***If Your Nose Vibrates When You Speak, You've Got Nasality!

By Nancy Daniels, The Official Guide to Public Speaking
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Would you like to test yourself for nasality? Gently place a finger on each side of your nose and say the word ‘greet.’ Did you feel any vibrations in your nose? Now say the word ‘great.’ Again, did you vibrate?

If your answer is yes, then you have nasal issues. Those two sounds, the long a and long e should not be articulated through your nose. They really don’t belong there. If you had said the word grain or green, however, you would have noticed some vibration because both words contain a nasal.

In the English language, we have 3 nasal sounds: the m, n, and ng. What this means is that any word you say which contains one or more of those nasal sounds should vibrate to some degree in your nasal passages.

Nasality is not just a problem for those in the New York area. In different areas of both the United States and Canada, you will find different types of nasality. And, while the Midwest is considered void of accent, many in those states display some nasality with the short a sound. Words like gas, flat, and dad, for example, are enunciated through the nose. Trust me, those words do not belong up there either!

I once worked with a woman from Idaho who discovered a beautiful voice. Her diction was excellent aside from her words that had a short a sound. That little sound going up through her nose marred her speech. By learning how to enunciate the short a along the floor of her mouth, she successfully eliminated her nasal sound.

You can get rid of your nasality by trying the following exercise:

Take something you know from memory; i.e. the words to a song or a verse from a poem. Exaggerate it as you say it by sending all the words up through your nose. (Yes, it will sound quite strident and you will feel silly so make sure you are alone when you do this.) Now open your mouth and relax your jaw. Say the same thing again, only this time, enunciate your words along the floor of your mouth.

This is a wonderful exercise for retraining your inner ear to recognize your excessive nasality and learning to speak without it. Nasality definitely mars your sound and makes a negative statement about you. All it takes is the effort and the practice. Get your non-nasal sounds out of your nose because they have no business being there!