Improving one's speach and alliteration

McGibs

Hey guys,
I've got a slight lisp, tend to mumble sometimes, and occasionally trip over my tongue on particular words or if I'm talking too fast. It's nothing socially crippling, but it does annoy me when I have to repeat myself because my speech roll failed.
I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions for small exercises or something I could do to improve my ability to talk. I figure just regularly reading to myself aloud is the obvious answer, but maybe one of you has an idea that will make me appear less insane to my roomates. Anyone trumped a speech impediment without therapy?

illirica

I never had a speech impediment, but I did have a tendency to talkreallyfastwhenIwasnervous when I was younger, and also to speak very softly. My problem ended up being solved by joining an outreach group in college giving presentations to kids. The program was one I really enjoyed, and it forced me to speak publicly on a weekly basis - lots of practice. Kids are also a great audience, because they love you no matter how stupid you think you sound. One of the other people in the program was a foreign student, and he said that it really helped him with his pronunciation, so maybe there's something in that for you. You could look into your area and see if anything is available. As an aside, I was mortified of public speaking when I started, so don't let that stop you.

As far as the talking fast goes, what they told me when I was starting out was just to breathe after every sentence. In other words: "Hi, everyone! <stop, breathe> I'm illirica, and I'm posting on the H/A forums. <stop, breathe> Isn't that nice?" You feel like kind of an idiot at first, but then it sort of normalizes out and you lose the tendency to speak so quickly, which lets you focus on your words.

Also, just tell your roommates you're working on your speaking and go ahead with the reading aloud to yourself. They won't care. I practiced my presentation speeches out loud while cooking in the kitchen sometimes, my roomies never minded.

badpoet

Okay the following advice is mostly generated from my time in broadcasting school. So, it will work best for public speaking, but also will work in normal situations.

Take the newspaper every morning and read aloud 3-5 medium to longer length articles at a decent pace (try not to read too fast or too slow). When you're reading, place your hand on your chest. When you hit your natural pitch, you'll feel a vibration in your chest. You're also going to want learn to breath differently. Here's a wiki article that gives a decent synopsis of breathing for speaking: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Diaphragmatic_breathing.

As you read better, you'll gain confidence. And it will help you in social and work situations that require you to speak to people clearly.

GungHo

Read famous speeches aloud.

Like Kennedy's Inaugural Address, Reagan's West Berlin Brandenberg Gate speech, Martin Luther King's Dream speech. Don't focus so much on political content, but focus on the natural cadence of the speeches. You can listen to the speeches repeatedly, especially given how famous they are, and see how it worked for those men. I'm not saying you should become Barbara Jordan and enunciate the shit out of everything, but there's a good century of recorded political speech to can ape until you can come up with your own cadence.

SwashbucklerXX

For mumbling, you can work on your projection, and on breathing correctly while you speak. You might want to check out your local Toastmaster's. They can provide a supportive environment to teach you public speaking skills and improve your speech delivery and self-confidence.

Lieberkuhn

Learn to enunciate. Read a paragraph aloud, slowly, and focus on pronouncing each syllable clearly. Practise doing this every day, gradually increasing your speed as comfort dictates.

Shurakai

One thing that really helped me to be an excellent speaker is working somewhere that requires that you be.

For me, it was working as a computer salesperson at a local Futureshop. You learn to speak clearly and well, because you have to or people don't understand you (and if they dont understand you don't make as much money).

Obviously its not a thing everyone can do, but I just wanted to share my experience.

Hypatia

This is just from my experience with speech therapy, but when you do practice make sure you record yourself and play it back so that you can hear how you're sounding and use that to improve.