The ability to speak beautifully and meaningfully is not given to everyone. This is preceded by long studies, great desire and patience. If you consciously decided to find the answer to the question: “How to develop clear, beautiful, concise speech at home?” – then the tips and steps described in the article will lead you to good results and lay the foundation for public speaking.
Before starting classes, you need to know the requirements and program of action. This simple scheme will develop a beautiful and complete speech, raise you in the eyes of your friends, and make you speak accurately about any text you read. To learn how to translate thoughts into words and formulate them into beautiful expressions without much difficulty, you should follow these points.
For lessons on improving speech you need:
- Great desire;
- Perseverance;
- Allocation of time and space;
- Confidence in the final goal;
- Support from loved ones.
The program, the points of which you will adhere to, is quite simple and interesting. Taking it as a basis, you can see its effectiveness and feasibility in a short time. This:
Classics are useful and irreplaceable
Classical literature contains beautiful and rich speech. The dialogues of the characters and their reflections contribute to the speaking of correctly constructed phrases. The verbal expressions sung by the authors reflect not only the era of time, the plot and the dynamics of development, but also the inner world, overflowing with morality and a high idea.
Any work that is a classic adds to the vocabulary. Beautiful words encourage the development of imagination; there is a desire to learn how to play with expressions built according to the rules, so that the listener receives not only useful information, but is also satisfied with the communication and does not regret the time spent.
The importance of pace
A thoughtful presentation involves content, timing, and pacing. Monotony, even with exceptionally ideal material, creates boredom, monotony and rejection. Learning to pause is no less important than the chosen topic and selected information.
Slow or fast speech is fraught with a lack of contact with the audience. Without understanding the content, the audience will simply stop responding to the performance. Then beautifully prepared information will turn into a mournful song or a complex tongue twister. Of course, over time this problem will cease to exist. The experience of speaking and feeling the public comes in the process of many days of work on oneself.
Adding flair
A dry text, full of necessary information, will be boring and uninteresting. When lively expressions, confirmed phrases of famous personalities, wise sayings and light humor are present during the conversation, the conversation will find a response from the listeners and the speech will be useful for everyone.
After several successful attempts, the annoying thought of how to quickly develop vivid speech and at the same time be sure to learn how to form phrases, speak richly and beautifully will be forgotten as unnecessary. Communication will bring emotions and satisfaction. There will be an opportunity to develop your thinking and develop your own style.
Mandatory practice
You will never achieve success in public speaking if you refuse to speak in front of strangers. The practice of speaking in public shows the shortcomings of prepared information, thoughtful speech and its quality, your ability to communicate and try to find like-minded people.
If you have a fear of public speaking– practice more often and it should go away. Also, there are special techniques and entire systems (such as Turbo-Gopher) for overcoming fears. For example, Turbo-Suslik can give: a feeling of inner freedom, ease both in communication and performances. There, of course, the results are more serious and more interesting, but this is for those who want a lot and are ready.
Learning to express what you think and feel gives strength to further development. Feedback from others revives forgotten ideas and goals. You find understanding in communication, check your life program and are reborn as a person. The ability to formulate thoughts beautifully adds confidence and significance in life.
Notebook - assistant for analysis
Train yourself after every important conversation to analyze its results. Write down your speech of condemnation or approval in a separate notebook, highlighting mistakes and successes. Don't be afraid to speak your thoughts out loud, as if you were in front of a responsible commission for improving education. Reduce and eliminate your own shortcomings.
Wishes
There are little tricks for understanding how to consolidate the acquired skills and further develop your competent speech, continue to speak beautifully and meaningfully.
- Be sure to think about every word, savoring and falling in love with it. Gradually, speech will turn into a beautiful, reimagined game in which there is text and feeling.
- It is necessary to memorize key phrases from films, books, programs and speak in public, confirming your erudition.
- Decipher the meaning of unknown words to learn the correct pronunciation, stress, and position in a sentence.
- Insert the beautiful phrase you like appropriately and correctly. Otherwise, there is a danger of exposing yourself to ridicule.
Systematic, daily exercises will develop speech that any listener will enjoy. Once you receive approval, you will want to speak and perform more.
When you set an important goal - to learn to speak your native language and develop communication abilities, then, undoubtedly, new opportunities and meaning in life will open up.
Anyone can learn to convey inner feelings through beautifully spoken words if they want to create the prerequisites for life balance and creative potential. The resulting harmony between a person and the environment will make you feel happy, successful, and recognized. Go and enjoy your success.
01.03.2016
To improve diction and speech at home, without acting courses and individual work with a teacher, I recommend using a “dictaphone” and then two techniques. One for 10 minutes a day, the other from 10 to 45 minutes a day.
To complete the “Dictaphone” task, which will help you see yourself from the outside, be surprised at yourself, and really want to start actively working with your speech, we need a voice recorder itself. This could be a separate device or just a mobile phone that can perform a recording function.
So, we arm ourselves with a voice recorder and record our conversations with other people. After that, we listen to them and in the evening report we put our conclusions into the dialogue.
After recording yourself on a voice recorder, you will want to improve your speech. There are two techniques to help you.
First technique.
Tongue twisters 5 minutes a day with nuts in your mouth. Just five minutes, and the result will be stunning. Do everything in the order I’m going to tell you now so you can immediately see the result.
1. Take a voice recorder and record yourself on it. We say anything within a minute. About how the day went or what is happening outside the window. Doesn't matter.
2. Listen to what they said.
3. Put the nuts in your mouth. Walnuts, hazelnuts... any. We speak tongue twisters for 5 minutes.
The ship ran aground. The sailors ate caramel while aground for two weeks.
Greek rode across the river. He sees a Greek: there is a cancer in the river. He stuck the Greek’s hand into the river, and the crayfish grabbed the Greek’s hand—hey!
Cuckoo bought a hood. Put on the cuckoo's hood. How funny he is in the hood.
Karl stole corals from Clara, and Clara stole a clarinet from Karl.
There is grass in the yard, there is firewood on the grass, Do not cut wood on the grass in the yard.
Eagle on the mountain, feather on the eagle, Mountain under the eagle, eagle under the feather.
4. We take the recorder again and say anything again there. After that, we listen to the recording and are amazed at the purity of the pronunciation of words and sounds...
Second technique.
We read the book aloud. Every day from 10 to 30 minutes. As much as you can, if you can do 45 minutes, it will be even better. Naturally, we do this with 200% diligence!
Everyone will want to change something in their speech.
Speech abilities are given by nature, but they are not always ideal. Sometimes speech sounds slurred, which can negatively affect a person’s entire life. It is hardly possible to build a good career if words are forced to break through the “mess in your mouth.” How to improve diction? Are there special exercises? Let's talk about this.
To improve your diction and clarity of speech, you need to learn how to breathe correctly. The following exercises will help with this:
- We stand straight. Feet shoulder width apart. Palms lie on the belt. Inhale freely. We exhale air through pursed lips so that its resistance is felt. This exhalation must be done while moving. Imitate working with a scythe, an axe, cleaning the house with a broom/vacuum cleaner, and similar movements. You need to learn to exhale evenly, without tension (tension should be felt in the lower costal muscles).
- As you inhale, slowly bend forward. The back remains straight. Then we straighten up. We exhale and begin to draw out the word “gimmmm”, while simultaneously walking in place.
- As you inhale, slowly lean forward, spread your arms to the sides, and close them behind your head (at the back of your head). We straighten up as we exhale and chant the sounds “GN”, walking in place.
- Mouth closed. We take a short breath through the nose. While exhaling, tap your fingers along the edges of your nostrils. Exercise improves nasal breathing. Now we add a new element: while exhaling, we make the sounds “M” and “N”.
- The mouth is open. We inhale through the nose. Exhale slowly through your mouth.
- Self-massage. With a little effort we press through the intercostal muscles, then move on to the abdominal area. This helps stimulate local blood circulation.
We are working on the quality of diction
Doing certain exercises will help you improve your diction. Classes must be carried out daily, because only in this case can you get quick results.
Exercises to improve speech and diction include training the muscles of the palate.
- Slowly say the sounds “K” and “G” 3 times in a row. Then pronounce the sounds “A”, “O”, “E” with your mouth practically closed.
- Imitate mouth rinsing. The sensation should be similar to that of water in your mouth.
- The mouth is slightly open to the width of two fingers. Say the syllables “AMM-AMM.” At the same time, “A” sounds in a whisper, and “M” is loud and ringing.
To improve your speech and diction, you need to perform exercises to relieve muscle tension.
- Write a tongue twister on a piece of paper. Say it out loud, voicing only consonant sounds. In place of vowels there are gaps. Then repeat it in a full voice. This will help you understand in what position the articulatory apparatus is not working correctly.
- Take a deep breath and pinch your nose with your fingers. Read any text out loud. Exhale. Start reading the text again, taking breaths in the places necessary for the meaning (in accordance with the grammatical pauses).
Articulation gymnastics
If you are interested in how to improve your speech diction quickly, then you need to practice articulatory gymnastics. Regular training guarantees improvement in diction in the shortest possible time.
The complex includes the following exercises:
- A wide smile on his face. Teeth clenched. We fix the position for 10 seconds. Then we relax. An important point: both rows of teeth must be completely visible.
- Teeth clenched. The lips are folded into a tube, extended forward. We make the sound “U” for 10 seconds.
- The mouth is open, the tongue is pushed forward as far as possible. We fix the position for 5 seconds. Relaxing the muscles.
- The mouth is open. The tongue lies on the surface of the lower lip. Open your mouth as wide as possible and relax.
- Relax your lower jaw and fix this position. Lick your upper lip, extending your tongue as far as possible.
- Touch the tip of your tongue alternately with the upper and lower lip, pushing it forward. Do the exercise at a leisurely pace. The chin should remain motionless the entire time.
- Mouth closed. Use your tongue to apply pressure to the inner surface of your cheek, applying force for 4 to 6 seconds. Repeat on the opposite side.
- The lower jaw is lowered downwards. We make movements from side to side with it. Keep your head straight. She does not participate in the movement. Then we move the jaw forward/backward.
- There's a full smile on your face. Use the tip of your tongue to run along the inner surface of your lips. First along the top, then along the bottom, then we make a circular movement. The jaw is constantly fixed and does not move.
- A wide smile on his face. We run our tongue along the surface of the teeth, first the upper ones, then the lower ones. The jaw is fixed and does not move.
- A wide smile on his face. We run our tongue along the lip from corner to corner. Lips and jaw do not move. It is necessary to touch the surface of the lips, not the teeth.
- Stand straight, arms on chest (crossed). We bend forward slowly while inhaling, while loudly voicing the letters “O” and “U”.
The clarity of the pronunciation of sounds is ensured by the tip of the tongue. To improve diction, you need to improve your mobility.
- Use your tongue like a hammer, tapping your teeth with it. During each strike, pronounce the syllable “YES”. Then say the letters "T" and "D".
- To improve speech diction, it is necessary to develop the muscles of the larynx. This will help to establish clear pronunciation of the sounds “K” and “G”. We inhale through the nose and release the air through the mouth. As you exhale, begin to puff like a hedgehog - “FU-FU-FU.” The syllable is pronounced sharply.
- Training your lip muscles will help improve your speech and diction. This exercise improves the pronunciation of the sounds “P” and “B”. We puff out our cheeks and slam them together with our hands, just like in childhood.
Additional exercises
The ability to control the volume of air in the lungs will help improve diction and clarity of speech.
Stand in front of the mirror and read any text out loud with expression. First, do it in your usual voice. Then read it again, but much louder. By doing this exercise daily, you will soon learn to control how full your lungs are and will be able to easily deliver speeches of any size.
To improve diction in adults, the following exercise will help:
- Write the lines of your favorite poem on a piece of paper.
- Cross out all the consonants and sing the remaining vowels out loud.
- Then insert all the consonants again. Pronounce them loudly, loudly, continuing to sing the vowel sounds.
Performing a set of articulation exercises will help improve your speech and diction very quickly.
Improving voice timbre
- Stand straight. The chin is fixed in a natural position. We stretch our neck as far forward as possible, and fixate for a few seconds.
- Open your mouth, push your tongue as far forward/down as possible. The head is bowed to the chest. Raise your tongue to the tip of your nose while lifting your head. While moving, stretch your neck as far as possible.
- We take a deep breath. While exhaling, pronounce the word “BOMM” loudly, stretching out the last letter as long as possible. You should feel a slight vibration at the tip of your nose and upper lip.
- Full breath. We release the air from the lungs, pronouncing the syllable “MI-MII”. The first part is short, the second - in a drawn-out singsong voice.
- Stand straight, hands on your chest. As you inhale, bend forward and chant the letters “U” and “O”. After this, chant the words “MILK”, “FLOUR”, “TIN”.
- Click your tongue, gradually changing the position of your lips. At first they are gathered into a tube, at the end they are stretched into a full smile.
- The mouth is open, the nose is pinched with the fingers. We breathe through our mouths and at the same time read any text out loud. The duration of the exercise is 5 minutes.
- Head down, chin pressed to chest. We exhale, pronouncing the sounds “O” or “U” until the air runs out. We place our hand on the chest and, by patting, increase the vibration of the sound.
These exercises guarantee improvement in speech and voice timbre in a short time.
Working on speaking skills
How to improve your speech diction quickly? To achieve results, you will need to work on your speaking skills.
The tips are very simple, but significantly improve your speaking skills.
Pure talk
To improve diction and speech itself, you need to work on the pronunciation of pure words. This will help you practice specific sounds using specially rhymed phrases.
They differ from tongue twisters in that they contain one consonant sound many times. This will help you learn to pronounce complex sounds and improve your diction. You need to exercise every day. Improvement in speech after working with pure tongues happens quite quickly.
You need to pronounce pure phrases at a slow pace. It is very important to carefully pronounce each sound, paying attention to sound combinations that are difficult for you.
You must definitely control your pronunciation. This lesson must be recorded on a voice recorder. While listening to the recording, you can identify any pronunciation errors that have been made and correct them during the next one.
There are several tips that will help you achieve success in self-study:
- first you need to start doing the simplest exercises to improve speech and diction, gradually including more complex ones;
- classes should be carried out in any free time - this will help achieve results in a short time;
- It is advisable to do gymnastics daily, without taking breaks;
- make it a rule to periodically record short speeches on a voice recorder - this will help you celebrate your achievements;
- read additional literature and regularly practice new exercises, since the monotony of exercises can cause moral fatigue and refusal to exercise;
- If you have the opportunity to get advice from specialists, then you should not refuse it, as this is an excellent opportunity to receive additional practical advice.
If a person has the opportunity to attend theater courses, then this should be done. Classes with professionals will help you relax and master free speech. Experts will teach you expressive recitation, while diction, if not perfect, will improve significantly. And public speaking will no longer seem like an impossible mission.
If you swallow most of your words when speaking, or people around you can't understand what you're saying, you can try to improve the clarity of your speech. Here are a few ways you can speak more clearly, whether you need to give a speech, your profession requires public speaking, or perhaps you just want to improve your communication.
Steps
Don't rush while talking
- Public speaking often makes people nervous. If you find yourself feeling nervous and in a hurry, try to remind yourself that everything is fine and you need to slow down. Breathing correctly will help you stay calm and analyze your words.
- You should also remember that people want to hear what you have to say. Your words matter, so give them a chance to be heard and understood.
- The human ear is capable of picking up words very quickly, provided that you pronounce each word completely before you begin to pronounce the next one, because in this way you leave sufficient pauses between words so that everyone can understand you correctly.
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Swallow excess saliva in your mouth. Saliva remaining in the mouth can cause words to be swallowed and distorted pronunciation of consonants such as “S” and “K”.
- The moment you swallow can not only allow you to clear your mouth, but also give you the opportunity to pause and breathe again.
- Choose the moment to swallow saliva when you have already finished a sentence or thought, but not in the middle of a sentence. This will also give you time to prepare to say your next sentence.
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Speak up. If you need to speak publicly or give some kind of presentation, then perhaps you will at least write down the content in general terms. Practice pronouncing it while walking.
- Some actors use this technique to memorize their lines, as getting up and moving will help you remember what you need to say. Practice your speech and say one word at each step.
- It may seem difficult and slow, but by saying one word at a time, you will learn to slow down your speech. You don't need to speak this slowly in your speech or normal conversation, but feeling comfortable using a slower tempo will improve the clarity of your speech and allow you to take your time later.
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Repeat those words that are difficult to pronounce. When it is difficult to pronounce certain words, we often begin to rush and stumble over those words, resulting in unclear, jumbled speech. Practice pronouncing these words by saying them out loud over and over again until you develop muscle memory of how to sound them correctly.
Improving your diction
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Practice tongue twisters. Tongue twisters are a great way to improve the clarity of your speech, and mastering them will allow you to learn how to keep your speech clear and confident. Many actors and speakers practice tongue twisters before going on stage to warm up their voices.
Read aloud. If you're reading a book, or even just the morning newspaper, practice reading it out loud. This will help you become more familiar with how your voice sounds. Very often, when we talk to others, we hear ourselves in a completely different way from what our voice actually sounds like. Reading aloud in the comfort of your own home will help you listen to yourself and pay attention to those moments when your speech becomes unclear.
- You can also record your voice and listen to it, along the way, noting where you mumble or speak unclearly.
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Practice talking with a plug in your mouth. Many artists and voice actors do this exercise to improve their clarity of speech and diction, especially when reading something like the works of Shakespeare. When you put a cork under your tongue and begin to speak, you will force your mouth to work very hard to fully pronounce each syllable, and the cork will also prevent your tongue from stumbling on certain words.
- This exercise can tire out your jaw muscles, which will help you learn to relax them, but you don't want to do this for too long or your jaw will hurt.
- You can also use a napkin if you produce a lot of saliva during such exercises.
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Pay attention to intonation. Tone of voice also plays a big role in speech clarity and diction, as it can affect how you pronounce certain words.
- Are you giving a speech that should move people? They may have a hard time understanding you if you say it in a monotone or expressionless voice.
- Your intonation, whether you're excited, didactic, or casual, will make people pay attention to your speech and can also improve your clarity.
- Intonation when speaking depends entirely on the pitch of your voice. Pay attention to how high or low your voice sounds.
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Don't use rising intonations in your conversation. This nasty habit of speaking with a rising intonation makes your voice sound like you're asking a question.
Training your muscles
- Make wide chewing movements while humming something under your breath.
- Stretch every muscle in your jaw and face. Open your mouth as wide as possible (as if you are about to yawn), while at the same time making a circle with your lower jaw and moving it from side to side.
- Open your mouth wide, as in the previous exercise, and close it. Repeat this 5 times.
- Using your lips pressed together, try to make a buzzing sound, but do not clench your jaw.
Exercise your jaw muscles to improve your speech clarity. To make your speech much clearer, relax your jaw with a few exercises.
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Watch your posture. Just like breathing, your posture plays an important role in the clarity of your speech, and this is something that we often forget and don't take into account.
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- Even if you don't sing, you can hum a few notes or simply hum to yourself. Also try singing your tongue twisters.
- Say “Uuuuu...” several times, raising and lowering your intonation. Imagine that your voice is like a Ferris wheel, going up and down in a circle.
- Make a buzzing sound and pat your chest. This will help remove any phlegm that may collect in your throat.
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- Say “YEE” – pull the corners of your lips back and say “Eeeeeee...”.
- When talking to the other person, maintain confidence and remain relaxed. This will help you speak more clearly and clearly.
- You may feel strange or even a little embarrassed doing some of the exercises mentioned, but the more you practice, the easier and more effective the results will become.
- Say "Ah" - (as in "Arkansas" - drop your jaw down).
- Say the following sounds, emphasizing them strongly:
Aa her oo ee oh
Kaa kee koo kay ko
Saa shi soo sei so
Taa chii tsu tey to
Naa nii noo nai no
Haa hee ho hey ho
Maa mi moo mei mo
Yaaa eee eoo yaay yo
Raa rii roo rai ro
Waa vee voe vee voe. - Another exercise is to write a few sentences on a piece of paper, then underline the last letter of each word. As you read the sheet, exaggerate the sound of the last letters, then pause for a few seconds. You can also use commas between more words to slow down at that point.
- Demosthenes, a Greek thinker, practiced putting pebbles in his mouth to wean himself from stuttering. It's worth trying this with something clean, safe and edible, like cookies or ice cubes. Just be careful not to choke.
- Practice pronouncing vowel sounds and adding consonants to them, for example, “paa pau po poo pei pii pai, sou so suu say sii say...”
- Get all your thoughts out of your head and think about what you are going to say so that you forget about the anxious thoughts. This helps with public speaking.
Warnings
- When working your jaw and mouth, be careful not to overdo it or you will get injured. If you feel pain, you need to relax your facial muscles a little.
Control your breathing. Listen and watch a singer on stage and you will see how much attention he pays to his breathing. If Mick Jagger didn't know how to breathe properly, he wouldn't be able to run around the stage singing his song "You Can't Always Get What You Want." The same thing happens when speaking, so proper breathing can greatly improve the clarity of your speech.
Take your time when speaking. Speak slowly, but don't be so slow that you appear robotic.
According to statistics, about 30% of people suffer from diction disorders to some extent. Speech defects can be congenital, resulting from genes or intrauterine development, but most often, diction disorders are an acquired feature: defects appear and develop from the moment of birth and throughout life, their main reason is weakening of the muscles of the speech apparatus. In such cases, speech defects can be corrected independently, without the intervention of surgeons. We will look at the most common of them. So, how you can correct and improve your diction and overcome speech defects.
How to fix burr
Speech therapists have counted about 30 variants of distortion of the sound “r”, but most often it is its absence in pronunciation. This speech defect is very rarely congenital., but sometimes it can be caused by a too short hyoid ligament. The only solution to this problem is surgery. In other cases, the cause of burr lies in the weakness of the tongue.
Diction exercises
To develop the muscles of the tongue you will need to do the following:
1. Spread your tongue along the perimeter of your lower lip and pronounce the sounds “five-five-five.” You need to achieve an effect where the tongue can lie relaxed during the exercise. If successful, move on to the next step.
2. Try to cover the entire width of your upper lip with your tongue, from one corner of your mouth to the other. Then, maintaining the width of your tongue, move it under your upper teeth and practice pronouncing the sound “d-d-d.” If the muscles of the tongue are too weak, you can use a spoon to secure its position at first.
After a while, if you alternate exercises with tongue twisters, the sound “r” will begin to break through.
How to fix a lisp
If everyone is in their place and the bite is correct, then The cause of lisping speech is again weakness of the tongue muscles. For those who want to fight this defect, it is advisable to read aloud as much as possible: it is both useful for diction and enjoyable.
Diction exercises
1. Open your mouth in a wide smile so that your teeth are visible. Then you need to blow on the tip of your tongue until the whistling noise characteristic of the “s” sound is produced.
2. Do not remove your smile: run the tip of your tongue from the inside along the top row of teeth, from beginning to end, and then move on to the bottom row. The jaw should remain motionless.
3. Place your tongue between your upper and lower teeth and pronounce the syllable “sa.” At the sound “a” the mouth should open.
We also note that before getting rid of a lisp, you should make sure that you do not have problems with the passage of air through your nose. The fact is that when breathing through the nose is difficult, a person gets used to breathing only through the mouth, which causes the muscles of the tongue to become limp and weak.
How to fix slurred speech
The next common speech defect is expressed in slurred pronunciation of words, “swallowing” whole pieces of sounds. If instead of the word “person” you pronounce “check”, and “in short” sounds like “nomad”, the following tips will be useful to you:
1. Scan poems periodically, while beating the rhythm with your hand. Mayakovsky’s creations are perfect for this.
2. Create a collection of words in which you find an abundance of adjacent consonants and read the list periodically. We have already selected several of these: counter-revolution, postscript, stay awake, supernatural, party contribution and gratuitousness.
These exercises and tips will help you improve and correct your diction, but if the problem is too serious, contact a speech therapist - a professional will select methods and exercises exclusively for your case. Remember that Speech defects can and should be dealt with, even if you don’t dream of becoming a radio host. Good luck.