How to improve your pronunciation - and why it matters

First impressions are made remarkably fast, and part of that impression is how well a person speaks. Is the person's speech easy to understand, and does he or she sound confident and caring?

People have difficulty speaking clearly for several reasons. Some are bilingual and have strong accents when speaking English. Others have strong regional accents. Some speak very fast and others have lisps or other issues.

Record yourself.

Here are three tips to improve your communication skills. First determine how clearly you currently speak. Record yourself reading for 30 seconds, speaking on the telephone (without having the other person's voice be recorded) for 30 seconds and then talking to someone for 30 seconds. Ask several native speakers of English to listen. Have them  tell you if they understood you some of the time, most of the time, or all of the time, in each of the 3 segments. For most people, reading aloud is the easiest to do clearly, because you do not need to think of the words to say. Write down the words they say are difficult to understand.

Practice

Second, practice those words and words that have similar sounds. If the sounds that are difficult to understand are at the front of the words, use a dictionary to find other words with the same sounds. Practice the words for several days, because they need to be spoken clearly in conversation later.

For faster progress

Do you need rapid progress so you can speak well at a conference or on the telephone, when giving a speech, when being interviewed for a job or by the media? If so,  professional speech coaching on pronunciation, non-verbal skills, small talk and  learning to speak slower can be invaluable. A corporate speech pathologist can do an assessment and then provide you with exercises and objective feedback on your progress.

How speech coaching is done

Speech coaching can be done intensively, in just 1 - 3 days of in-person coaching, with a follow-up plan. For those in the Raleigh-Durham, NC (USA) area, it can be done hourly. In some cases, communication coaching can be done online.

Many companies will pay for speech coaching as a career development expense. Some may suggest it if the person's speech affects his ability to work effectively. Others wait for a person to request this type of coaching.

Don't be self-conscious about your speech; if you can't improve it yourself, contact us today to get some help!