Lesson 7: Language mastering. Pronunciation, Common mistakes.

Hey yo! Ninjakats! One step closer to the end of the journey. Hustle and your outcome will be tremendous! We have to keep polishing your project so it comes out excellent. Today, we’ll focus on mastering the language. Off course you have a great level of English, however we can bet a million dollars you haven`t master it to its full extent. It’s extremely difficult to reach that level, but we can help you achieve it faster. It will take you a lot of time, a lot more than these lessons, and a lot of effort.

Ok, on with it! The first thing you should be aware of it’s that everything sounds perfectly in your mind. We know, it’s all magic in our minds, however, the reality is a little different. Let`s think of the worst-case scenario, not to worry you, but to prepare you! 

I will start with an anecdote, this is actually a true story so pay close attention. When I was a Ninjapup, just growing up and surviving high school, one of my greatest dreams was to become a rock star! I joined the music class in school and started to learn to play the guitar. Every day I would practice hard, to the point of thinking I was a master, even bigger, a Rock God! 

Months later, I convinced a couple of my buddies to join my punkrock band, we even named it: “The Left Flank”, no reason why, just sounded cool to us. So now we were an official band! An unstoppable force of nature! And we were ready to storm the world by surprise. We went every after school to practice and plan our future huge success, we just needed an event. 

What were my eyes gazing at? An All-School Talent Show! Jeepers! It was our time, our opportunity to let the world know us! We signed up and we couldn’t wait to play in front of all our whole school. 

When the day arrived we were more than ready, we were born ready! We hurried up to the stage, and went up to take our instruments. I took a long hard look to my buddies, I could feel the start of something new and amazing. After all, we had practice more than 100 hours, we had been hearing this song for years, and we thought we were mentally prepared, so what could go wrong?

Well, the answer is… everything. I began to play, the drummer set the beat and the bass gave the right rhythm. For a while it looked like we might pull this off, until I missed a note! How was it possible, I had rehearsed this 1000 times! I was so concentrated on what I was doing that… I forgot to relax and keep up with my teammates. I kept missing notes, the fear of loosing invaded me completely. From there, everything went downhill. The drummer dropped the sticks, and I started playing faster than the rest. I thought nothing could go worst in that moment, until the singer… forgot the lyrics entirely! 

After this, we just stood still looking to the imminent void. The sense of failure was tremendous, my friends were petrified scared. I took the initiative to leave the stage running in utter shame. All four of us remained looking at each others faces in silence. 

After an awkward moment, something came from inside me and I couldn’t stop it. It was a loud laugh! My buddies saw me laughing to the top of my lungs and followed my smile. It was contagious! Everyone around us starting laughing frantically. 

It has been 20 years since this incident and I still remember it as a fond memory and a valuable lesson. This was one of those times were you fail so greatly, that there’s no more room to fail anymore. I learned three things that day: 1. Never forget to have fun. Every time you laugh and have fun, you avoid the fear of loosing and the rest seems so little. 2. When failing miserably, just stop. Take a long breath and start again. If you make a mistake but force yourself through it, you’ll just keep making mistakes. And 3. It’s not failing if the outcome is great. In my eyes, I failed so miserably that it was a huge success! I lost all fear of public appearance, and now I have a great story tell at parties!

The point of this anecdote is to tell you that everything might go wrong on your presentation. However, if you know this, you are no longer afraid of failing. Ultimately, the mastery of public speaking is down to this: Knowing that you can fail, and still carrying on… that is mastery. 

Your speech might come out terribly, it can scar you for life, but I promise you its way better than remaining in silence. If you decide to not take that road, you’ll always wonder where that road led.          

With that in mind, let’s go over some tips to create the best environment possible and correct the easiest mistakes before they happen. 

The first tip: Do the Cetacean. A Cetacean is a large marine mammal like a Dolphine, an Orca or a Blue Whale. So this dudes communicate by singing, in order to do that they have to open their mouths really wide and speak really slow. Now, imagine you are trying to communicate with another cetacean. Let`s try it, Open your mouth as wide as you can and repeat after me: Peanut Butter and Jelly Sandwiches (Pause). Great! Now let`s try it with a piece of your speech. For example: Climate Change is no joke! We must take action right now! Now you.

Can you feel your cheekbones hurting? Good! That’s what the Cetacean is for. You might hear the Cetacean also called as Enunciate. It means to take full advantage of your mouth`s muscles and vocal chords. When you are speaking in public, they should hear you all the way on the back and in every corner. It’s also a great way to relax and have fun. 

Along with “The Cetacean” is “The Exaggeration”, also a similar technique that may improve your skills. Some of the most difficult words to pronounce correctly are easily solved by exaggerating the complete words. When doing this, make sure to pronounce every letter on the word and make every sound loud and clear. For example, repeat after me: I was planning to sleep early tonight, I am tired! Great! Now try with a piece from your speech, for example: Seventy percent of world emissions are made by corporations, stricter laws should be implemented! Great!

If you combine both techniques and apply a faster pace, you should sound like a great speaker. Don`t rush, it’s not necessary to do so. Start slow and repeat your speech at least three times until you find the right pace. You’ll know its right when it sounds clear, concise, and logic!

Emphasize on the last letters of every word, especially the letters D, TH, S, and G, for some reason most people tend to obviate them. 

To be perfectly clear, accents don’t matter, that is NOT a language barrier. We understand it might be harder to pronounce certain words and letters if you grew up speaking a certain way, and that is perfectly fine! Accents are the best, we love and encourage you to use your native accent. Accents are a great way to make people remember you and love the way you express yourself. With that being said, please make special effort to pronounce every letter of the word, accents aren`t excuse to speak improperly. If you recognize that you have an especially hard accent, you must make double the effort to sound neutral and fluent.

That`s it for today! So remember to always have in mind what fear can do to you. If you turn your back onto it, it will crawl towards you and paralyze you. But once you overcome it, knowing there’s a huge probability you’ll fail, you must only make sure to have fun while doing it. 

We are sure that you have failed before, and rest assure you’ll fail thousands of times after today. But now you have a powerful tool to master fear, laughter. 

Make sure to book a meeting, until the next time Ninjakat!