How to create a promo video

Essential criteria

1. The length of a promo video is 30-90 seconds. It is short and sweet.

2. Its purpose is to showcase your product or service in a way that attracts and motivates your target audience to buy it.

3. Conduct market research and identify your target audience's demographics, motivations and pain points

4. Make sure your visual elements and graphics reflect your company's values and please your target audience

Content creation

1. Define your core messages.
   For example:
   - what is my product/service
   - where you can buy and use it
   - what is the competitive advantage or unique benefit of your product/service for yout customers

2. Identify call for action (CFA)

3. Use story telling technique

4. Use short words/verbs

5. Avoid convoluted language, complex terminology and jargon

6. Ensure your content sounds natural and conversational

Promo video delivery

1. Record your video several times and ensure good speech articulation and compelling intonation. You can master these skills with the apps ‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech and ‎Fluent English Speech

2. Use pauses and modulate your voice. Download the app and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause to practise these powerful techniques.

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Impromptu speech

Impromptu speech or a table topic is a skill that requires practice. However, there are techniques to make your table topic stand out and give you confidence when delivering it.

Below are my tips.

1.       Allow yourself time to think what you will say while walking to the podium, and slowly repeat the topic. Prepare what you are going to say in your head

2.       Remember, how you say it is often more important than what you say. Modulate your voice, use pauses and articulate well. You can master these skills with the apps ‎Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause, ‎Fluent English Speech and ‎Get Rid of your Accent UK1.
For example, use a dramatic pause before saying something important and say it very loudly. This will wake up your audience.

3.       If you struggle to answer the question of your table topic, you can simply dismiss it and talk about what you want, but make it interesting. I recently received a boring table topic and instead I recited my favourite poem. I won the award for the best table topic.

4.       Smile and create zigzag eye contact with your audience

5.       Keep straight posture and use open body language to create an image of a confident person

6.       Breathe, use lots of pauses to separate your ideas.

7.       Enjoy speaking and do not rush yourself to finish it too early (speak for at least one minute), at the same time be aware of the allocated time (maximum of 2 minutes) and prepare a powerful ending.

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Effectiveness

I have met many people who are always extremely busy, work a lot and at the same time cannot get ahead in life.
One of the reasons is the lack of effectiveness. People with ineffective behaviour patterns:
1. Jump into doing things that are of low value too soon
2. Work in an old-fashioned way, a way they are used to and reluctant to use modern/new tools
3. Do not have a concrete plan with deadlines
4. Unsure what they want and cannot set clear goals
5. Try to do most things by themselves and avoid delegating
6. Waste time on their weaknesses instead of building on their strengths.
7. Fool themselves and avoid facing reality.
8. Multitask and jump from task to task

How can we become more effective?
How about spending an hour a day thinking about our effectiveness? I usually think about my effectiveness before going to bed (make notes of what I want to achieve in writing) and when I just wake up and have my morning tea (edit my notes).
Once you know what you want to achieve write a detailed plan of how you want to achieve it and what resources you would need for that.
Another useful tip is to understand your energy levels and distribute tasks accordingly. For example, in the morning I prefer to concentrate on the most strategic/significant tasks. In the afternoon, I do routine things that do not require mental focus and concentration.
When dealing with people, the most effective way is to follow universal principles: love others as you love yourself, do not judge others and you will not be judged, etc.
To be effective, constantly examine the tools you use. Answer the following questions: which tool is effective and which are not, are there any new tools you want to try?

I believe that effective people work less and achieve more; they free their time to do things they love, rather than working 24/7 to perform tasks that neither lead them anywhere nor make them happy.

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201. Energy management

Life is energy and no matter how much time we have if we do not have energy we can’t achieve much.
To manage energy I identify where there is an unnecessary leakage of my energy and secondly, I develop a routine to recharge my batteries.
I identify five types of energy: physical, mental, emotional, spiritual and sexual.

We all know how to maintain good physical energy: eat and sleep well, exercise, avoid alcohol, drugs and chemicals in our bodies. However, I have noticed that modern society puts too much pressure on looking perfect. Many of my girlfriends waste too much energy in the gym, shopping and doing makeup to look like Kim Kardashian. As a result, they look like low-energy empty dolls. I also noticed that many men in the gym look exhausted and unhappy, they look in the phones and pretend they exercise.

Mental energy is the power of focus and attention and the ability to concentrate. Constant texts, social media, YouTube videos and people who talk nonsense are the main leakages of my mental energy which I try my best to avoid. People say that we should give a gift to listen to others. I strongly disagree because if they talk nonsense it’s a waste of my energy.
To recharge my mental energy I love looking at the fire and walking on the beach. Having the house in good shape for me is the number one condition to be able to concentrate on intellectual work.

When we feel negative feelings we drain ourselves of energy and when we experience positive emotions we recharge emotionally. After each communication, I make a note in my journal of how I feel afterwards. If the person took my emotional energy and made me feel negatively I avoid them in future.
Another leakage of my energy is the worry that is steered by fears. Most of my fears are just my illusions and whenever I feel I am worried I ask myself: what am I afraid of? What is the worst that can happen to me? Then I realise that my fear is not worth my energy because I will survive and in the big scale of things my little fear is so small.
Spiritual energy is the most powerful energy we have. The proof of that is the life of people like Victor Frankl and many others. We are being robbed of our spiritual energy when we experience betrayal, vulgarity, and being lied to.
What helps me to stay in a strong spirit is my connection with a higher consciousness - God and my strong belief that with God I can achieve anything. I like to visit churches and cemeteries and I feel recharged after that.

To manage sexual energy is very easy: only have sex with people you truly want and avoid sex with people who you do not want.

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200. How do you get started mastering your speech?

How do you get started mastering your speech?

If you are confronted by enemies such as laziness and procrastination there are tools that you can use to overcome them:
1. 5 sends rule. Do not allow your brain a chance to be lazy. As soon as you want to do something your brain will try to find reasons why it would be better to do nothing, So you have just five seconds to start with what you want to do, count 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 and get started.

2. The power of small steps.Do small actions regularly. Small actions are not frightening for our brain and we choose to do something simple. Our brain likes to do not what is important but what is simple. Break an important task into baby steps and do them regularly. Speech is a very technical subject. To master your speech effectively break it into simple steps and exercise regularly. My favourite app based on RP is ‎Elocution Lessons because it is very easy to use.

3. Develop a habit of achieving small goals: set up a goal, do small steps, get results, reward yourself, acknowledge your risen self-esteem, set up a higher goal and repeat the same circle. When can we be sure that a desired action is our habit? There is a common opinion that it takes 21 days for a habit to set in. I disagree. Some habits take longer. The habit is set for sure when doing something is more comfortable than not doing it. Many people have developed some bad speech habits: they mumble, do not articulate, use too many parasite words, rush their speech, etc.

4. What do all great people have in common? They have great goals. Imagine the benefits of having good speech and how it can help you achieve other important goals.

5. Surround yourself with people who have good speech and motivate you. It can be a public speaking club and other societies.

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199. How to maintain good pronunciation and articulation

After taking our courses and classes students recognise that their speech became better but they fear that after some time bad speech habits might creep in. They are not wrong. I have been travelling to Italy for the last five years and have been learning Italian. I have noticed my foreign accent returned when I speak English although once my English speech was close to perfect.

I have started working on my speech with our apps and in this blog post, I will share my tips about eliminating a strong foreign accent and maintaining clear English speech.

1. Working on speech and maintaining good speech is similar to working in the gym in order to develop muscles and stay fit. The muscles of our lips, tongue and jaw should be regularly trained. This means training regularly for 2-45 minutes every day every other day.
   I recommend that you always start with a warm-up: muscular and articulation exercises. You will find them in all our books and apps. Do them for 2-3 minutes at the beginning of your training session.

2. After that work on the English sounds that make your speech difficult to understand. In our experience, almost all students need to work on pure English long vowels. Work on the same vowel for 3-4 days.

3. Prepare what you will say in advance and record your speech. Listen to your recording noting areas for improvement; record it again several timers if necessary until you are happy with the result.

4. Read a short text out loud and record yourself several times

5. When working with the apps copy not only the sounds but also intonation patterns and sentence stress

6. Slow down your speech and avoid saying too much with bad pronunciation. Remember that how you say it is often more important than what you say.

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198. Accent and voice

The main issues that our clients have are:

1. A strong regional or foreign accent

2. Weak voice

3. Rushed speech

To neutralise a regional or foreign accent we recommend doing an individual speech analysis and work on Received Pronunciation - a neutral British accent. After the speech analysis, we can tell how many lessons a student might need to neutralise their accent. Accent work involves working on pure English vowels and diphthongs as well as consonants to make articulation sharp and crisp. We have three apps that help with that:
‎Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎‎Business English Speech, Elocution Lessons.

Accent reduction tips

1. Identify English sounds that are difficult to pronounce for you and your nationality. For example /w/ sound does not exist in French and French substitute it with /v/ sound.

2. Learn the placement of the tongue lips and jaw for sounds you need to practice

3. Use the mirror to control the correct place your tongue and jaw for a particular sound

4. Listen to the model pronunciation, copy it, then record yourself and compare your speech with the model. Do three repetitions of one exercise
   

   The main features of a weak voice are bad articulation, lack of voice power and high voice pitch. Students can master their voice with the app Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. To enhance voice power we recommend breathing exercises.

   This app also helps with rushed speech.
   There can be a number of reasons to speak fast. I will focus on the two obvious:

   1. Feeling nervous. To overcome nervousness, we recommend that you take a couple of nice deep breaths to release the tension.

   2. Fast brain 

   A fast brain is something people are born with, you cannot change it.

   One may ask: can I learn to slow down and overcome my fast brain that forces me to speak fast?

   There is a simple yet very effective exercise that can help you to slow down:

   1. When you speak, try to separate each idea of thought by using pauses. Count 1, 2, 3 in your head after each idea and allow yourself to breathe and relax. Don't link all ideas; don't deliver them all in one breath.

   2. In a conversation with another person, make a pause after each question, do not jump on the answer straight away.

   3. Read out loud using the punctuation. In your head, count 1,2,3 in place of a full stop, and count 1 in place of a comma. Make even longer pauses between paragraphs.

For best results, we recommend one online or in-person lesson a week and working individually with the apps for 10-15 minutes a day.

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197. How long does it take to speak like native English?

It depends on five factors:
1. Your age
The earlier you start speaking English the easier it will be for you to talk like a native English speaker. When you start speaking in your native language your tongue, lips and jaw muscles are trained for your native language and the older you are the more difficult it would be to retrain them for English.

2. Your environment
Even if you live in an English-speaking country but your family and friends, peers and teachers speak with foreign accents you will unconsciously copy their accents. If you listen to music, watch films and news in your native language and not in English that too will contribute to you having a foreign accent. If you want to speak like a native English avoid speaking in your native language.

3. Hearing abilities
If you have good hearing abilities your chances of speaking like a native are higher than for those with poor hearing abilities

4. Time and effort you are prepared to invest in mastering English
To learn to speak like a native train daily for 10–30, rather than once a week for two hours. Regularity and consistency are the key.

5. Method of learning English and teachers
Choose an effective method with professional apps and a qualified speech tutor.
We had many students with strong foreign accents who told us they had a degree in English. In EFL colleges pronunciation is often neglected and qualified speech/accent tutors are very rare. The difference between an English teacher (TEFL) and a speech or elocution tutor is vast. EFL teachers focus on grammar, use of English etc, whilst speech tutors know how sounds are formed in the mouth and by listening to students they know exactly if their tongue position is too low are the law position is too closed, for example.

In conclusion, I want to mention that there are many accents and dialects in Britain: Northern, Scottish, Cockney, RP and many others. RP or Received Pronunciation is taught to foreigners because it is understood around the world and is called Standard English. RP is also a compulsory accent to learn for actors in British drama schools. American accents vary too: Southern, New York, Boston, etc.. You can learn to speak with a General American accent which is an accent of educated American people who have mastered their speech such as news presenters, diplomats and presidents. It involves working on your articulation, pronunciation and intonation.

You can master to speak like a native with professional apps based on RP:
‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎and ‎Fluent English Speech (British English) or ‎ American Accent App and ‎Fluent American Speech (based on General American accent), and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

The apps are available on the AppStore and Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model (actors with perfect pronunciation were used to create soundtracks for these apps). The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you make the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain:

1.       A CD function, recording and comparing functions

2.       Spelling variations for all sounds

3.       Fluency and difficult speech patterns exercises

4.       Intonation and sentence stress exercises

5.       Pronunciation and articulation exercises

6.       Words, sentences, verses and tongue twisters to make your speech clear

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196. How to memorise a long presentation

We recommend that people who take our elocution lessons practise their presentations in the following order to memorise them well:

1. Write down the structure of the presentation in key messages, introduction, body, and conclusion. For example:
   - in the introduction, you can greet your audience and say what your presentation is about;
   - in the body of the presentation you will discuss examples and statistics which support the topic and purpose of your presentation;
   - in conclusion you will call for action.

2. Write down the full presentation, read it out loud three times, and then make an audio recording. Listen to your audio recording and make changes if necessary. It is the best way to polish the content of your presentation because when you are listening to your audio recording you will see what sounds good and what doesn’t.

3. Finally, practise it in front of the mirror and make a video recording of yourself presenting.
   
   Many people make the mistake of using long, boring sentences and then their audience is bored. Use short words and short sentences. Avoid writing a speech that sounds like a boring scientific article.

Memorising method:

1. Highlight or underline the keywords/main messages in each sentence and repeat them several times

2. Create a skeleton of your presentation, which can look like this:
   1. Introduction
   Key messages: introduce myself and greet others
   2. Main body
   My work, hobbies and pets
   3. Conclusion: my ambitions and challenges

3. Use the power of three. For example:
   I was swimming, sunbathing and walking.
   It is also very effective to start each word with the same sound, for example:
   I experienced a short, sharp shock
   

It would be very useful to perform articulation exercises with the app Get Rid of your Accent for a few days before your presentation.

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195. What makes English difficult for non-native speakers?

In my experience, two factors make English difficult to learn.

1. Pronunciation and Spelling
In English spelling and pronunciation are not identical. English inherited a lot of foreign words, including Latin, French, Dutch, and German and they kept the original spelling but anglicised the pronunciation.

Sound /f/ is usually spelt with “f” in words “ fake, fix, frame”, but it can also be spelt with “gh” in words “laugh, tough” or with “ph” in words “phone, philosophy, phobia”.

At the same time, words with different spelling and meanings may have the same pronunciation. Here are a few examples: one - won; soul - sole; steal - steel; mean - meen; write -right.

Many letters are silent in English. For example, silent /w/ in words “write, who, whimsical, wholesale”, or silent /l/ in words “walk, talk, chalk”, and so on.

To master spelling and pronunciation download the app ‎‎Elocution Lessons. Then follow up with the apps Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech (British English) or‎ American Accent App (American English).

2. Phrasal verbs, idiomatic and colloquial expressions and the use of prepositions
Many students make the mistake of memorising separate words and creating expressions with them. That leads to many mistakes with the use of prepositions and the phrases are not what natives would usually use.In my experience, it is more efficient to memorise phrases to avoid making mistakes with phrasal verbs and prepositions.

I recommend that you download the app Fluent English Speech; you will master connected speech patterns and sound more like a native English speaker linking words in a phrase. You will also learn lots of idiomatic and colloquial expressions used by native English speakers.

The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model (actors with perfect pronunciation were used to create soundtracks for these apps). The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you make the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain:

1.       A CD function, recording and comparing functions

2.       Spelling variations for all sounds

3.       Fluency and difficult speech patterns exercises

4.       Intonation and sentence stress exercises

5.       Pronunciation and articulation exercises

6.       Tongue twisters

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194. When /r/ is pronounced and when not?

In British English /r/ is not always pronounced:

1. In three vowels /ɑː/ as “car” and /ɜː/ as in “Sir”, /ɔː/ as in “fork”.

2. In the three diphthongs /eə/ as in “pair”, /ɪə/ as in “ear”, and /ʊə/ as in “sure”

3. In place of schwa: doctor, teacher, sponsor
   
   N.B: Unless it is a linking /r/ as in “car accident, under arrest” where the first word ends with /r/ and the next word starts with the vowel sound.

In American English /r/ is always pronounced, and they have two schwas:

1. Coloured schwa where /r/ is pronounced in words such as “sponsor, doctor, teacher”

2. Schwa in words such as “away, agree, the”

The /r/ sound should be pronounced between two vowel sounds in words such as “cherry, carriage, marriage”.

The /r/ is difficult to pronounce because of a particular tongue position.

Speech organs position for the English /r/ sound:
The tip of the tongue curls back slightly in the roof of the mouth, just behind the alveolar ridge, and the breath squeezes past whilst the tongue is still and not vibrating.

Some people with lazy tongues substitute /r/ with /w/ sound, Johnanat Ross does that, instead of “red roses he says “wed woses”. Some people do not pronounce /r/ at all. Japanese and Chinese often pronounce it as /l/ sound and they say “lead” instead of “read”.

You can master all sounds of English including the /r/ sound with the apps based RP:
‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎and ‎Fluent English Speech (British English) or ‎ American Accent App and ‎Fluent American Speech (American English), and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model (actors with perfect pronunciation were used to create soundtracks for these apps). The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you make the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain:

1. Spelling variations for all sounds

2. Fluency and difficult speech patterns exercises

3. Intonation and sentence stress exercises

4. Pronunciation and articulation exercises

5. Tongue twisters

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193. The difference between "sh" and "ch" sounds

Many students make mistakes when pronouncing "ch" and "sh" sounds. I am a phonetician with 17 years of experience. In this blog post, I explain the difference between these sounds and give you precise instructions on how to pronounce them correctly.

1. The sound “sh” has a phonetic symbol /ʃ/

Speech organs position:

The tongue tip is near the bottom of the mouth and the air escapes along a passage in the centre of the tongue with lips slightly rounded. This makes [ʃ] sound.

[∫] sound

Spelling variations for the /ʃ/ sound: sh, ch, s, ss

Highlighted bold letters pronounced as /ʃ/

sheep, shirt, push, wish, fashion, cashier

moustache, champagne

pressure, session, Russia, sure, Sean

2. For the sound “ch” with a phonetic symbol /tʃ/ an extra effort is required to add /t/ to /ʃ/.

Speech organs position:

Make the [t] “two” sound at the same time as making the [ʃ] “shall” sound. This makes the [t∫] “church” sound.

Spelling variations for the /tʃ/ sound: ch, tch, t before u

Highlighted bold letters pronounced as/tʃ/

Church, Churchill, chap, which, orchard, achieve

catch, butcher, clutched, matched, Thatcher

literature, posture, moisturise, architecture

The examples are taken from the app Get Rid of your Accent UK1.

The same app is also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, first go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain exercises for:
1. Difficult and connected speech patterns
2. Natural flow of speech
3. Intonation and sentence stress
4. Pronunciation and articulation

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192. Get Rid of German Accent

Three things distinguish German accent:

1. Germans do not distinguish between voiced and unvoiced consonants.

2. Lack of liaisons

3. Intonation patterns

1. For example, the words “sad, mad, Dad” with voiced /d/ ending and “sat, mat, debt” with unvoiced /t/ending have different meanings, but Germans pronounce them in the same way.

2. The second feature of a German accent is they often tend to separate words in a phrase while English glide from one word to another and use liaisons.

There are three main skills you need to master in order to speak fluent English:

1. Contractions
   In good fluent speech the particle “not”, verbs “to be” (“am, is, are”), “to have” (“has, had”), “will” and “would” are shortened. The shortened version of a word is called a contraction.

2. "Throwing away" skill, an expression used by actors. That involves using schwa, or neutral vowel in prepositions (for, from, to, etc) and articles (a, an, the), thus "throwing away unimportant words", an expression used by actors.

3. Connected speech patterns or liaisons; liaising prepositions with words. In our app ‎Fluent English Speech, we list eight connected speech patterns and have a whole chapter devoted to each with practical exercises.

4. Speak in phrases or "word blocks", rather than in separate words, connecting words in a phrase. For example in the phrase "I'd like a cup of tea", we have two blocks: 1. I'd like, and 2. a cup of tea.

3. Often Germans speak English in a monotonous way which makes them sound dull and boring.
To sound more interesting we recommend working on the sentence stress and inflection.

To get rid of German accent we recommend apps based on RP:

‎‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech and ‎Fluent English Speech (British English) or ‎ American Accent App and ‎Fluent American Speech (American English), and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
There are also two accompanying video courses: Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

The same apps are also available on Google Play. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. The apps have spelling variations for all English sounds and mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.
When starting your practice with these apps, first go to “How to use this app” and click on: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality, then click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

The apps contain exercises for:
1. Difficult and connected speech patterns
2. Natural flow of speech
3. Intonation and sentence stress
4. Pronunciation and articulation

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191. Confusing English Spelling and Pronunciation

In many languages, words are pronounced in the same way they are spelt. That is why people who learn English often make mistakes in pronunciation and develop thick accents. As a result, they are being asked to repeat themselves which can be very annoying. I was there myself.

In English spelling and pronunciation are not identical. English inherited a lot of foreign words, including Latin, French, Dutch, and German and they kept the original spelling but anglicised the pronunciation.

For example, the sound / ʌ/ as in “duck” can be spelt with "o" in words “come, oven, front, company”, or with “u” in words “bus, lunch, pub” and with “ou” in words “ country, double, trouble”.

Another example is the sound /a:/ as in “father”. It can be spelt with “er” in words “Derby, clerk, sergeant” or “ar” in words “car, park, dark”.

Sound /f/ is usually spelt with “f” in words “ fake, fix, frame”, but it can also be spelt with “gh” in words “laugh, tough” or with “ph” in words “phone, philosophy, phobia”.

At the same time, words with different spelling and meanings may have the same pronunciation. Here are a few examples: one - won; soul - sole; steal - steel; mean - meen; write -right.

Many letters are silent in English. For example, silent /w/ in words “write, who, whimsical, wholesale”, or silent /l/ in words “walk, talk, chalk”, and so on.

The good news is that you can overcome this difficulty with apps based on RP where you can find spelling variations for all English sounds. When working with the apps, do not look at the spelling when you practise the sound for the first time to overcome the confusion in pronunciation. Listen and repeat the sound in words, phrases and verses. We had many students who despite knowing the fact that spelling is not the same as pronunciation kept reading in the same way as it was spelt because this was their habit.

I recommend starting with the app ‎‎Elocution Lessons. Then follow up with the apps Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎Business English Speech (British English) or‎ American Accent App (American English) which were developed for advanced learners of English.

The same apps are also available on Google Play. They are based on bestselling books in the series Get Rid of your Accent. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model.
The apps contain:
1. Spelling variations for all English sounds,
2. Mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words, phrases and poetry.

In all these apps, there is a link in “How to use this app” to the page: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality. Click on your nationality to work effectively with a more focused approach.

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190. Get Rid of Japanese Accent

We had many students from Japan and the main reason why their speech was difficult to understand is that they had bad articulation. What can they do to make their English clear?

We have identified six areas of English speech which are particularly difficult for them:

1. There are long and short vowels in English, in Japanese, all vowels have the same length.
2. They have difficulty pronouncing English diphthongs and they separate the two vowels in a diphthong.
3. English consonants are crisp and well-articulated. Japanese speakers of English often do not make a distinction between /l/ and /r/, /b/ and /v/, /n/ and /m/.
4. In good English speech, pronouncing/t/ and /d/ and /s/ and /z/ endings is important. Japanese often do not pronounce them at all.
5. They often separate words and do not know how to speak in a connected way and use liaisons.
6. Their intonation patterns are quite different from English and they often stress wrong syllables and words.

What can we recommend to overcome the difficulties mentioned above?
1. When learning English words, practice them with the correct pronunciation. Most online dictionaries and Google Translate offer the sound version of a word. A more advanced step would be to memorise the phonetic symbols of English sounds.
2. Practise pure English long and short vowels and diphthongs. Pay attention to word stress.
3. Do articulation exercises every day for 2-5 minutes. It takes time and effort to build your speech organs muscles for English consonants.
We suggest that you practise English vowels and consonants with the apps Elocution Lessons and Get Rid of your Accent and the accompanying video course Get Rid of your Accent Part 1. In all these apps, there is a link in “How to use this app” to the page: the difficult sounds typical for your nationality. Click on Japanese to work effectively with a more focused approach
4. Practise word endings, liaisons and sentence stress with the app Fluent English Speech and the accompanying video course Get rid of your Accent Part 2. The same apps are also available on Google Play. They are based on bestselling books in the series Get Rid of your Accent.  Here, you will master all English sounds and intonation. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. The apps have mouth diagrams to help you create the correct speech organ positions in words,

To get the best results we recommend that you book a few elocution lessons

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189. Secrets of Successful Self-Presentation

Self-presentation is a skill that can make or break your social and professional success. In this article, I will outline some mistakes and give useful tips in this area.

Self-presentation is presenting oneself to others; others here are more important than self. Many people make a mistake by starting their self-presentation by listing their achievements, accomplishments and rewards rather than what benefits they can bring to the people they present to. For example, instead of saying “I hold a Toastmaster bronze reward”, you can say “I am a keen presenter as I have 15 years of experience in public speaking and would love to step in to present to customers and partners”. The statistics show that most people shy away from presenting, which can make you a valuable asset for a team where presentation skills are needed.

The second mistake is too much information. Avoid too many personal details that are of little interest to others such as what your mother does or what is your favourite beach. Just say things that are relevant to the situation you are in and focus on the purpose of your self-presentation.

The third area I want to talk about is speech and voice. If your speech is difficult to understand and/or your voice is unpleasant this can be a problem. The good news is you can fix it. Read about techniques to master speech and voice in my articles. Here I just want to mention the main mistakes: mumbling, speaking with a half-closed mouth, hesitating and using filler words such as “eehm, aaahm, like, basically, you know,” etc.

What can you do to make your self-[presentation successful? I recommend the SUS approach for the content:
Simple, Useful, with an element of Surprise.

Use short simple words, make it useful for others and add something unique about yourself that might surprise others. For example, if you are an elegant lady people might be surprised that you ride a high-speed motorbike.

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188. Teaching Received Pronunciation to kids

We are often approached by parents who would like their children to speak with RP. Received Pronunciation (RP), the standard accent of British English which is characterised by clear and precise articulation and other qualities.
RP is an accent taught for many decades since the BBC popularised it and many know it as BBC English. In the past, it was called Queen’s English and Oxford English. RP is the accent that boys learn very quickly in schools like Eton if they do not want to be mocked for their regional sounds. Clearly, RP is associated with the quality of one's education and a certain social and economic position. It is interesting to note that a study revealed, that the more refined the RP of a person the higher their social status and the better their economic situation. No wonder that parents would like their kids with regional or foreign accents to master RP.

Parents complain to us that their kids pick up bad habits that make their speech difficult lazy and difficult to understand. Some parents tell us that they want their kids to blend in with kids who already speak with RP which they developed in their families and private schools.

Below are a few things to consider.

1. First of all let's talk about the ideal age to start learning RP. 11 years old is the earliest age to start learning RP. If you begin too early your child might find it too technical and boring.

2. Secondly, lessons should be light-hearted and last no longer than 45 minutes. Do not bore the kids with too much theory and technical explanations. 

3. We recommend lots of rhythmic and articulation exercises. Specifically for children we have published a book and an app based on RP:
‎‎Get Rid of your Accent for Beginners (book)
Elocution Lessons (app)

The book and accompanying app contain plenty of short phrases, sentences, poems and verses. Your child would enjoy learning to speak RP with them. They will master all sounds of English and intonation. The functionality is ideal: read, listen, record and compare your speech with the model. All our apps and books contain 10% theory and 90% practice.

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187. Relationships where men use women as instruments

Relationships between men and women are fascinating. They are based on sex and money, psychological dependencies/peculiarities of partners, hormones and emotions, and so many other factors.

I will take one relationship between Abram and Sarah as an example.

Abram comes from a very rich Jewish family. He is a high achiever. He is married but his sexual appetite is rather high and he joins Tinder to fish for ladies who would not mind sex with a married man. He meets Sarah there. Sarah is single and financially unstable.

They meet once and have sex at Sarah’s place. Perhaps it can be the beginning of mutual fun and exchange of sex for money. But Abram is too sophisticated to do that. He is not planning to give her anything. Instead, he offers her £100 to watch him masturbate on a video call. He sees it as the most practical way to fix himself sexually and get rid of the pressure that comes with sexual frustration. Once, when Sarah feels particularly unstable financially and emotionally she agrees to watch him masturbate on a video call. After he riches orgasm he says “thank you” and puts the phone down. Sarah feels that Abram used her as an instrument. She feels disgusted and low. She never does it again despite Abram’s perpetual requests. Then Abram wants to see her for an hour or so to make it a practical sexual fix.

You might ask why Sarah continues communicating with Abram even though there are no obvious benefits for her. Well during all their communication, Abram tells her that he wants only her, how beautiful she is and many more compliments. All these compliments affect Sarah as powerful drugs. Like many girls who did not receive unconditional love in their childhood, Sarah craves compliments as approval, she feels loved when others think she is beautiful. The drug effect does not allow Sarah to see that Abram’s persistence of ten years and compliments is not a sign of his appreciation, it just demonstrates that Abram is very persistent in getting what he wants from Sarah: using her as an instrument to satisfy his sexual needs.

What about Abram, why does he use people as instruments? Surely, it is not the best way to experience sex. When a man cannot feel a woman it is just another form of masturbation, only instead of his hand he uses a female’s vagina.

I will not be surprised if Abram was used as an instrument to achieve his parent’s ambitions and his parent’s love depended on whether he was a “good boy” who performed. It is a typical problem in rich families where parents’ expectations create psychologically problematic kids.

What could improve the situation for Abram and Sarah?

Internal work. It is hard and will take years. Yet, it is worth it.

Both would heal if they could find support (that they did not receive as kids from their parents) by appreciating themselves. Feeling high or low should not depend on how others think you look or perform. Because this is a way to never feel good enough about yourself (Sarah) or feel you have done enough to feel good about yourself (Abram).

A healthy attitude is a total acceptance of themselves for who they are regardless of what others expect or think of them. Sarah would benefit greatly if she did not base her value and happiness on men's compliments and attention, and Abram if he stopped being an instrument for others and did not use people as instruments.

What tools can be used? I know a couple that helped my clients:

1. The realisation that you are in this unhealthy situation

2. Bodywork
   Our emotions are trapped in our body and finding where they’re trapped and feeling it to realise that it is not so scary to feel them

   If you want to work on your relationship email oriana_r@hotmail.com

186. Does correct pronunciation come with time as we learn new words and phrases?

Correct pronunciation depends on many factors:

1. At what age do you start learning English

2. How good is your listening/copying abilities

3. Have you learned English from the start with correct pronunciation

If you start learning English as a child in an English-speaking country from people who speak RP then your pronunciation will be good.

If you start learning English words and phrases abroad at the age of 26 from non-RP speakers (like I did) then you will likely have a foreign accent and bad pronunciation.

I have decided to master my pronunciation and with my partner, speech coach Linda James, I have created a full line of apps for iOS and Android, paperback, audio and e-books, and video courses:

Elocution Apps for iOS
Android Apps
Elocution Books
Elocution Video Courses
New# Elocution Courses

Useful links:
How to prepare a 2-minute speech
Think and speak with power and persuasion

How to proceed with accent reduction:

• Book a speech analysis via Skype to get a personalized assessment and recommendation.

• For steady progress, buy an elocution course suitable to your needs

• For the fastest progress, add in-person lessons in London or Skype lessons to your book/app/video course combination.

Accent reduction tips

1. Identify English sounds that are difficult to pronounce for you and your nationality For example /w/ sound does not exist in French and French substitute it with /v/ sound.

2. Learn the placement of the tongue lips and jaw for sounds you need to practice

3. Use the mirror to control the correct place of your tongue, lips and jaw for a particular sound

4. Listen to the model pronunciation, copy it, then record yourself and compare your speech with the model. Do three repetitions of one exercise

5. Download the apps ‎‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1 and ‎Fluent English Speech (British English) or ‎American Accent App and ‎Fluent American Speech (American English)

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185. How do I start really loving myself?

The most important masterpiece you can create in life is yourself. Therefore to love yourself means developing your talents and abilities, mastering your body, mind and soul.

Loving yourself is not feeling sorry for yourself but smiling despite what is happening around you. Smile even when people humiliate you, smile even when you do not have money, smile when you feel tired.

The most important resource you have is your optimistic energy and the belief that everything will be good sooner or later.

Love is making yourself strong. Exercise your body, do not let it become weak. Eat what is good for your body.

Exercise your brain by focusing and concentrating on one idea at a time and constant education.

Strengthen your spirit by praying, meditating and repeating positive affirmations. We love most of our life in our heads, make it a good place to be.

Love yourself by taking the time and listening to your inner feelings. Answer simple questions:
What do you really want?
How do you really feel?
What is bothering you?
What makes you feel good?

Do not rush yourself. Do not step on yourself and respect your feelings.

Say “NO” when it serves you.

Say “YES” to a happy life fool of joy!

Have a loving attitude towards ALL humans. Respect differences and try to understand others the same way you try to understand yourself. You can do it simply by listening to others with good intentions and attitude.

Have a plan for a day, a week, a month, a year and 100 years. What legacy would you like to leave after you die? For example, in the course of my life I would like to write and publish ten books (I have already written and published five books), help ten thousand people to master their speech, plant ten thousand trees, create ten businesses (I already have three).

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