The Dream
Imagine you are the world champion at ping pong (table tennis). You are admired and respected by
everyone. You are well-paid and have a wonderful life.
After a few years, you decide that you want to become great at playing regular tennis too. You dream of
becoming the world champion in that sport as well. (You have a very high opinion of yourself.)
Now, some of your superb ping pong skills will help you be good at regular tennis: keeping your eye on the
ball, moving very quickly, staying relaxed under pressure, etc.
But some of your ping pong skills will not help you be a good tennis player at all.
In fact, if you play tennis using only your ping pong skills, you are never going to be very good at it.
The Reality
You have to learn some new physical skills to play this other kind of tennis: how to use a larger, heavier
racket; hit a larger, heavier ball; serve over a longer distance; etc. You get the idea.
You need a great coach to teach you the skills you need. And you need to study and learn from great
players and imitate them.
To play a game well, you have to learn and master the right skills.
It is the same with language. If you only use the physical speech skills of your first language when you
speak English, then you are not going to be very good at it.
Fortunately, some of your first language speech skills work fine for English. But some of them do not
work well at all.
To speak English clearly, you must learn the special physical speech skills that native English speakers
use.Don’t panic! You do not need to learn all of them—just the most important ones. And once you do, people
will easily understand your English at all times—even if it is not perfect.
One very important English skill you must have is: Speak English with a relaxed jaw.
Why is this so important?
Spoken English has fifteen vowel sounds.
For each of these sounds, your jaw, lips, and tongue are in a different position. Your lips and tongue
cannot get into the correct position to make these sounds if your jaw does not move.
Spoken English also has ten diphthong sounds (two vowel sounds combined to form a single syllable).
To make a diphthong sound, your jaw, lips, and tongue move swiftly from the first vowel sound to the
second. You cannot make these sounds correctly if your jaw does not move.
Many non-native speakers do not open their mouths far enough when they speak English. Some keep
their lower jaw in one position much of the time.
Usually this happens because this is how they speak their first language.
The Takeaway
Learning to speak English with a relaxed, flexible jaw will transform your English speech because it helps
you:
- Make these twenty-five English speech sounds correctly.
- Make these sounds a little longer.
- Speak a little slower.
- Speak a little louder.
- Speak English with the correct language music.
Now you try it.
Look in a mirror. Watch your mouth and jaw.
Say the sound oooh. Your mouth is barely open. Now say the sound aaah. Your mouth should be open
and your jaw relaxed. Now repeat these sounds together three times: oooh-ahhh, oooh-aaah, ooo-aaah.
This is the full range of movement your jaw should have when you speak English.
Keep watching your mouth. Say three or four sentences in your first language. Then say the same
sentences in English.
Is there a difference in your mouth and jaw movements when you speak English?
Or are you mostly using your first language speech skills with English?
Is this a skill you need to learn to improve your English speech?
