Improve Your Enunciation and Sound Confident

2. Stop Dropping Your G's; Enunciation Matters

3. The Speech Problem For listeners, one of the most irritating speech habits is a speaker that doesn’t enunciate clearly. When you don’t bother to pronounce each syllable of each word properly and words get slurred together, you sound uneducated. Worse, your listener has a hard time hearing you – especially if there’s other noise around you or when you’re speaking on the phone.

4. Dropping “g”s is one of the most common examples of poor enunciation. Say this list of words out loud: Going Walking Jogging Thinking Striking Selling

5. Did you say “go-ing” or did you say “go-in”? If you said “go-in” (or “walk-in”, “jog-gin”, etc.), you’re a G-dropper. Be warned; this was not a fair test. Pronouncing words in isolation is very different than what we normally do when we speak.

6. Say these sentences out loud: 1. I’m going to have to rethink that bid. 2. Waiting to hear back from the bank is very nerve-wracking and stressful. 3. Before starting my business, I looked at a lot of different business opportunities. 4. There’s more to learning than just reading, writing and arithmetic.

7. The Benefits of Enunciation As your enunciation improves, your listeners will: Form a better impression of you as you speak, thinking of you as an educated, knowledgeable person, more worthy of trust. Be better able to focus on the message you’re communicating, rather than being distracted by the way you’re expressing yourself.

8. Say each of the following sentences out loud three times each, as quickly as you can while fully enunciating each word. 1) Keeping customers content creates kingly profits. 2) Success seeds success. 3) Bigger business isn’t better business but better business brings bigger rewards.

9. 4) Wanting won’t win; winning ways are active ways. 5) Seventeen sales slips slithered slowly southwards. 6) Don’t go deep into debt. 7) Ensuring excellence isn’t easy. 8) Time takes a terrible toll on intentions. Repeat this exercise as many times as you like.

10. You will need a partner for this exercise. As the listener, your partner’s role is to listen for the particular speech problem being worked on and record all instances of the speech problem. As the speaker, your role is to speak impromptu on one of the following speech topics for two minutes.

11. Do NOT spend time thinking about the topic before you speak. • What you would do if you won five million dollars on the lottery? • If you had unlimited resources, what would you do to start your business? • 3. Which of the five senses is most important? Why? • 4. What are the best things to do to relax? Why? • 5. What’s the worst fault a person can have? Why? • 6. If you could be young again, would you? Why? • 7. What are two things you least like to do? Why? • 8. If you could visit any place in the world, where would you go? Why? • 9. What do you like most about living where you live? Why?

12. FIGURATIVE LANGUAGE/SOUND DEVICES ALLITERATION and ASSONANCE

13. I saw Susie sitting in a shoe shine shop.Where she sits she shines, and where she shines she sits.

14. How many boardsCould the Mongols hoardIf the Mongol hordes got bored?

15. Sheena leads, Sheila needs. • Six sick hicks nick six slick bricks with picks and sticks.

16. I wish to wish the wish you wish to wish, but if you wish the wish the witch wishes, I won't wish the wish you wish to wish

17. There was a fisherman named Fisherwho fished for some fish in a fissure.Till a fish with a grin,pulled the fisherman in.Now they're fishing the fissure for Fisher.

18. Luke Luck likes lakes.Luke's duck likes lakes.Luke Luck licks lakes.Luck's duck licks lakes.Duck takes licks in lakes Luke Luck likes.Luke Luck takes licks in lakes duck likes.

19. ALLITERATION • When the beginning of many words in a row sound the same • The purple and pink pig put pennies in the pool • Better be a better boy before you botherbetting that you'll bring her back home again.

20. Alliteration Matching initial consonants

21. Identify the consonant sound you hear at the beginning of most words in the sentence.

22. Click on the picture to hear it again. C B G

23. D B H

24. F K H

25. V Q L

26. P B M

27. Write the complete sentence on your notebook.

28. F S Z

29. T Th CH

30. Y V F

31. C T J

32. Q F D

33. J Y K

34. M R P

35. V Q S

36. H T Sh

37. V L Y

38. Ch N F

39. D K G

40. D K S

41. N L B

42. B P R

43. T F J

44. G V W

45. Assonance: The repetition of vowel sounds in the middle of words

46. Examples: It beats... as it sweeps... as it cleans!  (The "ee" sound is repeated.) The silken sad uncertain rustling of each purple curtain.

47. Princess Kitty will kiss Timmy T. Tippers’s lips The pain may drain Drake, but maybe the weight is fake.

48. "As I was going to St. Ives, I met a man with seven wives, Every wife had seven sacks, every sack had seven cats, Every cat had seven kittens: kittens, cats, sacks and wives, How many were going to St. Ives?"-- delivered by Jeremy Irons, from the movie Die Hard with a Vengeance (as taken from the riddle poem "As I was going to St. Ives")

49. ALLITERATION OR ASSONANCE 1. Silly Sally sold sea shells on Saturday. 2. Becky’s beagle barked and bayed, becoming bothersome for Billy. 3. Hear the mellow wedding bells. 4. Yarvis yanked you at yoga, and Yvonne yelled. 5. Zachary zeroed in on zoo keeping. 6. Try to light the fire. 7. I lie down by the side of my bride.

50. Fleet feet sweep by sleeping geese. • Pink Floyd’s “Hear the lark and harken to the barking of the dark fox gone to ground.” • 10. Sara’s seven sisters slept soundly in sand • Tim’s took tons of tools to make toys for tots. • 12. “The crumbling thunder of seas” by Robert Louis Stevenson22. • 14. Vivien’s very vixen-like and vexing. • Walter walked wearily while wondering where Wally was. • Xavier’s x-rayed his xylophone.