How to speak more clearly

Tongue twisters. Practicing tongue twisters is a great way to improve your fluency because when you master these sentences, you’ll learn how to keep your voice clear and confident. Many actors and speakers often practice tongue twisting to practice their voice before stepping on stage.

• Start speaking very slowly and gradually increase your speed until you can say these sentences at normal conversational speed. When practicing tongue twisters, emphasize each word clearly so that your tongue, jaw, and lips must work actively. When you get used to speaking, try to raise your voice and emphasize it more. Doing so will help train your speaking skills and strengthen your mouth muscles. ^[3]
• Try practicing some of the tongue twisters below to speak more clearly:
  • Eat sour grapefruit at noon (Repeat).
  • Copper pot cooks snails, clay pot cooks frogs. (Repeat).
  • Whenever you go to the mountain to take bamboo back to make a shack, you should pay attention to flood water.

Read out loud. When reading a book or reading the news in the morning, read it out loud to get used to your voice when you speak. Often when we talk to others, we don’t really hear ourselves and pay attention to our voice. By reading aloud from the comfort of your home, you can listen to yourself and pay attention to areas where you are not clear.

• You can also record your speech and play it back to note where you mumble or aren’t clear.

Practice speaking while holding a cork in your mouth. Many actors and voice actors use this exercise to improve their speech fluency and pronunciation, especially when performing Shakespeare classics. ^[4] When you use your teeth to bite the cork while speaking, the mouth muscles will have to work really hard to pronounce each syllable, and the cork will also prevent the tongue from tripping once. certain number of words.

• This exercise will make your jaw tired and you will have to learn how to relax your jaw, but don’t do it for too long to avoid pain.
• You should prepare a handkerchief because this exercise will cause the mouth to produce a lot of saliva.

Pay attention to the tone. Tone also contributes to the clarity of speech and expression as it can affect the way you pronounce certain words.

• If your speech is intended to cheer others up and you use a monotone and monotonous voice, it may be difficult for them to understand.
• Your tone of voice, whether excited, informative, or conversational, will influence your listeners’ attention and will make your speech clearer and easier to understand.
• Tone includes both your attitude and the pitch of your voice. Pay attention to the highs and lows of your voice as you speak.

Avoid raising your voice. Raising your voice at the end of a sentence is a bad habit because the listener will feel like you are asking them a question. ^[5]

• End sentences with a strong, affirmative tone and exude confidence. ^[6]
• Many people raise their voice at the end of a sentence when they are not confident in what they are saying. Maybe that’s when someone asks you what you do and you answer, “I’m a designer?” Raising your voice at the end of the sentence makes your answer sound like you’re asking the speaker back, instead, you should be confident and assert, “I’m a designer.”

Exercise jaw muscles. Do some exercises to relax your jaw muscles so you can speak more clearly.

• Practice the wide chewing movement while humming softly in your mouth.
• Stretch all jaw and facial muscles. Open your mouth as wide as you can (like when you’re about to yawn) and move your jaw in a circular and side-to-side motion.
• Open your mouth wide like the previous exercise and then close it. Repeat the movement 5 times.
• Pinch your lips and imitate the humming of a bee, but be careful not to clench your jaw.

Pay attention to posture. Like breathing, your posture when speaking also plays an important role in the clarity of your speech, and sometimes we forget about this. ^[7]

• To be clearest, you should stand up straight, push your shoulders back, and distribute your weight evenly.
• You can do a few shoulder swings and side-to-side swings to improve your posture. ^[8] These exercises also help you breathe better. Alternatively, you can also incorporate jaw exercises while stretching.

Activate the vocal cords. The vocal cord warm-up will help you relax and train your voice to speak clearly and impressively.

• Even if you don’t sing, you can practice your voice from low to high, humming in your mouth or practicing a few tongue twisters.
• Practice the “u” sound from low to high. Imagine your voice is like a sundial that goes round and round.
• Humming and patting the chest to help clear up phlegm.

Avoid clenching your teeth when speaking.

• By clenching your teeth, you’re straining your muscles, and that can be a sign of stress. Moreover, when the jaw is clenched, you will not be able to open your mouth wide enough to pronounce and speak clearly.
• If you find yourself clenching your jaw as you speak, you can do a few warm-ups, take a deep breath, puff your cheeks, and then exhale slowly, like releasing air from a balloon.