Diction is how words are articulated and pronounced and must be clear and precise, and must be trained, corrected, and perfected.
To have a good diction is necessary to have a proper breathing and to warm the muscles of the face and tongue, which can be achieved by doing some exercises. These exercises, in addition to improving speech in everyday life, also improve the ability for those who want to sing more clearly.
Exercises to improve diction
There are some exercises that help improve speech, which can be done alone at home or with the help of a speech therapist.
1. Exercises to relax and strengthen the facial muscles
Some people find it difficult to articulate words because their facial muscles are very tense, as is the case with the lips, tongue and cheeks, which is where the buccinator muscle is.
To relax these muscles, you can grimace, yawning, opening and closing exercises with a loose jaw, tongue out and turning it inside the mouth with closed lips and vibrating lips and tongue.
2. Speak with the joint closed
A good exercise to improve the articulation of the words in the day to day, is to speak with the articulation of the closed jaw. To do this, you should close your mouth and your teeth and read a text from a newspaper or a book, moving only the lips and tongue.
3. Speak language latchers
Another way to improve speech is to speak language lan- guages, such as:
- "In a nest of mafagafos there are seven mafagafinhos. When the mafagafa gafa, they gafam the seven mafagafinhos"
- "The cobbled street is all paralelepipedada."
- "Knowing what I know and knowing what you know and what you do not know and what we do not know, we will both know if we are wise, known or will simply know if we are knowing."
To train these and other tongue-lifts, the ideal is to begin to say them slowly and then to increase the speed, trying to always say the words correctly and without mixing them.
This exercise can also be done by holding a pencil or a cork between the teeth.
4. Reading of vowels
To have a good diction it is important to respect each sound that is emitted, with a special attention to the vowels. For this, one must choose a text or the lyrics of a song and only read the vowels, keeping the tonic syllable of the words:
The title compound was prepared from the title compound as a white powder.
Mesylate
No need to r u r u r u
Chica
A dm e r u s e s
D e b o rt o f th e g o rt o f th e g e t o o n :
M iau ! "
At first you can start slowly and then read or sing faster and faster and you can also increase the degree of difficulty of the texts.
5. Gargle with water
When gargling with water or an oral elixir, it is possible to work the pharynx, the base of the tongue and the roof of the mouth, which are commonly used articulatory points. With this exercise, the movements of the "ão", "dog", "gão", "uma" are also triggered, causing the sound to leave more of the bottom of the mouth, improving the pronunciation of words.
Another way to improve diction is to correct the nasal voice, opening the mouth to speak more, doing exercises to strengthen the muscles and lowering the tongue as you speak. See more about correcting the nasal voice.
