Do your best not to let diction hold you back. If speaking clearly is a problem and people don’t understand you, it’s time to learn some tips. This is an issue which can be fixed. Your personal and professional life should not be affected by this. Too many people are hiding their talents and great ideas just because they are too embarrassed to speak up. The first step is to gain more self confidence.

The worst thing you can do is to speak too fast. This will make it more difficult for your listener to understand what you’re saying. Slow down and you will achieve the performance of speaking clear. Keep in mind to make short breaks between different phrases. This will help the listener understand better.

You need to really speak up. If you are shy and cover your mouth with your hands or a book you will not succeed to speak clear. Stand up straight and talk with a louder voice. It’s important to keep eye contact with the other person.

The word endings are very important. You should always articulate the past tense or plural forms. If you fail to do this it will look like you’re making a lot of grammatical mistakes. It’s the speech equivalent of dotting i’s and crossing t’s and makes a lot of difference.

You can practice at home by yourself. Just make sure you’re either alone when you do this or that other members of your household know what you’re doing! To understand better where you need to work more you should record yourself. Try to read some simple sentences from a book.

The best thing you can do is to replace the long words with the short ones. Don’t try to look smart. Using shorter and simpler words will help you speak clear as shorter words are almost always easier to pronounce, which help help reduce any stumbling. The other person will easily understand what you are saying.

Get more speaking clearly tips: take a look at how to stop mumbling.