How to achieve excellent diction. Exercises for diction and articulation

Beautiful, clear speech is not only pleasing to the ear, but therefore creates affection for a person who can speak well. In some cases, it is absolutely impossible to do without this skill. For example, it is difficult to imagine a central television announcer who is unable to pronounce sounds clearly.

Good articulation will be useful to anyone who has to speak a lot for a wide audience: lecturer, teacher, politician, YouTuber. By regularly performing diction exercises, you can achieve noticeable success in the first weeks of classes.

Diction is not directly related to the voice, its innate characteristics. Diction is something that can and should be “improved” through regular training and special exercises. By “correct diction” we mean the clear and sonorous pronunciation of all phonemes that corresponds to the accepted norms of the language. To a large extent, it depends on the correct position of the organs of articulation (lips, tongue), and on the ability to breathe correctly. Expressiveness and rich emotional coloring of speech have an impact.

Attention! To achieve a lasting effect, diction training must become a habit, since without regular repetition of exercises the skill is quickly lost.

Slurred pronunciation, swallowed sounds - they say about such a person “he has porridge in his mouth.” The meaning of the spoken words is difficult to understand, the necessary expressiveness and motivating intensity are lost. In professions that require frequent public speaking, this is simply unacceptable.

If the voice is not a working instrument, mastering the skill of beautiful speech is no less useful. Being able to express your thoughts out loud clearly, intelligibly and easily, it is much easier to win over a business partner, employer, win a competition or get a desired place in a casting.

Types of exercises for developing diction and clarity of speech

Where should I start, how to improve my diction and clarity of speech? There are several different techniques that allow you to achieve amazing success with careful and regular exercise. Among them:

- probably the most famous, widespread way of combating speech defects, which consists of quickly repeating phrases and rhymes composed in such a way as to train the clarity of articulation of difficult-to-pronounce sounds and sound combinations.
Pure twisters - have a similar function to tongue twisters; their pronunciation also contributes to the development and consolidation of the skill of pronunciation of complex phonemes, however, they differ in form, representing a set of rhymed lines.
– a set of speech therapy exercises to develop the mobility of the lips and tongue, with the goal of “teaching” them to take the correct position for clearly pronouncing syllables.
Breathing exercises - the endurance of the lungs and vocal cords, the uniformity of breathing have a great influence on speech in general, therefore, when mastering the skills of correct speaking, one should not neglect the training of these instruments.

Important! When performing exercises for diction and voice training, it is useful to record the practice process on a voice recorder. This measure is needed in order to monitor the correctness of execution, record errors, problem areas that still need to be worked on.

Features of the exercises and how to perform them correctly

It should be remembered that starting to work on pronunciation even as an adult is associated with a number of difficulties. It is quite difficult to get rid of habits that have developed over the years and change the entire speech system from the ground up.

Experts recommend starting with developing articulation, training muscle endurance, training the speech organs to be in the correct position, and improving the timbre and tone of the voice. The following exercises are perfect for this and can be performed at any time and anywhere, the more often the better:

as a warm-up, it is recommended to make a long, drawn-out moo;
elements of breathing and articulation gymnastics contain an exercise during which you should make various sounds by hitting yourself in the chest with your palms;
clearly, with expression, pausing, read the poetic lines, changing the tone of the voice - raising and lowering it alternately;
read the texts of poems and prose at the same time as jumping rope, while running, trying to keep your breathing as even as possible;
pronounce words and whole sentences, stretching the facial muscles in a smile, maintaining clarity of pronunciation;
read aloud, after holding a small oblong object between your teeth, for example, a fountain pen; during the exercise, strive to clearly pronounce syllables and sounds;
The use of small round objects (for example, walnuts) placed behind one or both cheeks while reading poetry and literary texts helps develop articulation and train muscles.

Much attention should be paid to daily gymnastics of the speech organs, since it is impossible to develop speech and diction independently without this:

opening your mouth as wide as possible, move the lower jaw forward, backward and to the sides;
with your mouth open, stick your tongue out to its maximum length, folding it into a “sting”;
slightly parting your jaws, smile broadly, run your tongue along the upper and lower rows of teeth, touching each tooth in succession with the tip;
With the tense tip of your tongue, touch the inside of both cheeks, first with your mouth open, then with your mouth closed;
stick out the most relaxed tongue from your slightly open mouth with a “spatula”;
fold your arms on your chest, lean forward, in an inclined, slightly bent position, pronounce vowel sounds in the lowest possible tone: “o”, “y”, “u”. Having finished pulling one sound, straighten up and bend down again to perform the next approach.

Important! The duration of one exercise is at least 10 seconds. During one lesson, 4-5 approaches are performed.

The formation of correct pronunciation is inseparably linked with breathing, since without it speech itself is impossible. The air stream, touching the tense ligaments, produces a sound, the shape of which a person gives to other organs of the speech apparatus. Therefore, the answer to the question of how to improve diction, among other things, includes training the lungs and developing the diaphragm.

The ability to breathe is an integral part of life, but not everyone knows how to do it correctly. The following set of exercises will help strengthen your voice and give it a more pleasant, melodic timbre:

take a comfortable body position - lying, standing or sitting, press your left palm to your stomach, your right palm to the lower part of the sternum on the side, draw in air through your nose, controlling the expansion of the diaphragm with your hands, slowly exhale until the end;
slowly inhale through your nose, hold the air for a couple of seconds, exhale through your mouth;
inhale briefly, while exhaling, stretching as much as possible, pronounce any continuous vowel sound;
count as you exhale from 1, trying to pronounce the maximum number of numbers without haste;
while exhaling, pronounce combinations of vowel sounds, for example: “ooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo

Since it is impossible to develop diction in one day, when starting training, you should be patient. At the very beginning, it will be useful to draw up a lesson plan, outlining the range of problems that will have to be eliminated in order to obtain the desired effect. As your speech improves, correct and supplement the original sketch with new details.

You should not neglect any opportunity to perform exercises, since it is in their regularity that the key to success lies.

Reciting poems, pronouncing tongue twisters and tongue twisters will help you quickly “warm up” before a performance when you have a long and important conversation ahead. They must be learned and spoken out loud at least several times a day.

Acting or rhetoric courses will provide invaluable assistance with correct pronunciation.

Classes in stage speech, supported by diction exercises, among other things, will add sonority and charm to the voice, making it more expressive.

Finding a person with good diction is becoming increasingly difficult, because few people consciously strive to improve their speech. Speech abilities are rarely given naturally, so exercises should be done to improve pronunciation. But does every person need clear pronunciation?

Proper diction implies clear pronunciation of words and correct placement of the speech organs. The reason for poor diction is congenital defects of the speech apparatus. But the reason may also be imitation of the speech of other people in childhood. But even with poor pronunciation, improvement is possible if special diction exercises are used.

The delivered diction helps:

Achieve understanding. If a person has not worked on speech development, the information he expresses will be difficult to perceive by people who are seeing him for the first time and are not accustomed to the peculiarities of pronunciation.
Make an impression. Improving your diction helps when you need to show your best side. An example is a conversation with an employer who would be more willing to give a position to a person with clear pronunciation.
Attract attention. If a person is constantly developing his pronunciation and voice, any story he tells will be more readily accepted than if he has a speech impediment.

Development of pronunciation in adults

The development of diction in an adult differs in that the production of sounds is much more complex. When a person is accustomed to pronouncing words in a certain way, he has to change not only the pronunciation, but also the perception of his speech. Before improving your diction, it is worth considering the main types of exercises.

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

To learn beautiful speech using tongue twisters, you should choose several such phrases designed to develop the pronunciation of certain sounds and find out which of them are more difficult to pronounce. It is on them that you should concentrate your attention. It is important to pronounce such phrases regularly so that the speech apparatus gets used to the correct pronunciation. Working on yourself means doing exercises every day.

A tool that helps you learn to pronounce sounds correctly is dictation recordings. If you listen to your speech on a recording, you can understand that it sounds completely different from how it sounds when talking to your interlocutor. When identifying defects and correcting them, you need to constantly record speech until they disappear.

A common problem is shortness of breath when speaking long phrases. This becomes noticeable during public speaking. To get rid of this problem, the diaphragm training method is used. One of the diction exercises is to draw out the vowel sound as you exhale for as long as possible. At first you can only do this for a few seconds, but later the time increases to 25. Breathing training also involves changing the pitch of your voice. Another way to practice is to blow up balloons.

With regular exercise, the results appear within a few days. But to maintain the effect, you need to do all of the above constantly. At the same time, it is worth using books that are intended for speech development.

Text for diction development

To develop correct pronunciation, there are texts that are compiled on the same principle as tongue twisters. They usually combine several tongue twisters to develop different sounds. This means that to correct diction you do not need to search for texts. To practice, just find tongue twisters to make all the sounds and combine them into a single whole.

To help the formation of correct pronunciation occur faster, nuts of different sizes are placed in the mouth or a pencil is clamped between the teeth. After removing such items, you can feel that it has become easier to pronounce even complex phrases.

Expressive reading of fiction also helps to develop diction. By recording your pronunciation on a voice recorder, you can easily determine which sounds are being pronounced incorrectly.

The longest tongue twister

“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 caught, and then the protocol about the protocol was recorded by the protocol, as the interviewed Ligurian traffic controller was eloquent, but not reported cleanly, 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, a pipe, buy a better one a pile of peaks, it’s better to buy a pile of peaks, otherwise a bombardier from Brandeburg will come and bombard him with bombs because some black-snouted guy dug up half his yard with his snout, dug up and dug up; but in fact the Turk was not in the 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 the 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 the 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 a high-ranking guest has taken away from him 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 tongue twisters cannot be repeated, all the tongue twisters cannot be re-spoken; but trying is not torture. »

How to improve your diction in a short time

Sometimes it is not possible to perform exercises to practice pronunciation due to lack of time. In such situations, articulatory charging is used. It consists of several simple exercises:

Moving the jaw back and forth. During such actions, the mouth is in an open position.
Pronouncing the vowels o, u and y. This should be done in a bent position with your arms crossed over your chest. At the same time, the voice lowers and the sound is pronounced in a drawn-out manner. After the next sound, you need to rise to a standing position, and then tilt and repeat the action.
Tongue movements. A good exercise for quickly developing diction is a movement in which the tongue rests alternately on the cheeks. This is done both with a closed and open mouth.
Touching teeth. This exercise is performed with your mouth wide open. With your tongue you need to touch each tooth in turn, following the top and bottom rows.

After performing such diction exercises, the clarity of spoken phrases increases, so they are often used by people speaking in front of the public.

Is it worth taking speech development courses?

There are speech development courses designed for speakers. They include not only exercises for correct pronunciation, but also tips to help cope with problems that arise during public speaking. The programs of such courses consist of several lessons:

rules of articulation;
learning the basics of proper breathing;
development of vocal range and strength;
rules for constructing intonation;
study of orthoepy;
mastering the basics of gestures.

The courses help you learn proper pronunciation techniques and overcome the fear of speaking in front of an audience. Working on yourself involves long sessions, which is why announcers do this.

Speech defects arise due to improper structure of the speech apparatus or due to improper formation of sounds in childhood. The first type of defects can only be corrected with the help of speech therapists or dentists, if we are talking about irregular teeth structure.

You can correct your speech by using the normal arrangement of the organs of articulation during a conversation. In the absence of deviations in the development of the body, defects appear:

sonorous sounds;
hissing;
whistling.

The occurrence of such defects occurs as a result of even a slight deviation of the speech organs from their natural location. For correct pronunciation, you need to know how to correctly position the lips, tongue, soft palate and lower jaw. This can only be achieved through training, because working on speech correction implies constant improvement.

How to fix slurred speech

A common speech defect that manifests itself in people with a normally developed articulatory apparatus is slurring. It manifests itself in swallowing entire syllables during a conversation. Such a defect is formed in childhood due to unconscious imitation of others. To get rid of it, you need to perform the following exercises to improve diction:

Scan poems, following the rhythm. You should choose works that are more difficult to read. An example is Mayakovsky's poems. This kind of self-improvement will help you quickly correct speech deficiencies.
Often pronounce words that have consonants next to each other. For example, counter-revolution. After composing such words, you should say them several times a day.

This will help you improve your pronunciation in just a few weeks.

How to put a voice

There are 3 exercises that help develop your voice.
In order for an audible effect to appear, it is necessary to perform the exercises for several months. Such exercises include:

Pronouncing vowels. To perform the first exercise to develop diction, you need to pronounce vowel sounds one by one until you have enough breath. Saying “i”, “e”, “a”, “o” and “u” can make your voice more sonorous. Work on voice training occurs constantly, since during breaks, even for a few days, the effect becomes less noticeable.
Activation of the abdominal and chest area. To activate the abdominal and chest areas, you need to pronounce “m” with your mouth closed. The first utterance of the sound should be quiet, the second louder, and the third time you need to strain the vocal cords as much as possible. If work on pronunciation and voice occurs without performing these exercises, the effect is reduced.
Pronouncing words with the letter "r". Also, to establish the voice, the sound “r” is pronounced, which also improves pronunciation. To do this, you first need to growl the sound “rrrr”, and then pronounce more than a dozen words containing the letter r in a row. During pronunciation, the letter should stand out. This exercise will help you develop your voice and improve your diction. Books also help develop diction when read aloud.

To develop diction and achieve clear pronunciation, you need to work hard. Only through regular exercise and training will you achieve tangible changes.

Not everyone is able to reproduce sounds smoothly and clearly. This indicates problems with diction, which creates certain inconveniences and discomfort for a person in communication both in childhood and in adulthood. This question is especially relevant for people whose activities involve public speaking. If you or your loved ones have such a problem, then do not despair: all defects can be corrected. You just need to regularly use a set of exercises aimed at improving your diction.

Why is it worth correcting diction?

The art of speaking beautifully and clearly requires practice.

Diction is the distinct and clear pronunciation of words and syllables. In this case, correct articulation must be present - activation of the speech organs, which allow the reproduction of sounds. The speech of a person suffering from a diction disorder becomes slurred and muffled. This leads to difficulties in communication, because it is difficult for others to understand him. The reason for this deviation is defects in the speech apparatus, for example, the inability to open the mouth wide when speaking or poor mobility of the lower jaw.

If such violations exist, you should immediately begin performing special sets of exercises. If a child suffers from diction disorders, these techniques will help him improve his performance at school, make new friends and increase self-esteem. The adult will also experience positive changes. Start practicing and be sure: you won’t have to wait long to notice the first results.

Normalizing speech allows you to expand your social circle and speak confidently in front of an audience.

How to quickly improve your speech

Today, a sufficient number of simple methods have been developed that allow any person to independently improve the quality of speech activity. Let's look at the most affordable and effective of them.

Articulation gymnastics

Speech gymnastics is aimed at training the articulatory apparatus, which includes certain muscle groups. It consists of several exercises.

Training the speech apparatus is the most effective method of improving diction

These exercises should be performed at a slow pace.

First, let's develop the soft palate. Perform the following steps in order:

Yawn with your mouth closed.
Make movements reminiscent of gargling.
Make any vowel sounds when yawning.
Shape your tongue into a spatula, reach the roof of your mouth, then return it to the base of your teeth, repeat several times.

Now we need to work on the lower jaw. Two exercises will help here.

Sit at the table, rest your elbows on the tabletop. Open your mouth a little. Direct your jaw downwards with force, while clench your hands into fists and press them on the jaw from below.
Make circular movements with your lower jaw: forward and backward, down and up.

Then start training your cheeks:

Simulate rinsing, puff out your cheeks and retract them.
Take air into your mouth and move it first between your cheeks and then to your lips.
Tighten your cheeks, purse your lips and push air out of your mouth, trying to overcome the resistance.

The following exercises are designed to train your lips:

Close your jaws, tighten your lips and try to smile.
The exercise is called “proboscis – smile”. Fold your lips into a tube shape, extend them forward and count to 10, then return to the starting position.
Close your teeth and move your lips in a circle, down and up, to the sides.
Pull your upper lip to expose a row of teeth. Then perform a similar exercise with the lower one.
Open your mouth slightly, pull your lips to your teeth and smile.

Finally, perform a set of exercises for the tongue:

Make circular movements, stopping one by one near each cheek.
Use your teeth to stretch your tongue.
Place your tongue on your lower lip and blow on the tip.
Pull your tongue forward, fold it with a spatula and place it on your lip. Hold it in this position for 10 seconds.
Try to reach your tongue first to your nose (as far as possible), then to the level of your chin.
Curl your tongue and move it back and forth.
Turn your tongue one way and the other.
Lift the end of your tongue, push it forward, then return it to the oral cavity.
Place the edge of the tongue near the lower teeth, lift the middle part of the tongue to the palate and form an arch, touching the upper row of teeth. Open your mouth a little, try to keep your jaw motionless.
With the tip of your tongue, touch the base of the upper and lower teeth, then alternately to both cheeks.
Bring the edge of your tongue to the upper, then to the lower lip, then to the left and right corners of the lips.

Video: basic articulation gymnastics exercises

Pronunciation of individual sounds

Vowel sounds are reproduced near the dentition, in the area of the hard palate and larynx. The following exercises will help you reproduce them correctly.

To normalize the reproduction of the sounds “I” and “Y”, slowly and clearly say the words silt, willow, peak, feast, whale, or, leaf, circus, rear, cheese, son, soap, was, bull, smoke, fish.
When playing the vowel “and”, the mouth opens to the size of the thickness of the little finger, the tongue is in a flat state, its tip reaches the lower dentition, the middle touches the palate, the lips are spread apart. The sound “y” is pronounced with minor changes. To do this, move your tongue back a little.
The following words will make it possible to get rid of problems with the pronunciation of “E” and “E”: echo, extra, this, epic, emergency, era, ate, spruce, rode, raccoon, Eva, Elena.
The sound “E” is pronounced in this position: the mouth opens slightly, exposing the edges of the teeth. The tongue is located near the front teeth of the lower row, its middle part and base rise, then come into contact with the molars. The vowel “E” should be pronounced longer and the vocal apparatus should be slightly strained.
Now work on the pronunciation of "A" and "Z". Use the words act, stork, attack, Anna, ball, poppy, cancer, pit, start, yar, berry, anchor, yak, manger, rage, poison.
When playing “A,” you need to open your mouth so that two fingers fit between your teeth. The tongue is in a relaxed position. Its end does not come into contact with the lower row of teeth. When pronouncing “I,” you should move the edge of your tongue forward.
Next, let's move on to the vowels “U” and “Yu”. They are practiced using the words morning, mustache, coal, mind, tooth, bonds, bow, court, beetle, narrow, top, Yura, young man, south, Julia, cabin boy, humor, holy fool.
When pronouncing “U”, round your lips and pull them forward. The distance between the teeth should be equal to the thickness of your thumb. Pull your tongue back, lower its base. When playing “Yu”, raise the middle part of the tongue a little higher
Let's start with the vowel sounds “O” and “E”. Say the words axis, windows, wasps, lake, hoop, donkey, hedgehog, Christmas tree, container, yokat, fidget.
When pronouncing “O”, extend your lips forward and give them a rounded shape. Move your tongue back, lift its back. It should not touch the teeth. The vowel “Yo” is played longer and more intensely.

Pronunciation exercises are best done in front of a mirror: this way you can more accurately control the correctness of their implementation

At the next stage, you can move on to training consonant sounds. First, we clearly pronounce each of these sounds. Next, we combine them with vowels in a certain order. The step-by-step method looks like this:

Let's start with "P-B". Say the words: steam, pop, dad, drops, oak, tank, dove, bob, holster, white.
Then move on to the combinations par-bar, regiment-bolt, pass-bass, sang-white, sleep-sleep, bur-bureau, was-beat.
For sounds F–V, you need to pronounce the following words: fact, snort, pound, jacket, forward, giraffe, faithful, Valya, light, prominent, knock out.
Combinations: Ivan-Selifan, water-phase, Vika-ficus, about to vomit, fork-Filka, Fomka-Fyokla, firm-snort.
For the sounds “T–D”: there, tank, ton, here, that, aunt, crowded, lady, go, two, fords, woodpecker, smoke, day.
Combinations: there-dam, tok-dok, tom-house, your-deuce, grass-firewood, body-deed, shadow-day, cake-grater, gift-uncle.
To train the sounds “S–Z”: son, court, sit down, strength, seedlings, vinegar, cart, winter, splinter, appeal, goat.
Combinations: sam-zam, soup-tooth, salo-zala, braids-goats, weed-dawn, cheese-sir, bring-in-downstairs, session-sel, blue-Zina.
For the sounds “SH-Zh”: ball, nimble, shawl, gun, dried, shower, tin, pity, beetle, acorn, puddle, thirst, gun.
Combinations: yours-important, ball-heat, joke-creepy, live-sew, wide-fat.
For the sounds “K–H, G”: where, how, bush, pickaxe, current, mole, gas, runner, grief, weight, worse, ghetto, withers, choir, shepherd, trachea.
Combinations: swing-gazelle, bone-guest, count-goal, code-year, club-stupid, whip-gnat, Kesha-Gosha.
For the sound “Ш”: thing, pike, sorrel, happiness, brush, squeaks, cloak.
Combinations: tongs-pincers, prowl-food, cabbage soup-look, aunt-brush.
For the sound “Ch”: sensitive, hour, frequent, speech, bee, charm, patronymic.
Combinations of wind-evening, the-what, tight-honest, sensitive-fur coat, aunt-clear.
For the sound “C”: whole, heron, circus, king, swim, flowers, saucer.
Combinations: tsok-sok, color-light, goal-village, street-fox.
For the sounds “M”, “N”, “L”, “Y”, “R”: mother, poppy, crumpled, lamp, nose, cute, mint, our, bottom, moon, Olya, watering can, wound, pain, risk, spruce, dialect, T-shirt, loach.
Combinations: small-knead, sign-familiar, soap-cute, whine-thread, nana-nanny, lac-lyag, rad-row, bow-luk, marriage-boyak, cancer-lacquer, fire-fire, hand-bow.

Video: practicing pronouncing sound combinations

Tongue twisters for clear pronunciation of words and phrases

These are small phrases with a certain combination of sounds that make it difficult to pronounce quickly. They help practice individual syllables. The main rule of training is Do not try to immediately pronounce the phrase at a fast pace. Repeat it slowly at first. Once you begin to speak clearly, speed up the pace.

Mastering the art of quickly pronouncing tongue twisters is not easy, but the result will definitely please you

Practice daily and you will notice results in a few weeks. It is not necessary to use a large number of tongue twisters; five to ten phrases will be enough.

Start with simple tongue twisters and as you master them, move on to complex phrases.

Here are examples of good tongue twisters:

“Prokop came - the dill was boiling, Prokop left - the dill was boiling. Just as under Prokop the dill was boiling, so without Prokop the dill was boiling.”
“The radishes rarely grew in the garden bed, the garden bed was rarely in order.”
“It is not the stupid who is stingy with words, but the stupid who is stupid with deeds.”
“The little cuckoo bought a hood, the little cuckoo put on the hood, he looks funny in a hood.”
“He was already running along a crooked path, he didn’t stamp a single foot, he would have stamped, but he couldn’t, because he had no legs.”
“Two ships tacked and tacked, but didn’t tack.”

Video: news anchor recites tongue twisters

Correct posture and strong breathing

Correct posture and breathing are the key to full-voiced and clear speech

The easiest way to improve your posture is with the age-old “book on your head” exercise. Place a book on your head and begin to slowly walk around the room. Then incorporate squats and arm movements into the exercise. This complex will help you learn to maintain the breathing rate necessary for monologue speech.

Speech breathing really depends heavily on posture.

Developing breathing will allow you to make a long speech and not be interrupted by pauses in inappropriate places. This is necessary so that your listeners understand you correctly. Let's start with exhalation training:

Place your feet shoulder-width apart and place your hands on your waist.
Purse your lips tightly, leaving a small hole.
Exhale slowly, the air should come out with resistance.
During the exercise, read any quatrain.

If your physical condition allows, you can add elements of physical activity to the breathing exercises, for example, squats, walking or even light running.

Let's move on to inhalation training:

Bend forward, keeping your back parallel to the floor. Inhale. Then take the starting position. Exhale slowly and at the same time say “hym-mm.”
Take the starting position. Close your mouth and inhale air through your nose, widening your nostrils. As the air comes out, tap your fingers on them.
Take a lying position. Place one hand on your stomach, the other on your lower chest. Inhale deeply through your nose. Lift your stomach, your chest should expand. Then exhale slowly. Repeat several times.
Take a standing position, place your hand on your chest, place the other near your mouth. Make vowel sounds as you inhale and exhale. If you feel a yawn, you have successfully completed the exercise.
Next, do the same exercise, but now extend the exhalation and inhalation, making a slight push with the diaphragm.

What else improves diction

Correct intonation will help you achieve the desired result. Read any text with expression, and you will notice positive changes in voice timbre, pronunciation, and tempo. You can use acting methods to train diction. Put a cork, walnuts or a pencil in your mouth and read a few tongue twisters or any text that you like. Words must be pronounced at a slow pace, pronouncing each letter well.

Reading aloud with expression will help you learn correct semantic intonation

Another great method is based on the need to hear yourself from the outside. Record your own voice on a voice recorder and then listen to the recording. This way you will immediately detect mistakes made in your speech. Record again, but now try to correct the flaws. You can read a poem or any literary text. Repeat until you achieve the perfect result.

The exercises described in the article to improve diction do not require any special training. They can be performed by both adults and children. With a responsible approach to training, you will notice progress within a couple of weeks.

Competent speech is the key to success in life. After all, people are judged not only by their clothes, but also by their ability to correctly convey thoughts and write correctly. A person who knows how to express his thoughts simply, concisely and clearly, and construct sentences correctly, is always perceived more positively. Interlocutors, listening to competent speech, automatically assign a completely different, higher level of life competence to a person.

Have you ever lost or not gotten a job because you had too many writing errors or had to clearly explain why you were the right person for the job? The development of competent speech is one of the basic tasks of every self-respecting person. Even if you don't speak in public, the ability to speak beautifully and clearly is valued by everyone. So, how to develop competent speech?

Read fiction

Reading high-quality fiction can hardly be called a waste of time. In the modern world, we are exposed to a very large flow of information; we mainly listen to news or read it on the Internet. But the Internet, entertaining reading and business literature cannot replace good books by recognized domestic and foreign authors.

Reading novels helps to intuitively write correct, beautiful sentences and develops a sense of language. By reading fiction and scientific articles in special publications, a person expands his horizons and vocabulary. If you want to make your speech more lively and imaginative, read poetry. Identify the rhythm, metaphors and figures of speech that you would like to use.

Use dictionaries

Look for new words. If you hear or read a word whose meaning is unfamiliar to you, feel free to take a dictionary and find out what it means. The origin of words is a very interesting science. What if this becomes one of your hobbies?

In addition to the usual dictionary, there are dictionaries of metaphors, foreign words, special terms, even dictionaries dedicated to a particular science. Use them all - and your vocabulary will begin to grow quickly. You can always find the most accurate word and apply it in conversation.

Play educational games

As you know, children acquire almost all their knowledge of language before the age of seven. A child develops competent speech with the help of the people around him. There are also many games and techniques that allow you to develop your imagination, expand your vocabulary and learn to speak beautifully.

If possible, listen to yourself from the outside. Make an audio or video recording of your voice. If you are afraid to speak into a voice recorder or get an inaccurate result, ask someone close to you to record you during a normal conversation.

Evaluate your speech. Competent speech is always free from all unnecessary things. How accurately did you convey your message to others? Was she clear? Could it have been said shorter, clearer, more understandable? Are you pausing in the wrong places? Are you constructing your sentences correctly? Are your thoughts confused, are you jumping from thought to thought, confusing your listeners?

Watch the accents. Incorrect accents (call, jalousie and other tricky words, of which there are many in the Russian language) reveal an illiterate and ill-mannered person. There are two options: do not use these words or open the dictionary, textbooks and remember them firmly.

Edit what you've written

Have you written a letter, a message to a friend, a report to management or an artistic essay? Whatever it is, review the text as carefully as possible and try to give it a critical assessment. This is great speech training. If you practice “cleaning” your writing, you will see results very soon. In addition, spoken language will also change significantly!

Once you've written something, try to "switch" to something else (at least go and make yourself a cup of tea), and then return to the text with fresh eyes. Imagine that this is someone else's text. Does it have errors? How accurately is the thought expressed? Is everything clear to you as an outside reader? Is it possible to formulate this idea more clearly and concisely?

Correct speech and competent speech are always bright, expressive and understandable. Get rid of words that do not carry any semantic meaning. They often take up a third of the text, which is why your idea definitely loses. If you can use a simpler and shorter word, use it. You can also try reading it out loud (be sure to do this if you are preparing a speech that you will give).

Develop your voice

Not only grammatically and lexically correct speech is important for communication. Proper communication also includes using your voice. If you have applied all the methods outlined above, but at the same time express your thoughts in a monotonous voice, devoid of any intonation, listening to you will be unpleasant and not very interesting.

It's worth developing your voice. Do exercises, listen to speakers and try to repeat after them. Sign up for a public speaking course. Even with little effort, the results will please you, and your interlocutors will stop yawning.

Results

Competent speech is not given at birth. You need to work on this constantly, throughout your life. But even if you devote very little effort and time to developing your speech, but reading becomes your good habit, you are guaranteed a more interesting and successful life.

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:

pe-pe-pe, be-be-be, me-me-me;
te-te-te, de-de-de;
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 candidate 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, it’s better to buy a pile of peak, otherwise a bombardier from Brandeburg will come and bombard him with bombs because some black-snouted guy dug up half his yard with his snout, dug up and dug up; but in fact the Turk was not in the 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 the 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 the 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 a high-ranking guest has taken away from him 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 tongue twisters cannot be repeated, all the tongue twisters cannot be 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.