To improve diction. Why We Sound Wrong: Three Key Reasons

Good diction, clear pronunciation of words and an inviting voice timbre are all the keys to success in many areas of modern life.

Unique speech abilities are a very rare gift to man from nature.. However, the art of words can be learned regardless of age, but only if you regularly perform exercises to improve your diction.

When you get rid of speech impediments, you will stop worrying about public speaking and will begin to communicate more easily and freely in a relaxed atmosphere.

It is also possible that your career will go uphill, since in any profession, in any place, people are identified and promoted who are good at conveying their thoughts, speaking beautifully and in a concise form.

Almost all speech defects can be corrected if desired, but how to improve speech and diction at home? One thing is certain - for this you need to train regularly.

Well-executed diction implies clear, harmonious pronunciation of words and the correct position of the speech organs.

Why can diction be bad? The main reason is congenital defects of the human speech organs. But the reason could also be imitating the conversation of other people in childhood, for example, a cartoon or comic book character.

But even with poor pronunciation, it is possible to improve it if you use special exercises to correct diction.

The given diction helps a lot:

1. Achieve understanding. If you have not worked on speech development, the information you express will be more difficult to perceive for people who are seeing you for the first time and are not accustomed to the peculiarities of your pronunciation.
2. Make an impression. People are greeted by their clothes - this is also true of speech. Improving your diction will help when you need to present yourself in the best possible way. An example is a conversation with an employer. The director of a company or enterprise will be more willing to hire a person with clear pronunciation.
3. Attract attention. When a person regularly develops his speech, pronunciation and voice, then any story told will be received more readily than with a noticeable speech impediment.

The development of diction in an adult differs in that the construction of sounds is much more complex than in a child. When a person has developed the habit of speaking words in a certain way, then he will have to change not only the pronunciation, but also the perception of his speech.

Before you start working on improving your diction, you need to consider the basic exercises.

How to improve your speech and diction yourself? To develop their voice and diction, announcers usually use the following exercises:

• listening to recordings of your voice;
• pronunciation of tongue twisters;
• breathing training.

In order to learn pleasant speech using tongue twisters, you need to choose several that are most suitable in your case, designed to train the pronunciation of specific sounds and determine which of them are more difficult to pronounce.

It is on these tongue twisters that you need to focus your attention. It is important to pronounce these phrases constantly so that the speech organs become accustomed to the correct pronunciation.

Working on yourself means doing exercises every day and the more often the better.

A common problem is lack of air when pronouncing long phrases.. This is clearly visible during public speaking.

In order to get rid of this problem, a method is used to train the diaphragm. One of the exercises is to stretch out the vowel sounds as you exhale for as long as possible.

At first you may be able to do this for just a few seconds, but later, with practice, you can increase the time to 25 seconds or more.

Breathing training includes changes in voice pitch. Another good way to practice your diction is to blow up balloons.

With regular, diligent practice of such exercises, results can be felt within a week or even earlier.

But in order for the effect to persist, it is necessary to perform all of the above constantly. You can also use texts to develop speech and diction.

Exercises to work on diction

How to develop diction and clarity of speech? There are a number of effective exercises that will help improve speech clarity and diction in a fairly short time. Here are some of them:

We hear all the time that exercise is good for your health. But few people pay attention to the fact that the speech apparatus also needs constant training.

By doing the exercise to improve your diction, just 15 minutes a day, you can achieve excellent results.

Start your day with such gymnastics - and pretty soon you will see how the muscles of your tongue, cheeks and lips have become stronger.

The speech apparatus will become more mobile, and your speech will become even clearer.

How can you improve your diction in the shortest possible time? Tongue twisters are perfect for this purpose, since they can be used to train the pronunciation of a wide variety of sounds.

Do you remember the woodcutters who cut down the oak trees, or the four turtles with four more turtles?

Also, to improve diction, it is recommended to pronounce tongue twisters after putting nuts in your mouth (as in the film “Carnival”). For this, 5 tongue twisters with all kinds of consonances will be enough - this way you will quickly get rid of speech impediments.

Listening to your voice through voice recordings

This is easy to check - read any poem or say everything that comes to mind about nature, weather and much more, recording it on a voice recorder. Then listen to the resulting recording.

Surely you yourself will notice any flaws in your speech, try to make every effort to correct them next time.

You need to record your spoken speech until you achieve the ideal result.

To make your diction a source of pride, try to apply the following recommendations.

Regularity of repetition

To train diction and speech, you need to devote 10-15 minutes to exercises daily.. You should move on to the next task only after you have worked on the previous one quite clearly.

Regular exercises will forever rid you of the problem of slurred speech and poor diction, but will make your speech extremely clear.

All of the above simple recommendations will help you easily master correct breathing, correct pronunciation, and voice control, bringing them to automaticity. Then you will be both listened to and heard. Indeed, it’s never too late to learn to speak beautifully!

Yuri Okunev School

Today I happened to get stuck in an elevator with a very interesting young man. Or rather, the fact that this is an extraordinary personality of enormous proportions turned out completely by accident, and then only a few hours later. This is perhaps the only time in my life that I have been glad that our valiant emergency services had to wait a very long time. My unfortunate neighbor turned out to be an inconspicuous young man with a trembling voice and an uncertain and cautious style of communication, and in order to understand what he was saying, I had to listen carefully and make additional efforts.

We might have spent hours waiting in silence if my gaze had not fallen on the book and the title page of a voluminous scientific work that he held in his hands. The book is a collection of poems with his photograph and last name, and the scientific work is a candidate's dissertation on nuclear physics by the same author.

After talking a little with my casual acquaintance, I found out that he is a very talented person, a winner of All-Russian Olympiads, an inventor of innovative methods in science, and also a poet with an interesting style and an unusual written style. But the trouble is that it is almost impossible to understand, since he simply has terrible command of his voice and does not know how to express himself at all.

While communicating with him, I had an irresistible desire to help, to explain how to develop diction and clarity of speech, to make speech understandable and pleasant to the ear. After all, it’s not difficult at all!

My tongue is my friend

They say that the voice most clearly conveys our personality. There are no two people in the world with identical voices. It is by listening to intonation that we can better understand what mood a person is in, guess what is in his soul and what he is feeling now.

Timidity in the voice usually indicates uncertainty, which can make a person seem weak and, for example, a less qualified specialist than he really is. On the contrary, the ability to control yourself and your voice allows you to create the desired impression, achieve your goals, influence people and promote your beliefs and ideals.

As often happens, many people think that diction and clear speech, the talent of a speaker, are inherent in people from birth - either you are given it or you are not. Give it up! This is utter stupidity. As with other skills, everything can be achieved through hard work on yourself. There are effective exercises for developing diction. We'll talk about them. By training for 15 minutes daily, you will see noticeable results in just seven days.

Exercise 1. Cork.

How Can Wine Improve Your Articulation? Yes, very simple! You take a bottle cap (preferably at home the next day or some time later), clamp it between your teeth and begin to say phrases. To begin, take any piece of text that you like, it can also be a poem, and try to read it. At first it will be very difficult, as the muscles of the articulatory apparatus overcome the resistance created by the cork.

Then take it out and say the same thing. Once “free,” the muscles begin to work more harmoniously, and the sounds are clear. Also, a very striking effect, if practiced regularly, comes from pronouncing the so-called explosive consonants with a cork in the mouth.

Practice on the following groups of sounds:

1. pe-pe-pe, be-be-be, me-me-me;
2. te-te-te, de-de-de;
3. ke-ke-ke, ge-ge-ge.

The first group trains the muscles of the lips, the second develops the tip of the tongue, and the third strengthens its root. Do these exercises regularly for 5 minutes and you will see good results within a week.

Exercise 2. Ligurian traffic controller

Nothing trains diction better than complex tongue twisters. By now, good people have come up with a lot of them and all kinds of them to work out a wide variety of problem areas. One of the most famous is called “Liguria”. This is a whole coherent text from well-known tongue twisters, which can quickly bring diction to the level of a speaker, both in children and adults. Try to read it quickly and clearly. You will definitely like it.

On Thursday the 4th, at 4 and a quarter o'clock, the Ligurian traffic controller was regulating in Liguria, but 33 ships tacked, tacked, but never managed, and then the protocol about the protocol was recorded by the protocol, as the interviewed Ligurian traffic controller was eloquent, but not clear reported, and so reported about the wet weather that, so that the incident did not become a contender for a judicial precedent, the Ligurian traffic controller acclimatized in unconstitutional Constantinople, where the tufted laughter laughed and shouted to the Turk, who was blackly stoned with a pipe: don’t smoke, Turk, pipe, better buy a pile peak, better buy a pile of peak, otherwise a bombardier from Brandeburg will come and bombard him with bombs because someone with a black snout dug up half his yard with his snout, dug up and dug up; but in fact the Turk was not in business, and Klara the King was sneaking to the stall at that time, while Karl was stealing corals from Klara, for which Klara stole the clarinet from Karl, and then in the yard of the tar widow Varvara, 2 of these thieves stole firewood; but it’s a sin - not laughter - not to put it in a nut: about Clara and Karl in the darkness, all the crayfish were making noise in a fight - so the thieves had no time for the bombardier, but also not the tar widow, and not the tar children; but the angry widow put the firewood in the barn: once firewood, 2 firewood, 3 firewood - all the firewood could not fit, and 2 woodcutters, 2 woodcutters, for the emotional Varvara, expelled the firewood across the width of the yard back to the wood yard, where the heron withered, the heron withered, the heron died; the heron's chick clung tenaciously to the chain; well done against the sheep, and against the well done the sheep itself, to which Senya carries the hay in a sleigh, then Senka carries Sonya and Sanka on a sled: the sled hops, Senka sideways, Sonya head on, everything into a snowdrift, and from there only a head of bumps knocked him down, then Sasha went along the highway, Sasha found the sachet on the highway; Sonya - Sashka’s friend was walking along the highway and sucking a dryer, and besides, Sonya the turntable also had 3 cheesecakes in her mouth - exactly like a honey cake, but she had no time for a honey cake - Sonya, with cheesecakes in her mouth, would over-mix the sexton, - over-mix: it buzzes like ground beetle, buzzing and spinning: was at Frol's - Frol lied about Lavra, will go to Lavra at Frol Lavra will lie that - the sergeant with the sergeant, the captain with the captain, the snake has a snake, the hedgehog has a hedgehog, and his high-ranking guest has taken away a cane, and soon again 5 guys ate 5 honey mushrooms and a half-quarter of a quadruple of lentils without a wormhole, and 1666 pies with cottage cheese from whey from yogurt - about all of that, the bells were ringing with groans, so much so that even Konstantin, a Salzburg unpromising man from -under an armored personnel carrier he stated: just as all the bells cannot be re-ringed, all the bells cannot be re-ringed, so all the tongue twisters cannot be re-spoken, not re-spoken; but trying is not torture.

Exercise 3. Your own interlocutor

A lot of people don't like the way their voice and pronunciation sound on recordings. And this is not just like that, because you can immediately hear all the mistakes and articulation that is far from ideal. Read passages into a tape recorder, listen to yourself, correct what sounds ugly and does not suit you.

Exercise 4. Breathing is life

One of the most important secrets of a beautiful voice is correct diaphragmatic breathing. All singers, speakers and announcers breathe through their belly, not their chest. It is the diaphragm that creates such a flow of air that the vocal cords begin to vibrate cleanly and powerfully. Also practice distributing your breathing so that it is enough for long sentences. To do this, inhale and, for example, stretch out one vowel until the air in your lungs is completely gone. Blowing up balloons is also a very effective way to practice breathing when setting your voice.

All the tongue twisters cannot be repeated, all the tongue twisters cannot be repeated

Of course, all of the above is only a small part of all the methods that exist to make your speech clear and beautiful. Although even doing these exercises will take you to a whole new level. If you want to know more on this topic and do better, I recommend it. By studying with her, you can reach unprecedented heights. She also has an entertaining book - “Speak beautifully and confidently.” I also recommended them to my new friend, with whom we finally got out of the elevator, and I really hope that he will also quickly be able to improve his speech. After all, he is an incredibly talented guy, and he really wants the world to hear him.

Don’t be shy about revealing yourself to the world! Good luck with your diction training! With this, I say goodbye to you for today - until we meet again on the pages of the blog.

Why is it necessary to develop a child’s diction? He is still small, but he will grow up and his speech will improve on its own. Many parents think so, not attaching importance to even such obvious defects in the child’s speech as a lisp or unclear pronunciation. Experts insist that one must work hard on diction as early as possible, so that the child’s speech does not turn into a “speech mush” over time. Otherwise, the speech therapist will have to work hard to make the preschooler’s speech literate, intelligible and beautiful.

Why is it so important to develop diction in children?

Let us remember that the concept of “diction” includes clear pronunciation of words and sounds. Psychologists note that correct pronunciation of words and sounds affects the overall development of the child and contributes to the faster formation of mental operations. Fuzzy speech negatively affects a student’s school success and the quality of communication with classmates and friends. In the future, writing literacy in primary school depends on the correctness of oral speech. You need to realize that correctly delivered, clear and competent speech is an element of a child’s success and an indicator of his attractiveness in the eyes of other children.

It is important for parents to notice a problem in diction at the initial stages of speech development, at about 2-3 years, when speech begins to develop very actively. There are many factors that influence the ability to speak clearly. Experts note, first of all, those that influence the development of diction. The reasons for poor diction in children may be:

• Impaired pronunciation of sounds;
• Absence of some sounds in speech;
• Replacing dull sounds with voiced ones;
• Shortening long and complex words;
• Rearranging syllables;
• Softening sounds;
• Replacing sounds with similar ones.

In some cases, poor diction is associated with the development of hyperactivity, instability of attention and poor self-control. With the progress of pedagogical science and medicine, many problems associated with diction can be easily corrected. In most cases, regular articulation exercises are sufficient to improve diction.

Effective exercises for diction

The main difficulty in pronouncing words is the need to quickly change the position of the tongue in the mouth. To master this skill, you need to strengthen your muscles and conduct constant training.

Exercises for developing the muscles of the speech apparatus

1. Exercises to warm up your lips:

"Speaker" - you need to open your mouth wide. The sound “a” is pronounced at the same time.

"Tube" - Pull your lips forward as much as possible. At the same time, the sound “u” is pronounced.

"Smile" - you need to stretch your lips, as if smiling, without opening them.

"Bagel" - stretch your lips as much as possible, pronouncing the sound “o”.

2. Exercises to warm up the tongue:

- you need to touch your tongue to the upper palate and then sharply lower your tongue with a clicking sound;

"Spatula" - open your mouth, stick out your tongue, reach your chin.

"Sweetie" - you need to rest your tongue on each cheek in turn. Mouth closed.

"Pendulum" - you need to stick out your tongue. Stretch it now to the right, now to the left.

"Needle" - stretch your tongue forward as much as possible. The mouth is open.

"Mushroom" - reach with the tongue to the upper palate, so that the frenulum stretches.

"Turkey" - stick your tongue out of your mouth. Move it along your upper lip from side to side. Gradually increase the speed of movement and add a voice (pronounce different vowels while chanting).

"Mug" - open your mouth, stick out your tongue and roll it into the shape of a cup or mug.

"Drummer" - it is necessary to strike the upper teeth with the tongue, accompanied by pronouncing the sound “d”.

Important! For maximum effectiveness, each exercise must be performed for at least 2 minutes. To make it interesting for small children to repeat the same exercise over and over again, you can use rhymes, pictures, and small toys.

3. Exercises for a beautiful voice timbre:

"Long syllables» - take a deep breath. While exhaling, pronounce the syllables “bom”, “bim”, “bon” drawn out (you need to draw out the last sound).

"Q-X" - pronounce the syllables “Q” and “X”. When pronouncing “Q”, stretch your lips out with a straw, and on the syllable “X”, stretch your lips into a smile.

"Sound engineer" - one palm should be pressed to the ear, the second should be brought to the mouth at a distance of several cm. In this position, pronounce words, syllables and sounds. This exercise helps you understand the true sound of your voice.

Classes for children to develop diction at home

The best and most effective way to master the skills of speaking clearly is through play. The development of diction for all age groups will be faster in game exercises and interesting tasks. In addition to the development of the articulatory apparatus, such activities have a beneficial effect on strengthening the relationship between parents and the child, and also simply bring him joy and pleasure from communicating with his parents.

Games that develop a child’s speech:

"Repetition" - training consists of the child repeating individual sounds and syllables. Often the lesson is carried out in a playful way. Mom or dad reads the poem, the baby repeats the final syllables of each line.

"Farm" - this game is similar to the previous one, but the sounds must be pronounced as clearly as possible. Parents read a poem about the inhabitants of the farm, and the child pronounces the sounds made by the animals.

"Guess who" - you should play it after you have mastered the previous 2. Place pictures of animals (you can buy them in a store or make them yourself) in an opaque bag. The child pulls out a card and pronounces the sound that matches the animal in the picture. It's more fun to play in a group.

"Pantomime" - This is an alternative option to articulation gymnastics. The child is asked to show various emotions exclusively using his face. This is a good way to train the muscles of the speech apparatus.

"Police officer" - Whistles will be required to play. Children, when given the command “violator” or “criminal,” begin to blow a whistle. When you inhale, the stomach swells, when you exhale, it contracts. The shoulders remain in place during this process.

"Roaring Lion" - the game is aimed at practicing the pronunciation of a certain sound. Children are offered a set of words, quatrains, tongue twisters, passages of prose text (can be submitted as stages of a competition), where a certain sound is most often found. The guys read the proposed words aloud and practice the sound.

Tongue twisters

In addition to games, tongue twisters have a great effect on improving diction. Every person has known them since childhood, but only a few have the opportunity to boast of the ability to pronounce them correctly, clearly and quickly. With regular training, tongue twisters effectively eliminate speech defects and significantly improve the quality of diction.

A tongue twister is a special text that is a combination of words with hard-to-pronounce sounds. They are aimed at developing the correct pronunciation of consonants.

1. At the first stage, you need to select no more than three tongue twisters in order to train the pronunciation of a certain sound;
2. The text is pronounced slowly and as clearly as possible;
3. It is advisable to practice in front of a mirror;
4. You need to pronounce the exercise emotionally and in a sing-song voice.

In addition to games and tongue twisters, when working on a child’s diction, it is very important to pay attention to the voice and speech breathing.

Enemies of beautiful speech

Speech is a reflection of a person’s level of culture. The concept of “beautiful speech” most often refers to literate speech. Today, the problem of stylistic speech errors in children is very relevant.
They clog up speech and spoil the overall impression of a person:

Parents can solve many problems with their child’s speech on their own at home. It is necessary to follow some recommendations and the positive effect will not be long in coming. Recommendations for parents on how to develop diction in a preschool child:

The problem of diction in children is relevant today. Almost every boy or girl has a violation of the pronunciation of sounds, syllables and words. It is important to pay special attention to this problem. It is necessary to work with the child not only at the moment when the problem has already declared itself, but also for prevention. A regular and systematic approach will help you cope with the task in the shortest possible time. The child's speech will be clear and beautiful.

The clarity and literacy of the pronunciation of individual sounds, whole words and large sentences gives an impression of a person.

Competent and clear speech is a sign of an educated person, a significant advantage that can be used in many life situations. The skill includes several components - proper diction, expressiveness of speech, a rich vocabulary, and competent structuring of speech.

Exercises to develop good diction:

Preparing words and writing a competent and convincing text may be simple, but pronouncing it will not be so easy. Poor diction and articulation can completely ruin a carefully prepared speech. The development of diction and the ability to speak beautifully is necessary in everyday life, both when communicating with friends and family, and in conversations with work colleagues, business partners and clients.

Diction implies clear pronunciation of all sounds, correct stress, and no problems with articulation. Articulation disorders are associated with defects in the speech apparatus, which is responsible for clear pronunciation. Also, the quality of diction decreases due to non-compliance with the tempo of speech and the appearance of unclear endings.

Almost all diction problems can be corrected if desired. To do this you need to train regularly.

TONG TWISTERS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF DICTION

Tongue twisters have been known to us since childhood. These are rhythmic sentences, with a set of words where a certain sound or several sounds occur frequently. Frequently speaking tongue twisters will help teach you to articulate the desired sound correctly. Regular exercise will make your speech quick and clear.

You should start with simple tongue twisters. To begin with, the tempo of pronunciation should be low, try to pronounce words and sounds clearly. Gradually the speed needs to be increased. When you achieve perfection in pronouncing simple tongue twisters, you can take on more complex structures. This will contribute to the development of good speech diction.

An addition to tongue twisters would be to place a barrier in the mouth to prevent proper articulation. This technique can be seen in the film “Carnival” (it is also described in many books on teaching public speaking). There the heroine uttered tongue twisters, putting nuts in her mouth. You can replace the nuts with a wine cork. If you learn to clearly pronounce words with interference, then in its absence the speech apparatus will begin to work better, and diction will improve.

Our voice doesn't sound at all like we think it does. Therefore, a good exercise for developing diction would be correcting speech defects using dictaphone recordings. Read an excerpt from the book and then listen to the result. Note all the shortcomings and defects, and try to correct them next time. You need to record until you get the perfect result.

BREATHING TRAINING

Shortness of breath is a known problem that we face even in our daily lives. But at reports or public speeches this looks like a loser, since the sentence turns out to be intermittent, and the effect of the spoken words is not always expressed in full. Training the diaphragm will help get rid of this. One of the exercises for developing diction is to draw out the vowel sound as you exhale. At first, breathing will last for a few seconds, but with constant training you can reach 25 seconds. The next stage of the exercise is changing the pitch of your voice. You can also train your breathing by inflating balloons.

Many people, even those not associated with public speaking as such, often still have to take on the function of a speaker, presenter or entertainer. This could be a presentation of a project or a report, holding an event, or simply telling an interesting story among friends. What can we say about those for whom performing is a profession? But it doesn’t matter at all whether a person performs professionally, is just learning this skill, or has nothing to do with it at all; in any case, correct articulation will always play into his hands, because thanks to her, all spoken words will sound intelligible, clear and precise, and the speech will be beautiful and memorable. This especially applies, of course, to those people who are directly involved in the performances. In this article we present to your attention 10 effective exercises to improve articulation.

Each of the exercises is aimed at training the muscles of the speech apparatus and improving their mobility. When performing, it is important to pay special attention to the fact that the load should be directed to specific muscle groups. It is also important that the muscles of the cervicobrachial region can work freely, and the pace of exercise should be slow - this helps to obtain the greatest effect from the exercises. Before performing the exercises, it is imperative to perform warm-up exercises for the speech apparatus. You can devote only 5-7 minutes to it, but the quality of practice will improve significantly.

Articulation gymnastics

Articulation gymnastics differs by type:

Gymnastics for the cheeks

1. Retracting and inflating the cheeks alternately
2. Distillation of air from one cheek first to the other cheek, then under the lower lip, then under the upper lip
3. Tension of the cheeks and lips with an attempt to push air out of the mouth
4. Retraction of the cheeks and simultaneous closing and opening of the lips

Gymnastics of the lower jaw

• Pressing your fists into the lower jaw and pressing your jaw onto your fists
• Various movements of the lower jaw: up and down, back and forth, circular

Gymnastics of the soft palate

1. Yawning with open mouth
2. Movement of the tongue, gathered into a “scapula”, to the soft palate and return to the alveoli - the base of the upper and lower teeth
3. Pronunciation of vowel sounds with yawns
4. Imitation of gargling

Lip gymnastics

• A tense smile with closed teeth and lips stretched out like a tube.
• Various movements of lips with closed teeth: up-down, left-right, circular
• Chewing lips
• Pulling the lips over the teeth and then smiling with the lips sliding over the teeth
• Lifting the upper lip exposing the upper teeth, then lifting the lower lip exposing the lower teeth
• Snort

Tongue gymnastics

1. Rotating the tongue in a circle in the space between the lips and teeth and holding the tongue under the right and left cheeks alternately
2. Chewing the tongue
3. Slapping tongue with lips
4. Pulling the tongue forward with a “needle”
5. Attempts to reach the chin and nose with the tongue
6. Folding the tongue into a “tube”, moving the “tube” back and forth and blowing air into it
7. Turning the tongue on different sides
8. Holding the tongue against the upper palate

After the articulatory gymnastics are completed and you are convinced that all parts of the speech apparatus have been developed, you can move on to the main exercises to improve articulation.

Exercises to improve articulation

Exercise 1

An exercise to feel the tip of the tongue - its hardness and activity in pronunciation. To do this, use your imagination: imagine that your tongue is a small hammer. Then hit it on the teeth with the tip, saying: yes-yes-yes-yes-yes. After this, practice pronouncing the letters “T-D”.

Exercise 2

Exercise to free the larynx and tongue. Its essence is that you need to quickly take a short breath through your nose and exhale completely through your mouth. The exhalation should also be sharp and should be accompanied by the sound “Fu”. The same exercise can be supplemented with an exercise to strengthen the muscles of the larynx: pronounce the letters “K-G” several times.

Exercise 3

Exercise for rapid activation of the labial muscles. You need to puff out your cheeks and release the accumulated air with a sharp clap through compressed lips, while vigorously pronouncing the letters “P-B”.

Exercise 4

An exercise to practice the skill of drawing air before each new phrase. Take any poem or excerpt from a work and consciously take a deep breath before each new phrase. Try not to forget about this so that you develop a habit. And you also need to take into account three points: breathing should be silent, at the beginning of each phrase you should keep your lips slightly open, and after the end of each sound you should immediately close your mouth so that the ending is not “chewed.”

Exercise 5

Exercise for proper air distribution. Typically, a person requires more breathing when speaking loudly, but speaking softly often requires greater control of exhalation. Practice pronouncing phrases in a low and loud voice and determine how much air you need for each of them. Combine this technique with the previous one.

Exercise 6

An exercise for smooth pronunciation of vowels in a single flow and clear pronunciation of consonants within this flow. Choose any poem (or several lines from it) and do it as follows: first, eliminate all consonants from the lines and pronounce only the vowels evenly, stretching them out a little. After this, begin to insert clear and quick consonants into the stream of vowels, trying to ensure that the stream of vowels remains as sonorous.

Exercise 7

Diction exercise. It is a simple reading of tongue twisters. Choose for yourself several tongue twisters with different letter combinations and begin to hone your pronunciation. Slowly at first, measuredly. Then increase the pace. Watch the rhythm, control diction, intelligibility and expressiveness.

Exercise 8

Another exercise to improve diction. It consists in the fact that at the end of each word you need to pay special attention to sharply emphasizing its ending. This will make the pronunciation of the word clearer and more expressive.

Exercise 9

Exercise to improve the pronunciation of sounds. It is used for those sounds that are most difficult for you to pronounce. Take a dictionary, open the letter that is causing you difficulty, and read all the words in a row that have a sound that is difficult for you, listening carefully to it. Through repeated repetitions, pronunciation will improve. In addition to this exercise, you can use a voice recorder to track your progress: record all the words you speak, then listen to the recordings and work on mistakes.

Exercise 10

An exercise to develop the timbre and acoustic properties of the voice. It includes the development of the muscles of the pharynx and tongue. You need to silently pronounce the letters “A-E-O” 10 times, while trying to open not the mouth, but the pharynx cavity.

And as a small bonus, another cool and effective technique for improving the overall quality of not only articulation, but also intros in general is working with a mirror. Choose a passage of prose or a poem that you remember and read it while watching your reflection in the mirror. Track your facial expressions, movements of lips, eyes, eyebrows, cheekbones. Listen to your voice. The main evaluation criteria should be aesthetics, naturalness, harmony, as well as psychological and physical comfort. You must ensure that you like yourself, so that the sound of your voice is pleasant to you, and your facial expressions and gestures evoke exclusively positive emotions.

Naturally, these exercises are not exhaustive and the only ones of their kind. And they should only serve as pointers for you in working on your articulation. If you wish, you can find a huge number of similar exercises on the Internet or specialized literature. But to summarize, we can make a brief summary and highlight a few main principles:

• Of particular importance in articulation training are the systematic nature of exercises and their conscious control.
• It is very important to regularly work in front of the mirror
• During training, you must be demanding of yourself, be able to look (listen) to yourself from the outside
• It is necessary to do numerous repetitions of unpronounceable sounds until you feel a state of complete comfort when pronouncing them
• Particular attention should be paid to working with muscular and emotional tensions
• Progress significantly speeds up listening to audio and viewing video materials with recordings of people with excellent articulation

Be guided in your practice by these principles, and the desired result will very soon make itself felt. And the first tangible effect will appear at the initial stage. Remember that developing articulation is recommended not only for singers, professional presenters, lecturers, speakers or actors, but also for any person in general, if only for the simple reason that we all live in society and we constantly have to interact with other people.

We wish you good luck with your articulation work. Speak beautifully!

To train your articulation and improve your mood, we suggest you take a short test:

1. Try turning your lower lip inside out without using your hands and with your mouth closed.
2. Try to do the same, but with your mouth open
3. Repeat point No. 2 at the mirror