Talking Tip #15: Controlling the rate at which you speak will have a positive impact on your communication.   Speech Rate In this last post, I want to talk a bit about speech rate- how quickly we talk.  Many of us are fast talkers, and we are guilty of running...

Talking Tip #14: Projecting your voice the right way will make your message clear and understandable.     What do we do if we want to speak louder?  How do we make ourselves heard in a noisy restaurant or through a mask?  Do we yell? Do we force our speech? ...

  Talking Tip #13: Knowing about syllables and the phonemes of a language can help with speech clarity.   This post addresses a few of the core components of our speech and language syllables and phomemes.  When we talk, what exactly are we saying?  Do we...

  Talking Tip #12: Make sure to stress the important word in your message.   We’ve already talked about stress in words making sure we stress the correct syllable in long words so that others understand us.  But did you know that stressing the correct word...

  Talking Tip #11: Saying words with the correct emphasis or stressed syllable makes a huge impact on how well you are understood.   Stress  Stress can mean a few different things.  It’s something we feel.  It’s something we experience.  It’s also an aspect...

Talking tip #10: Pitch in questions can rise or fall at the end of our message depending on the type of question we ask.   In our last post, we talked about pitch in our statements, that our pitch starts low, rises up and down, goes to its highest level on the...

Talking tip #9: In statements, our pitch usually starts low, goes up and down, and then it rises highest on the most important word of our message before falling back down at the end.   What is pitch? Pitch, the highness and lowness of sound, is another important...

Tip#8: Your tongue is vital to your speech     Have you ever considered how important your tongue is to talking?  Without it, we would be hard-pressed to make our speech sounds.  Our tongue is vital to speaking.  It moves in the most intricate ways to make...

Tip #7: Our lips are a primary player in how we speak.     Our lips are an important factor in our speech.  We use our lips in a variety of ways to make our speech sounds.  When speaking North American English, our lips move and make different shapes to help...

Talking tip #6: Our jaw assists our speech.   Have you ever thought of your jaw playing a role in your speech?  Yes, it holds our teeth and anchors our tongue, but is that all it does for us when we are speaking?  Not exactly.   The Elevator The jaw can be...