. You should also not overdo it or make strange sounds while inhaling, taking in air, and exhaling. The breathing process should be done in such a way that it is as silent as possible and air is collected in a short time.

Games-exercises for the formation of intelligible, clear speech of preschoolers

You can play with babies from the age of one year, when the time comes for imitation. Different methods are used for training, the most common of which are presented below.

Exercises for early childhood

From one to two years of age, the study of sounds in speech begins:

“ssssss” - let’s repeat over some water how she sings;
“zh-zh-zhzh” - the beetle is buzzing, let’s buzz along with it;
“sh-sh-shsh” - say how the wind makes noise;
“r-r-rr” - that’s how dad’s machine talks, talk like it.

Here you can repeat the sounds of animals, nature, musical instruments and objects that make noise.

Gymnastics for articulation

Kids cannot yet perform complex tasks, so for gymnastics they use the easiest movements:

Spatula. The baby opens his mouth, the tongue rests on the lower lip, hold for up to 10 s.
Watch. The child opens his mouth in a smile, with his tongue you need to touch one corner, then the second.
Elephant. Imitation of an elephant trunk: you need to close the sponges into a tube and stretch them out, keep them stretched out for up to 10 seconds.
Mustache. You need to fix the stick (straw, pencil) between the nose and the upper lip. Hold for up to 10 s.

After the exercises, you should pay attention to how the child pronounces basic sounds.

Diction training in older preschool age

This period is characterized by the fact that the preschooler quickly learns new material, actively expands his vocabulary, stops lisping and begins to pronounce sounds correctly. To avoid “mess in your mouth,” you need to constantly talk to your child and train diction.

Impaired diction occurs due to the need to quickly change the position of the tongue. And if his muscles are weak, this will be expressed as “porridge in his mouth” during a conversation.

Warm up lips. With your mouth wide open, pronounce the sound “A”, with your lips extended, “U”. With your lips stretched as far as possible, say “O.”
Warm up the tongue. Click: reach the tongue to the upper palate, sharply lower the tongue. With your mouth closed, place your tongue on your cheeks one at a time. Reach the tongue to the upper palate, the frenulum should be taut.
Timbre training. You need to take a deep breath, and as you exhale, slowly say “bom”, “bim”, “bon”. Syllables stretch to the last consonant.
Facial muscle training. Playing pantomime with parents: the child must show different emotions using facial expressions in a playful way.

Do you have to please everyone?

No, don't. It's better to be yourself than to try to please everyone. If a person wants to please everyone, he begins to say flattering words. Because of this desire, a not very pleasant impression may be formed about you.

Faina Ranevskaya once said: “It is better to be a good person who swears than a quiet, well-mannered creature.”

Be simpler, more natural, this will quickly inspire trust and freely express your thoughts. Your speech should not repel, but hold the attention of your interlocutor.

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.

How to learn to speak confidently and convincingly. Speak beautifully and convincingly, how important this is.

Learning to speak beautifully in our time is really important. I am often approached with the following questions: how to influence a person with speech?; “What should I do: no one hears me, no one loves me?”; “Nobody listens to me, what should I do?”; “People don’t hear me and people in the company don’t notice me, how can I improve the situation?” In general, all these questions can be reduced to one topic: how to speak beautifully in order to interest!

Intrigue with a phrase

Almost every person wants to speak in such a way as to intrigue and captivate any audience and so that people listen attentively and even with delight; I want to intrigue listeners literally from the first words - with one phrase! And this is a normal desire. Good speaking skills will help you find a job and, most importantly, not lose it and be a valuable employee.

A young man who knows how to speak beautifully and convincingly will definitely attract the attention of a girl and will be able to negotiate with his superiors about a salary increase. And someone who cannot show off his intellect and the ability to conduct a dialogue is unlikely to be able to come to an agreement even with a girl, even with his superiors, or even with a neighbor.

What is needed for this? A similar topic has already been partially discussed in the article “How to become a good interlocutor,” because a speaker, a teacher, and indeed any storyteller, must become an interlocutor for listeners. Continuing the topic, we will now figure out what should NOT be allowed in a conversation so that the listeners do not lose interest in you and what, on the contrary, you need to do to arouse this interest in the listeners.

Speaking correctly and beautifully means developing speech.

INTONATION There is nothing surprising if they do not listen to a person muttering something, muttering under his breath and stuttering. Have you ever paid attention to HOW you speak? How do you tell it? Can your intonation be described as enthusiastic, selfless, romantic, expressive, surprising, mysterious, bewitching, frightening or alarming? Listen to the emotional force with which you tell others something. If you find it difficult to evaluate, there are several ways to do it: ask others, record it, listen to yourself and compare with others (interesting storytellers).

WORKOUT . To learn how to speak soulfully, emotionally and impressively, you need to practice. How to develop speech? One of the simple and effective training is to repeat the actor or announcer’s intonation. Repeat, “imitate”, record on a tape recorder, listen to yourself from the outside and repeat again, record, listen... . Achieve maximum similarity in your training.

Rules and recommendations for those who want to speak quickly and clearly

So, articulation has been trained, all that remains is to learn how to speak quickly and clearly. This task is not an easy one, but here the most common tongue twisters come to the rescue. Before you start doing the exercises, understand the following rules:

Remember that in tongue twisters the first place is not the speed of pronunciation, as many people think, but intelligibility and clarity. We must not allow an incomprehensible mess of words to form that no one can understand.
Before you start reading aloud, say the tongue twister to yourself, then out loud, but slowly, increasing the pace each time, as if you were accelerating along a highway. Do not forget to ensure that the words do not stick to each other, but are pronounced clearly and clearly.
There is an old rule: in order to pronounce tongue twisters easily and simply, you must first practice pronouncing them with chestnuts or corks behind your cheeks.
There is one more technique that will definitely help you learn to speak quickly and clearly. Read consonants loudly, vowels in a whisper. There will be no trace of speech constriction left.

Such simple tips will help on the thorny path to mastering clear and fast speech.

How to do the exercises?

Each exercise has its own nuances and characteristics, but the basic rules are always the same. Exercises to develop articulation should be performed in front of a mirror, with a straight back, in order to maximize control over the process. A full-length mirror would be ideal, as every part of the body is important. The biggest articulation mistake is transferring movement that is intended for the speech organs to other parts of the body. To prevent this from happening, you need to relax and not move. Excessive gesticulation is a sign of tension, so if you notice such a sin, it’s better to stop, relax, and start doing the exercises again.