How to learn to speak beautifully and express your thoughts correctly

From his lips flowed such competent, clear speech, such intelligent and deep thoughts that from an old man he turned into a stately, representative speaker. Nobody noticed his thick glasses, bald head and threadbare suit anymore. Isn't it amazing?

Agree: clear, consistent and convincing presentation of your thoughts is a real art. And in order for your words to be listened to in the same way as that professor, you need to give a speech and learn to speak competently. This will be useful to you in any area of ​​life.

Thanks to these skills, you can be the life of the party, easily convince a potential partner to sign a contract with you, speak effectively in front of an audience and achieve any goals you set.

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

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

Let's describe a well-delivered speech:

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Keeping listeners' attention

The main function of beautiful speech is the ability to attract the attention of the interlocutor. You always want to listen to an eloquent storyteller; such a person easily becomes the life of the party, he has many friends and is rarely alone.

The secret of an attractive speech is simple:

it is involvement in the storytelling process. The brighter the storyteller's eyes shine, the more he wants to intrigue and surprise his listener, the more tangible the result. You can master this art and develop eloquence by attending courses on competent speech and acting classes, and it consists of three main factors:

1. Bright intonations.
   Through intonation, emotions are conveyed to the listener; he gets the opportunity to enjoy the story not only on an informative level, but also on a sensory or empathy level.
2. Eventfulness.
   The question from an interested listener is: “what happened next?” The answer to it is the event, that is, what the whole story was started for. There are many events in an interesting story; the narrator masterfully leads the listener from one to the next, preventing him from relaxing and getting bored.
3. Structure and logic.
   Well-delivered speech is easier to understand. Without structure, it turns into a pile of information, which is difficult and tedious to navigate. Logic allows you to correctly place accents, highlight important points in the story and highlight secondary ones. Logic reveals thought.

Working on speech technique

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

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

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

Diction training

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

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

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

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

The most common diction disorders:

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

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

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

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

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

Practicing speech techniques

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

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

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

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

Getting rid of parasitic words

It is no coincidence that parasitic words have this name. A parasite is a creature that lives at someone else’s expense, is not useful, unnecessary and even harmful. Parasitic words eat up your listener’s attention, sometimes distracting them from the main idea so much that the interlocutor begins to count them.

Imagine how stupid this is: you put your heart and soul into sharing something interesting and important, and your friend counts the words “in short” and “that’s it.”

Speech and thinking are interconnected, speech parasites live in your head and parasitize on your thoughts.

Remember: you say a filler word not because it helps you express your thoughts better, but because you have nothing to say instead.

It's like a patch to cover a hole in a sentence, and it looks as messy as a patch on clothing.

To build competent speech and get rid of parasites, pay attention to them. The best way to do this is to record your own voice. After listening to the recording of several conversations, you will understand the logic by which you arrange these harmful words. Figure out what exactly your speech is missing in order to avoid patches, start practicing and you will definitely achieve results.

Speech development

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

Correct sentence construction

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

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

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

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

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

Increasing vocabulary

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

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

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

Getting rid of parasitic words

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

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

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

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

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

Reading classic literature

Reading is not just advice, it is a condition. The speech of people who do not read is poor, monotonous and not always literate. This is especially noticeable among those whose friends, parents and loved ones also do not have a love for literature. This can be explained by a wise Russian proverb: whoever you get along with, you will gain from it.

Speech is constantly enriched: everything that you read or hear in someone else’s speech passes through the subconscious. New speech structures, words and intonations linger and replenish your reserves. Often you notice new features of speech when you can no longer do without them.

Poverty of speech is passed on from mouth to mouth, just like wealth. Therefore, read for yourself and communicate with people who read.

Don't know how to choose literature? Luckily for you, there is a lot of it. Start by identifying the genre that appeals to you the most. This could be fantasy (John Tolkien), science fiction (the Strugatsky brothers), satire (Ilf and Petrov), novels in verse (Pushkin), ancient tragedy (Sophocles) and much more. The meaning of this choice is to awaken in yourself a taste for reading, so as not to do it under duress, and to receive not only benefits, but also pleasure. Read recognized classics of your genre, and this will help you learn how to correctly formulate your speech. By following these rules, the chance of stumbling upon bad literature will be negligible.

Speech training

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

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

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

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

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

“Putting up” a vote

A well-trained voice is needed not only by actors, musicians and representatives of other creative professions, but also by those people who want to learn how to speak beautifully and clearly express their thoughts.

To become the owner of a voice that has ideal strength, range and timbre, you need to systematically train it. Clear and loud recitation of poems, prose poems, elegies, fables, or any other texts that evoke positive emotions will help improve your voice power.

To expand and “tune” the range of your voice, perform special text exercises every day in the lowest or highest tones. Depending on your goal, your voice should become lower or higher.

The timbre of the voice depends on the additional tone (overtones). The sound of the additional tone resembles a kind of echo. An additional tone occurs when the sound of your voice is reflected from the larynx, skull, chest cavity, or the surface of any other natural resonator.

Lexicon

The active vocabulary of the average person is 15 thousand words. The works of Alexander Sergeevich Pushkin contain about 23 thousand words, the dictionary of Vladimir Ivanovich Dahl - 200 thousand. The heroine of the novel “The Twelve Chairs,” Ellochka the cannibal, got by with 30 words. You can find out the size of your passive vocabulary here.

Passive vocabulary is words that are familiar to a person, but are not needed in speech. Active vocabulary – words regularly used by a person in communication. Speech culture involves the systematic use of at least 50% of passive vocabulary.

We suggest performing 4 exercises that will transfer your vocabulary from sleep mode to active mode.

1. "Unpacking"

Take a pen, a piece of paper, a timer. Within a minute, say out loud as many nouns as you can without repeating yourself. At the same time, for each word, place a stick/dot/tick on a sheet of paper. Count the number of nouns named. Do the same with adjectives and verbs.

The norm is the ratio of nouns/adjectives/verbs – 54/46/42 words.

The number of verbs indicates the authority and ability of speech to motivate action. Adjectives make speech salient, emotional and memorable. Nouns - give definitions to objects and phenomena.

This technique of speech creativity helps to unpack the resources of the brain, memory and imagination. Practice for 7 days and you will notice how your active vocabulary increases.

1. "Like Cicero."

The ancient Roman philosopher, orator and politician Cicero expanded his vocabulary by retelling sublime poetry. Moreover, he conveyed the content of what he read in the best expressions that he could find.

Follow his example. Remember, in Russian there are at least 6 synonyms for each word. Use them.

This method will not only expand your active vocabulary, but also teach you how to improvise in any situation.

1. "Remember all".

Your task is to remember and describe the person you spoke with an hour ago. Stretch your memory and characterize his appearance, manner of speech, subject of conversation, and your feelings during the communication process. The more epithets you name, the better.

1. “Use it!”

Reading and listening to audiobooks is a smart method of enriching vocabulary. We propose to improve it. When you find an expressive, rarely used word in a book, write it down. Make up a few sentences where it would be appropriate. For 5 days, use the word you found in live communication or in correspondence.

This way, the new word will not end up on the dusty shelf of your memory, but will enter your active vocabulary.

Practice, friends, and you definitely won’t have to reach into your pocket for words.

Composition

An indisputable sign of a culture of speech is a clearly thought-out composition of a statement. It would be rude to begin the story without greeting the audience. Or start your speech with the climax of the story.

Is it possible to master the skill of composition? Yes. To do this, several conditions must be met:

• a clear understanding of the main idea and purpose of communication;
• fluency in the material;
• listener's feeling;
• the ability to quickly respond to audience cues and rearrange speech;
• the ability to remain at ease during communication, not to strain the body, to “juggle” intonations.

A properly constructed composition allows the speaker to command and control the attention of listeners. Increase interest if the audience has cooled down. To enliven speech and make it emotionally attractive to listeners, perform the exercise of the ancient Greek philosopher and rhetorician Gorgias.

Take any item. For example, a pot of cactus. Sing his praises for a minute. Remember its positive qualities, benefits, describe the visual appeal of the item in the brightest colors. Then immediately blaspheme him for a minute.

Try to be as categorical as possible, radical both in censure and applause. Be sure to express your emotions non-verbally: facial expressions, gestures, eye expressions. Show freedom in your intonation.

Diction

Imagine a speaker who slurs his words, barely moves his mouth, or “swallows” sounds. What kind of speech culture can we talk about here? Impeccable diction is a sign of respect for the interlocutor, and also attracts people to us and arouses sympathy.

We recommend that you take 4 actions that will make your diction clear:

1. Control. Pay attention to whether you eat the endings or beginnings of words. Be careful not to shorten vowel sounds. They are the ones who make the speech voluminous and give it influence.
2. Articulate. The expression “look into the mouth” has a completely straightforward interpretation: during communication, the interlocutor not only perceives information by ear, but also pays attention to articulation. And the more expressive and clear it is, the more authoritative what you are talking about becomes.

To develop this language skill, read aloud using more expressive language than you do in everyday life.

1. Recite. Any text that interests you is suitable for this purpose. Just don't make it dry. Add emotions, try yourself in different guises. Look for reasons to speak in public, start a dialogue, or make a toast. The more speech practice, the more effectively your diction “pumps up”.
2. Experiment. Try new images, don’t stick to your basic speech style. Change the tone, volume, speed of speech. Be bright and bold, don't be boring and samey.

On our website you will find tongue twisters to improve your diction.

Friends, develop a culture of speech. Improve the overall culture. Respect your interlocutors and the Russian language in general. I wish you success!

We also recommend reading:

• Storytelling
• How to make the meaning of a speech clear
• "What else can you tell me?"
• Why you need to improve your vocabulary
• Parasitic words and how to get rid of them
• How to transfer vocabulary from passive vocabulary to active?
• How to learn to speak beautifully
• How to develop eloquence: some tips
• Rhetorical hand
• George Orwell's 5 Rules for Those Who Want to Learn to Write
• Logical memory and its development

Key words:1Rhetoric, 1Russian

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Learning to breathe correctly

Exercises to train breathing from the diaphragm

Constant breathing training will help a person master the ability to speak beautifully. The most suitable is the diaphragmatic-costal one. It involves a quick, light inhalation, which slightly lifts the abdominal muscles and slightly expands part of the chest. Exhalation is done through the mouth, the air passes slowly and smoothly.

At first, when performing the exercise, you should place your hand on the diaphragm area for control (it should be tense, while the shoulders and chest do not move).