107. What speech tells us about a person?

In our elocution lessons we help to master various elements of speech:

  • vocabulary

  • pronunciation

  • accent

  • dialect

  • articulation

  • intonation and inflection

  • power, pitch and pace of one’s voice

Let’s see what these speech elements tell us about a person.

Vocabulary can be broad or basic, professional or colloquial. “In England, accent and vocabulary can stamp a person’s identity like a brand”. People with broad vocabulary are perceived as well-read and well-educated. People who speak with standard English or RP (Received Pronunciation) are often associated with exclusive private schools and Universities and a superior class, whilst a strong Cockney accent with a working class. In the UK, accents and dialects can tell us where a person originates from North or South, Wales or Scotland.

Below are a few common traits in one’s speech that may infer a person's character or behaviour. This is not absolute and of course, there are exceptions to these generalisations.

For example, when people feel nervous they tend to rush their speech. Such speakers lack power and gravitas and a person might appear as one who trying hard to prove something to others. In order to build your confidence, it would be better to speak less.

Our voice power and confidence level often work together. When we speak loud enough we feel more confident, and when we feel confident we speak loud enough. Vice versa, when we lack confidence, our voice often automatically gets quieter.

Different patterns of intonation show different emotions. To name a few: aggression, excitement, indifference, anger, sadness, happiness and many others. Read our blog about the power of intonation.

Power, pitch and pace of one’s voice tell us about temperament, intellect and character. People who are calm and quiet often have measured pace.

Highly intelligent people often speak very fast as their mind is bubbling with ideas.

People who have a low pitched voice sound grounded, whilst people with high pitched voice may appear lighthearted and childish.

There are apps, books and video courses that help you to master your speech to become the best version of yourself:Get Rid of your Accent:, American Accent App, Fluent English Speech:, 4Ps, Power,Pitch,Pace,Pause.

Video Courses to master English speech:
 Get Rid of your Accent Part One and Get Rid of your Accent Part Two

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106. Get rid of Chinese accent

Chinese is spoken by billions of people in China, Taiwan, Malaysia and Singapore. The importance of speaking good English became vital for international communication with the increased role of China on the global stage. Many native Chinese speakers who enjoyed our elocution lessons had good grammar and vocabulary, but, at first, their speech was difficult to understand because of their bad pronunciation. The result is that they often had low-paid jobs despite their high intellectual level. They told us that they were not even invited into meetings as others could not understand their speech.

We help all of them to master their speech and in this blog post, I will outline the most important recommendations for the Chinese speakers of English.

Chinese speakers of English often have good grammar and vocabulary, but it is hard for others to communicate with them because of their bad pronunciation. People who are not tuned in or used to Chinese accents find it hard to understand Chinese people's speech. I had a colleague in my public speaking club and when I hear her speeches I can only understand 30% of what she said. Because their speech is difficult to understand they have low-paid jobs and are not even invited to meetings.

Six main challenges for Chinese speakers of English
1. English consonants, particularly at the end of words such as “and” in words “pound, sound, found” etc. I hear that instead of /nd/ sounds they pronounce the /ŋ/ as in “sing”.

2. /t, d/ at the end of the word in the past tense such as “learned, studied, hoped” etc.

3. The /l/ sound as in “London” and the /r/ sound as in “rat”

4. Fricative consonants /θ/ and /ð/ as in "think" and "that", /f/ and /v/ as in “fake”and “victory”.

5. Diphthong /au/ as in “cow, pound, sound”, particularly followed by /nd/ as in words "pound, found, sound".

6. Intonation, connected speech patterns and sentence stress

Our recommendations
Start working on consonants and then on vowels and diphthongs with the apps ‎‎Elocution Lessons, Get Rid of your Accent UK1, ‎and Business English Speech. The same apps are also available on Google Play. They are based on bestselling books in the series Get Rid of your Accent and have audio and recording buttons. Work with these apps together with the accompanying video course Get Rid of your Accent Part1.
When you practise the sound in words give enough time to every syllable, connect sounds together and pay attention to pronouncing final consonants. When you practise the sound in phrases and verses, pay attention to the intonation and English tune, do not separate words into syllables.

Once all the sounds are sorted, we suggest working on connected speech patterns, sentence stress and intonation with the Fluent English Speech app To get the best results book a few elocution lessons

A few elocution lessons would not be out of place to achieve the best results.

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105. Get Rid of Russian Accent?

I am a native Russian speaker and back in 2004, my American husband could not understand me because my accent was rather strong. After two years of elocution lessons with Linda James, my speech became clear and I wanted to help people like myself so together with Linda we wrote a book Get Rid of your Accent. In this blog post, I will tell how native Russians can soften their accents.

I recommend that you start with long vowels. In Russian, all vowel sounds have the same length, they are shorter than English long vowels, and so Russians have a tendency to shorten long English vowels. As a result, the speech may sound clipped and even a bit harsh.

Secondly, work on short vowels. Russian vowel sounds are closer to English long vowels and have slightly different speech organ positions which makes them rather hard to master.

Thirdly, think about the higher position of the tip tongue for the /t, d. l, n/ sounds.

Practise /r/ sound as in ”rat”. The difference between the English and Russian /r/ sounds is that Russians vibrate the tongue and English keep the tongue still thus making a much softer sound.

We recommend that you download the video course Get Rid of your Accent Part One to see how the sounds are created. Then download the apps Elocution Lessons and Get Rid of your Accent to practise the sounds in words, phrases, sentences and verses.

After you have mastered the sounds, work on connected speech patterns and intonation with the video course Get Rid of your Accent Part Two and the app Fluent English Speech.

The most successful of students book their individual speech analysis and book elocution lessons to get the results effectively and quickly.

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104. Get Rid of Spanish Accent

We have been running elocution lessons since 2006 and taught many students from Spanish-speaking countries. Their accent is quite strong and it takes time and effort to make their English clear.

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

1. English spelling and pronunciation are not identical. English inherited a lot of foreign words, including Latin and they kept the original spelling but anglicised the pronunciation. Some English sounds do not exist in Spanish. For example, the sound / ʌ/ as in "come" does not exist in Spanish and it is spelt with the letter "o". Spanish speakers would pronounce it with the /o/ sound.

Another example is the use of schwa. Schwa does not exist in Spanish, whilst in English schwa is the most important sound. It is used in unstressed syllables and it is very important to master fluency in English because it is used in unstressed words.
2. There are long and short vowels in English, in Spanish, all vowels have the same length.
3. English consonants are crisp and well-articulated, whilst in Spanish consonants are softened. Spanish speakers of English often do not make a distinction between /b/ and /v/, /n/ and /m/, particularly at the end of the word. We suggest that you practise particularly these consonants because they do not exist in Spanish:
/h/ is in “hat”, /j/ as in “yes”, /dʒ/ as in “juice”, /v/ as in “victory” and /z/ as in “zoo”.
4. In good English speech, pronouncing/t/ and /d/ endings is important. Spanish often do not pronounce them at all.

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.
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 book Get Rid of your Accent Part One.
4. Learn and practise word endings with the app Fluent English Speech and the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advance Level

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

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103. Direct, or diplomatic?

Being polite means being respectful and considerate of others. Telling little white lies is an important part of English culture. In the era of political correctness, the topic of politeness has reached a new level of importance.  

At the same time being direct and "calling the kettle black" has its advantages too. Direct speakers take less time and use fewer words to get to the point. 

Today I talked to a friend of mine and she told me that thanks to me she became more direct. She sees it as a good thing. In the past, she found it difficult to say "no" directly, and some people took advantage of her. I replied to her that I became less direct thanks to her. I see it as a positive change because in the past I sometimes felt regretful about my directness. 

Indeed, often people wonder: how can they be direct and remain polite at the same time?  Let's consider a couple of examples.
If a friend asks my opinion about her haircut, which I do not really like, what is better: to tell the truth or to be diplomatic and say: "I like it. It really suits you."? I would tell her that tastes differ and that the most important thing is that she likes her haircut; what I think about it is not really important. This way I would encourage her to rely on her own opinion rather than on others and thus help her develop higher self-esteem.

Another example: a friend of mine from Russia asked me if she could stay at my place for a week. My flat is not big and I really do not want her to stay at mine. One part of me feels the need to be kind to myself and say "no" to her.
How can I say "no" to her and not feel bad about it? I think that the main thing is the way I say "no" to her.
"Oh, I wish my flat was big enough to put you up! Unfortunately, it is too small for two people. I hate to say "no" to you. I hope one day I can put you up when I have a bigger house.” I used a three-step approach:

  1. I start with a positive wish and tone. It would be good to use a soft voice and rising inflection.

  2. Then I say "no" in a firm way. For saying "no", use a soft voice and normal inflection.

  3. I finish with a positive wish. In this, use a more energetic voice. 

You can learn how to modulate your voice and use different inflections with the apps Fluent English Speech and 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause. This will help you sound positive and firm at the same time.

In conclusion, I want to say that being kind to ourselves and others is more important than being polite or direct. There is an expression the English use: you have to be cruel to be kind. In other words, being honest can be an act of kindness. For example, a man is in love with you and you are not in love with him. To say the truth would be painful at the moment, but kind in the long run, because both of you will have a chance to be in reciprocal love relationships with others.

More on www.batcsglobal.com 

102. The power of pause

As a member of a public speaking club, I have to listen to many speeches, evaluate them and give my recommendations to the speakers. Almost always, I recommend that speakers use pauses more effectively.

Common mistakes

  1. Many people when delivering a public speech feel nervous and tend to rush their speech. They do not make pauses between sentences and paragraphs and thus do not separate their ideas and thoughts. Such speakers lack power and gravitas. It is very difficult for their listeners to follow them and to get engaged.

  2. Some people who take our elocution lesson complain that they are being asked to repeat what they said. During their speech analysis, we discovered that they have a tendency to speak very fast. They have no time to lean on long English vowels and diphthongs and pronounce the sounds properly. Because of their bad pronunciation, others do not understand them.

  3. It is a mistake to have too many pauses, for example within a phrase. It is a mistake to stress words that should be “thrown away” such as articles, prepositions and auxiliary verbs.
    Making too many pauses might weaken your performance and make it a bit boring. Read our blog about liaisons and fluency.

  4. People who do not know how to use a pause for effect often sound monotonous. The longer pauses can be used to make an impact and to highlight a particular point/word.

  5. Often, when we speak with others, we do not have the patience to listen. We are caught up in our thoughts and cannot properly reply to a question. Here is an example: I asked my tennis partner how many times she played tennis last week. She had replied that she was not going to become a tennis coach or compete and she just played for fun. But my question was not about her future tennis plans, it was simply about the number of times she played in a week.

    Below are a few tips from our apps and book on the use of pause:

    1. Separate your ideas in order to allow your listeners to absorb one idea at a time and prepare them for the next one. Usually, the speed of listening is slower than the speed of speaking.

    2. Make a pause before a word that you want to stress in a sentence to make it stand out. If you want to stress the first word of the sentence, make a pause after it.
    3. Make a longer pause between paragraphs and even longer to create a dramatic effect. This can be very effective in public speeches when a longer pause keeps the audience in suspense and creates anticipation.
    4. Listen, pause, think and reply. Pause for five seconds and think about the question and your answer or what you want to say. Try to answer only those questions that are being asked of you. It is particularly useful in business meetings, job interviews and sales pitches for investors promoting better understanding and pleasant communication.
    5. Substitute parasite words such as “so, you know, basically, like, em, ah” with pauses.

    Speaking without pauses is often a long-term habit and it may take time and effort to start using pauses correctly. A few elocution lessons, together with the book Get Rid of your Accent Part Two, Advanced Level and the apps Fluent English Speech and Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause will help you master this valuable technique for successful performances.
    The correct use of pauses will help you look and feel calm, confident and caring.

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100. Advantages of having good speech

I am a native Ukrainian. I started learning English in 1995. In 2004, I married a native English speaker who could not always understand what I was saying because of my thick foreign accent. In order to be understood by my husband, I started taking elocution/speech lessons with a drama school tutor, Linda James. I fell in love with Linda’s method and after taking lessons for two years I have decided to create a training manual: a book with CDs to help people like myself, and I did that in 2006. I have created twenty titles for this training manual, to name a few: “Perfect English”, “English Pronunciation”, and others. 100% of people who were participating in choosing the title opted for the title “Get Rid of your Accent”.

People who buy our books and apps and take our elocution lessons and course tell us their reasons why they want to get rid of their accents and have good English speech. Here are just a few.

  1. They feel that their colleagues do not always understand what they are saying and it can be disruptive and even frustrating at work.

  2. They are not invited to meetings and they cannot chair projects because of their thick and difficult to understand accents.

  3. They are not getting promoted and as a result, do not have a pay rise

  4. Their social life is not as good as it could be

  5. They are afraid to present and talk in public

After our elocution lessons and practising with our books and apps their speech and life changed for the better:

  1. They feel confident

  2. They feel they have the skills to present

  3. They get promoted and their salary increases

  4. Their social lives improve

  5. They enjoy their work more including chairing meetings and presenting

To date, we have five books and nine iOS and nine Android apps plus two video courses for speech mastery.

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99. Gestures when presenting 

Gestures are an important part of your public speaking presence, they can add power to your presentation or take away from it. People who take our elocution lessons work on their body language when presenting.

Let's take a look at the gestures that are weakening your presence and your speech delivery. 

1. Lack of gestures resulting from the stiffness of the body. Sometimes a person feels so nervous that they grab their speech in their hands and hold it during their entire presentation. This creates a closed body posture and shows a lack of confidence. 

2. Scratching your head, nose or any part of the body can look a bit distracting and even inappropriate. 

3. Trying to adjust cufflinks (a favourite gesture of the Prince of Wales), moving a ring on your finger, adjusting your clothes are also gestures that indicate that the person feels somewhat nervous. 

4. Touching and trying to improve your hair shows that you are not sure of your looks and feeling you are not enough. 

5. Too many gestures and repetitive gestures show you are trying too hard to compensate for a lack of confidence. 

 How can you use gestures effectively? Let's divide this into categories. Gestures can be: 

1. Descriptive gestures are used to describe something or a situation. You can also use them for comparison and contrast. You can use your hands to show shapes, height, size, location, direction, left, right, etc. 

2. Empathic gestures are used to symbolise feelings and help to make your presentation more genuine. It also helps with connecting with your audience on a deeper emotional level. You can use your head and posture to show enthusiasm, sadness, anger, happiness, etc. This also can be added with appropriate voice modulation which you can master with the app 4Ps, Power, Pitch,Pace,Pause. Make sure you use appropriate gestures to show different emotions. 

3. Suggestive gestures show moods and expressions. By opening your arms you suggest openness, and by crossing the arms you suggest the opposite. By shrugging your shoulders you can show indifference.

4. Prompting gestures help to prompt the audience to do something.
By raising your hand and saying -raise your hands, you prompt people to raise theirs, for example. 

I recommend that you video record your presentation and watch it by paying attention to your gestures. Analyse and feel which gestures look good and which you need to avoid. It can be useful to take a few elocution lessons if you feel that you need help with developing a great public speaking presence.

More on www.batcsglobal.com 

98. Be self-confident

By Olga Smith

Are some people born confident? Is it in their genes? Can confidence be mastered? What can be done to feel and look confident? I will tell you now and recommend a few practical tools.

1. Do what you want to do. Some people do not even know what they truly want just like Julia Roberts character from the movie "Runaway Bride" who did not even know what kind of eggs she likes.

2. Do not do what you do not want to do. Some people sit in jobs they hate, and live with people they do not love because they are afraid of poverty and loneliness. The fact is that this very state makes them very lonely and unhappy.

3. Do not ask anybody's opinion about your appearance. People, who constantly ask: “Do I look good? Do you like my hair?” demonstrate self-doubt which is the opposite of self-confidence.

4. If you do not like something say it right then and there in a calm, constructive way. You can learn to do it with the app Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.
Often when people feel emotional they tend to raise their voice. It would be very effective to do the opposite. If they drop the pitch and slow down it will help them to be more in control and project authority.

5. Do not try to prove anything to anybody. When people try to prove themselves they often speak fast and try to say all they know in a short period of time. In order to build your confidence, it would be better to speak less and answer only those questions that are being asked of you. Make your answers clear and stress the key messages. You can learn about it with the apps Get Rid of your Accent and Fluent English Speech.

6. Do not base your self-worth on popularity with others. Be popular with yourself. Very often we think we are not good enough because others do not call us and do not show interest in us. In the past, I was worried that my boyfriend did not call me during the day. I would think that he did not love me enough and that I was not worthy of love. Quite often he did not call because he was very busy. What would be better is not to wait when others call you to enhance your worth but to make yourself busy and do things that make you happy, healthy and wealthy, that bring prosperity into your life.

7. Fall in love with yourself, with your work and your hobby.

8. According to R. Greene, “the game of power is in many ways the game of appearances. When you say less than necessary you inevitably appear more powerful than you are which is the key to establishing the aura of power”. How does saying less than necessary gives you an advantage? R. Greene suggests that “your silence will make other people uncomfortable. Humans are machines of interpretation and explanation, they have to know what you are thinking. When you carefully control what you reveal people cannot pierce your intentions or your meaning”.

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97. 10 skills of Roman orators

Roman statesmen and politicians were famous for their formidable oratorical skills. Most successful public speakers use their techniques today. The skills which Roman orators had to master to make their speeches powerful and effective were:

  1. Appeal to people’s emotions

  2. Use visual aids

  3. Make key points rhyme

  4. Use repetitions

  5. Use exaggerations

  6. Label yourself with positive words and your competitors /adversaries with negative words

  7. Use simplifications, there is a deep meaning in simple things

  8. Use testimonials

  9. Use humour

  10. Deliver your speech in an engaging, lively way and use gestures to support your messages.

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96. Why short English vowels are so difficult?

By Olga Smith

People who take our elocution lessons find that the reason why they struggle with English punctuation and have an accent is:  

Not all English sounds exist in their native language and they are not sure how to produce them correctly. Their speech organs are trained for their native language from childhood. When they speak English, they don’t place their tongue, lips and jaw as native English speakers do. 

 One of the most common mistakes that people make is with the following short English vowels:
[ɪ] – pit – [pɪt]
[ʊ] – book – [bʊk]  
[ɒ] – box – [bɒks] 

These short vowels have long partner sounds:
[iː] – feet – [fiːt]
[uː] – boot – [buːt]
[ɔː] – fort – [fɔːt]   

Although they are considered partners they are pronounced differently and  have slightly different speech organ positions. That what makes it so difficult.

It is very important to master these short vowels if you want to have clear speech. If you fail to pronounce them correctly not only you will have a foreign accent, but in some cases, even the meaning of the word will change and what you are saying will be confusing to others. Look at the examples below where the meaning of the word changes if you fail to pronounce a short sound. 

Short [ɪ]         Long [iː]
hit                heat
bit                 beat
is                  ease 

Short [ʊ]        Long [uː]
foot              food
pull               pool
full               fool 

Short [ɒ]        Long [ɔː]
shot              short
spot              sport
tot                taught 

We recommend that you master all long and all short English vowels and comparison chapters from our apps and books:
‎Elocution Lessons,  Get Rid of your Accent UK1, and  ‎Business English Speech, and take a few elocution lessons. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

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95. The power of intonation

By Olga Smith

Intonation/inflection is simply the rise and fall of pitch in a phrase or a sentence.
There is a wide variety of intonation patterns in the UK. Compare, for example, people’s intonation in Liverpool with Birmingham, you will note that the music of their speech is very different because they use different patterns of intonation. Many people who take our elocution lessons would like to learn how intonation influences their speech and how they can use intonation to make their speech more interesting.

An effective speaker uses various patterns of intonation in order to:

  1. Show different emotions and moods. The same words would have a completely different meaning if we change the intonation.

  2. Show an attitude and/or a double meaning.

  3. Speak in an engaging way in order to maintain people’s interest. People who repeat the same pattern of intonation all the time sound very monotonous.

  4. Stress the most important messages/words in a phrase or sentence. If there is no rise and fall, the speech sounds flat and it might be rather hard for a listener to follow what is the meaning of what you are saying.

In our books and apps and elocution lessons, we teach basic patterns of intonation and give examples of intonation of speakers of Received Pronunciation. We encourage our students to listen to the RP speakers and absorb their sounds and intonation. It is important to stress, that intonation is closely connected not only to sentence/phrase stress but also to the power, pitch, and pace of your voice. You can master your intonation and the 4Ps with the apps ‎Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause, and Fluent English Speech.

Read our blog and visit our site www.batcsglobal.com for more tips.

94. Elocution Books

Our 5 Paperback, Kindle and Audio-books to master your English speech:

We recommend that you start with Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and then move on to the Get Rid of your Accent Part 2 because these two books are essential for accent reduction. Part 2 is also excellent for mastering voice modulation and presentation skills. For those who want to master their Business English, we recommend Get Rid of your Accent for Business Part 3. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

Get Rid of Your Accent Part 1: The English Pronunciation and Speech Training Manual
This book is ideal if you want to get rid of a regional or foreign accent and to speak with Standard English or RP (Received Pronunciation). It has 42 lessons; it contains effective practical exercises to perfect all English sounds.

Get Rid of Your Accent: Advanced Level Pt. 2: The English Speech Training Manual (Part 2)
This book is a follow up to the Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 book.  It is ideal if you want to develop fluency in English and sound more like a native English speaker. It contains exercises for difficult and connected speech patterns, natural flow of speech, intonation, sentence stress and onomatopoeia. 

Get Rid of Your Accent for Business Pat 3: The English Pronunciation and Spee (Elocution)
This book was designed for top-level professionals, diplomats and lawyers. It is the only book on the market that has both English pronunciation and business vocabulary training. It contains 43 lessons with material gathered from interviews with CEOs, CFOs and MDs of global companies and helps to develop proficiency in English, ISBN9780955330025.

Get Rid of your Accent for Beginners 
This book is ideal for children and people who just started learning English. The book has 48 lessons. It contains short, commonly used phrases, sentences and verses that are easy to repeat and it also has useful tips for teachers of English. It is actually useful for everyone as it contains essential, everyday English, ISBN 9780955330063.

GET RID OF YOUR ACCENT, PART ONE AND TWO: GENERAL AMERICAN SPEECH TRAINING MANUAL, Second Edition
This book is ideal if you want to get rid of a foreign or regional accent and master Standard American accent. It has 49 lessons. It contains effective practical exercises to perfect all American English sounds and to develop fluency in your American English speech. You will master difficult and connected speech patterns, the natural flow of speech, intonation and sentence stress, ISBN 9780955330087.

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93. Prepare your pitch to get the investment you need

By Olga Smith

Quite a few of our students were taking elocution lessons in order to prepare their sales pitches. They needed to present to their potential investors and business angels. Almost all of them make the same sort of mistakes in what they say and how they say it.

I) Let's have a look first at mistakes in the content of their speech.

Often, entrepreneurs do not give essential facts that are necessary for investors to decide on whether to invest or not. Instead, often entrepreneurs tend to get too excited about their idea and talk about how wonderful it is, using lots of big words and clichés such as:

"I want to create this business because it will help women"."There is no business like this in the world"."It is a great idea". "I need your money to start this business".

What investors are looking for is the answers to simple yet vital questions:

1. What is the size of the market in question? In other words, how big is the pie?

2. What percentage of the total market do you plan to get? What is the slice of this pie you plan to get and in what time frame you plan to get it?

3. What is the competitive advantage of your idea? In other words, what you are offering that others do not?

4. How much money you need and for what exactly you will spend them to create and grow the business?

Investors need numbers and dates, not empty promises, dreams and money wishes without deadlines.

II) Now, let's see what mistakes entrepreneurs are making in terms of their pitch delivery.

Here the most common ones:

1. They go over time. Usually, investors have only a minute to listen. Entrepreneurs go into lots of "blaa, blaa, blaa" and by the end of that valuable minute they said plenty of unnecessary words without even mentioning their main idea or a single number

2. They sound depressing.

3. They sound monotonous and boring.

To make your pitch really successful and to ensure the investment you need we recommend:

1. Make your pitch concise and all about numbers and facts.

2. Work on your intonation and voice modulation with the apps

Fluent English Speech - Apps on Google Play

Fluent American Speech - Apps on Google Play

Business English Speech - Apps on Google Play

Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause - Apps on Google Play

3. Record your sales pitch and make sure your speech is clear and that you speak not more than one minute or a time frame that you know will be allocated for you to speak.

4. Practise the clarity of your speech with the apps:

Get Rid of Your Accent - Apps on Google Play

American Accent App - Apps on Google Play

You can also book a couple of elocution lessons to master your sales pitch rapidly.

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92. Job interview tips

By Olga Smith

A job interview can be a stressful experience. What can help you to overcome this stress?
1. Allow plenty of time to arrive for your interview; do not rush, because if you rush you are likely to be stressed. Arrive at least 15 minutes before the interview. Never be late.
2. When you go into the interview room don't sit until you are invited to do so.
3. Be positive, upbeat and confident, but not overconfident because it could be taken for arrogance.
4. Only speak when you are spoken to first, do not initiate; be polite and never interrupt. Do not appear over-keen.
5. When you speak do not over-vocalise, speak calmly and naturally.
6. Do not gabble, avoid rushed speech. Take your time, and make short pauses to think about your answers. Avoid long pauses, just take a second and think about the answer.
7. Avoid unprofessional vocabulary, such as "yeh, gonna, etc". Use "yes, going to" instead.
8. Do not slide into sloppy speech and avoid parasite words, such as "like, you know, basically".
9. Make sure that you pronounce professional vocabulary correctly.
10. Make your answers concise, go straight to the point and do not beat about the bush. “Brevity is the soul of wit” W. Shakespear, Hamlet a quote from Polonius's character. Meaning conciseness is at the heart of cleverness.
11. Wear good quality clothes and hairstyle, groomed hands and nails will help you to feel confident. Make sure your shoes are polished and well-heeled. Do not use very strong perfume as some scents could be irritating to others.
12. Keep a straight posture and maintain good eye contact. It will help you to create a strong presence.

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91. English Diphthongs

By Olga Smith

Students who take elocution lessons often find English diphthongs quite difficult to pronounce. 

A diphthong is a voiced sound consisting of two vowel sounds glided together. There are eight diphthongs in English: 

[ɪə] – hear – [hɪə]  
[eɪ] – pay – [peɪ] 
[eə] – pair – [peə]
[aɪ] – pie – [paɪ]  
[aʊ] – how – [haʊ] 
[əʊ] – boat – [bəʊt]  
[ɔɪ] – boy – [bɔɪ]  
[ʊə] – sewer – [sʊə]  

The most common mistakes that students make pronouncing diphthong are:  

1. They shorten them and we hear only one vowel and the second vowel is dropped, or they make the first vowel longer than the second one so that we can hardly hear it.   

2. Diphthong [ɪə] – hear – [hɪə], [eə] – pair – [peə], and [ʊə] – sewer – [sʊə] have "r" is spelling and in British English, you should not pronounce it.  

3. Diphthong [əʊ] – boat – [bəʊt] does not exist in other languages and most students find it hard to master.   

To address these issues we recommend that you:  

1. Make sure that we hear both vowels of it and they have equal length. The first part of the diphthong is slightly stressed. 

2. You can train yourself to not pronounce "r" in spelling by controlling your tongue and not lifting it.  

3. It might take you a little longer to master diphthong [əʊ] – boat – [bəʊt]. When I started to work on it I thought I will never be able to pronounce it correctly. Then, my tutor, Linda James explained that if I break it into two parts it will be easier. The first vowel is [ə] as in "the" and the second vowel is [ʊ] as in "book", and we glide from the first vowel into the second making one complete sound [] as in "boat". 

We believe that the best way to achieve good results is through practice. You can do it with the help of apps, books, and video courses in the series Get Rid of your Accent which contains 10% of theory and of 90% practice from classic elocution lessons.   

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90. English Vowels

By Olga Smith

There are five long and seven short vowels in English. Below is the list with their phonetic symbols:

Long Pure Vowels
[iː] – feet – [fiːt]
[ɜː] – third – [θɜːd]
[uː] – boot – [buːt]
[ɑː] – bark – [bɑːk]
[ɔː] – fort – [fɔːt]  

Short Pure Vowels
[ɪ] – pit – [pɪt]
[e] – pet – [pet]
[æ] – mad – [mæd]
[ʌ] – hut – [hʌt]
[ɒ] – box – [bɒks]
[ʊ] – book – [bʊk]  

Neutral Vowel (schwa)
[ə] – the – [ðə]  

Each vowel has a particular speech organ position and we start all our elocution lessons, apps and books chapters by explaining it to our students and asking them to check it in the mirror when possible. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1 and Get rid of your Accent Part 2.

Many long vowels exist in some languages, and native representatives of these languages have no difficulty pronouncing them, it comes naturally to them.
Whilst in Russian, for example, there are no long vowels, therefore there is a natural tendency for Russians to shorten long English vowels and diphthongs. Instead of “two sheets of paper” they most likely will pronounce “two shits of paper”. Instead of saying “the room is dark”, they are likely to pronounce “the room is duck”. To overcome this difficulty we recommend Russians to first learn long vowels, then short vowels, and finally practise comparisons of long and short vowels. In fact, sometimes it is even better to start with a comparison in order to see a difference between long [iː] and short [ɪ], for example.

Usually, words with long vowels sound prominent and reflect the rhythm of the language.

Certain short pure English vowels are often rare in other languages and therefore it is more difficult and time-consuming for students to master them.

Schwa is very short and unstressed. Very often vowels in unstressed positions are pronounced as a schwa. Schwa is considered to be the most important sound in English, read our blog about it.

Another thing to be aware of is that long vowels are not always long and short vowels are not always short. There is no specific rule for that, it depends on where you wish to put your stress in a phrase or sentence to convey your meaning. To master your English vowels we recommend practising the sounds with apps and books, and booking a few elocution lessons.

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89. The [w] sound as in "wine"

By Olga Smith

In this blog post, we will share with you great tips for the English/w/ sound as in "wine" and how to avoid mistakes associated with this sound. It is based on 25 years of teaching elocution lessons in drama schools and accent eradication to foreign professionals.

Why the /w/ sound is difficult?
Many people begin to learn English when they are adults. They may not automatically position their speech organs as native English speakers will. Moreover, they often don’t know how to correctly position their speech organs in order to produce clear English sounds, because not all English sounds exist in other languages.

The main difficulty with the /w/ sound is that it does not exist in some other languages and students substitute it with the /v/ sound as in "vodka".

Another common mistake is that students lip muscles are not strong enough and they pronounce a wobbly /w/ which lacks clarity and energy.

When I was taking elocution lessons it took me about six months to train my lips so that I can pronounce the /w/ sound. Training our speech organ muscles is similar to training other body muscles, it takes time and regular repetition.

Speech organs position for the English /w/ sound:
Start with the lips forward, as in [u] “boot”,  then immediately pull the lips back sharply to the neutral [ə] schwa position. Make sure to vocalise the sound.

 We recommend the following muscular exercises to master the /w/ sound:

Instructions: All exercises to be repeated 4 times.

1. With teeth closed, spread lips back to a broad smile, and then bring forward to a tight [uː] position as in “June”.

2. Repeat exercise 1, but with jaw open about 2.5 cm.

 Follow up with rhythmic exercises:

Repeat once from left to right:

w                           w                           w                           w

ww                        ww                        ww                        w

www                    www                    www                    w

wwww                 wwww                 wwww                 w

We recommend that you start using the /w/ sound with a few words, for example:
weather, one, when, will want, world, worm, which.
Then you can practise the sound with sentences and verses.
 You can find these exercises in our apps and books Get Rid of your Accent, Elocution lessons and Business English Speech. To get the best results with these apps, download the video courses Get Rid of your Accent Part 1.

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88. Voice modulation

Some people do not like the sound of their own voices. Many students on hearing their recorded voices in their individual speech analysis confess that they do not like what they hear. They often ask us the same question: 

"How can I change my voice?" 

Many business people, who do not know how to modulate their own voice often sound rather monotonous and as a consequence deliver boring presentations that no one wants to listen to.  

The sound of each individual's voice is unique. It depends on genes, physical parameters and habits. However, there are certain techniques that actors use to modulate their voices to show different emotions. 

What is voice modulation? It is simply changing the pitch, power, pace of the voice and use of the pause. You can master these techniques with the app 4Ps, Power, Pitch, Pace, Pause.  

When we speak naturally, we do not have to think about it too much. Voice modulation is useful when delivering a formal presentation.  When you prepare a formal presentation, the question arises when is it appropriate to change the pitch, power and pace of the voice? How can we decide? The answer is very simple. In a formal speech, we express a number of thoughts. When we change a thought, we pause and then we change the voice. For example, to express an exciting thought the pitch might go up, and when expressing something sad or serious it goes down. When we talk about plain facts the pace might be a bit faster. When we want to stress very important messages, we might use dramatic pauses and increase the power of the voice.  

If we want to have a better understanding and pleasant communication, we should listen, pause, think and reply. This will allow us to create a better response and to modulate our voice accordingly. 

A few elocution lessons combined with the app will help you to master this valuable technique. 

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