Nasal Awareness
Click here if you need to review The Nasal Vowels of French
As discussed in The Nasal Vowels page, nasalization is based on a muscle called the velum.
When we speak with oral vowels (as we do most of the time), we retract and elevate the tissue at the back of the roof of our mouth. This tissue is the "velum," or soft palate. Doing this completely blocks off the nasal passage so that the air from our lungs passes ONLY through the mouth. If we elevate the velum slightly to allow air to pass through the nose AND the mouth, an extra resonation occurs in our nasal cavities. This is what we perceive as a "nasal vowel." |
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Of course, we do all these things without ever thinking about it. That's why it's important to develop an awareness of the velum and its movement. Even though you use the velum without thinking about it, it is a 100% controllable muscle.
Developing awareness is not as physically challenging as it is mentally. Your mission is to identify a certain feeling, then turn that feeling into voluntary movement.
Developing awareness is not as physically challenging as it is mentally. Your mission is to identify a certain feeling, then turn that feeling into voluntary movement.
Nasal Awareness - English Examples
We actually make nasal vowels in English quite often without ever realizing it. We'll sometimes do it when we have a vowel followed by an /n/ or an /m/. This should make sense when you think about it.
A nasal vowel is actually made of two sounds: the oral vowel sound AND the "humming" sound of air resonating in your nasal cavity.
You create this humming sound whenever you make an /n/ or /m/ consonant (say "hmmm?"). This is the feeling of air resonating in your nasal cavity.
So when speaking fast, the point when you switch from a oral vowel to a nasal /n/ or /m/ is going to be blurred, causing you to perceive two sounds. As a result, you will sometimes unconsciously nasalize the vowel since it sounds pretty much the same.
You can hear this phenomenon in the English word examples below. Try to fool around with these words yourself and see if you can develop an awareness of the effect the /n/ or /m/ is having on your vowels.
A nasal vowel is actually made of two sounds: the oral vowel sound AND the "humming" sound of air resonating in your nasal cavity.
You create this humming sound whenever you make an /n/ or /m/ consonant (say "hmmm?"). This is the feeling of air resonating in your nasal cavity.
So when speaking fast, the point when you switch from a oral vowel to a nasal /n/ or /m/ is going to be blurred, causing you to perceive two sounds. As a result, you will sometimes unconsciously nasalize the vowel since it sounds pretty much the same.
You can hear this phenomenon in the English word examples below. Try to fool around with these words yourself and see if you can develop an awareness of the effect the /n/ or /m/ is having on your vowels.
Going (go-ĩg)
Huh? (hɐ̃) Man (mẽ) Home (hõm) |
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Velar Awareness - Humming
Humming is the act of passing voiced air ONLY through your nose. Typically, we do this by closing our lips so that air cannot leave out mouths. You can achieve this same oral-passage by closing just the velum.
To develop an awareness of this, do the following:
If you don't alter the humming sound when going from closed to open, that means you are maintaining the complete block of the oral passage with your velum. To further develop your awareness of this muscle, do the following:
To develop an awareness of this, do the following:
- Hum a note to yourself and sustain that note.
- While sustaining the note, part your lips and open your jaw WITHOUT altering the sound AT ALL
If you don't alter the humming sound when going from closed to open, that means you are maintaining the complete block of the oral passage with your velum. To further develop your awareness of this muscle, do the following:
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The only thing moving here to change the sound is the velum.
So whatever you are "feeling" here is the "feeling" that you want to control when making nasal vowels. Now just to be clear, humming and nasal vowels are NOT the same thing.
In the audio file above, airflow is alternating between my mouth and and nose. For a nasal vowel to occur, I need air to pass through BOTH my air and my nose. In other words, I need the two sounds above to occur at the same time to make a nasal vowel.
So whatever you are "feeling" here is the "feeling" that you want to control when making nasal vowels. Now just to be clear, humming and nasal vowels are NOT the same thing.
In the audio file above, airflow is alternating between my mouth and and nose. For a nasal vowel to occur, I need air to pass through BOTH my air and my nose. In other words, I need the two sounds above to occur at the same time to make a nasal vowel.
What Exactly is a Nasal Vowel
Let's review:
- When you flex your velum DOWN, you get the humming sound
- When you flex your velum UP, you get the oral vowel sound
- When you RELAX your velum, air passes through BOTH passageways and you create BOTH the humming sound AND the oral vowel sound. A NASAL VOWEL = NASAL HUMMING + ORAL VOWEL.
So the trick in nasal vowel production is learning how to RELAX your velum. To illustrate this, I've included an interactive animation of the speech organ below.
This tool is from The Phonetics and Phonology Department of The University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It shows the articulation of Portuguese vowel sounds, but the same principles apply (Portuguese also has nasal vowels, though they are different from the French ones).
Clicking any vowel sound in the char will cause the speech organ animation to show the movements involved.
This tool is from The Phonetics and Phonology Department of The University of Minas Gerais in Brazil. It shows the articulation of Portuguese vowel sounds, but the same principles apply (Portuguese also has nasal vowels, though they are different from the French ones).
Clicking any vowel sound in the char will cause the speech organ animation to show the movements involved.
Click on any vowel under "Orais" (meaning Oral Vowels) and notice how the velum (the green flap) moves back to block air from passing through the nasal passage. As I mentioned before, this is what we unconsciously do all the time whenever we speak with oral vowels (i.e. most of the time) Now click on any vowel under "Nasais" (meaning Nasal Vowels) and notice how the velum doesn't move AT ALL. Take note how the fact that this velum doesn't move makes it possible for air to pass through BOTH the oral passage AND the nasal passage. |
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This is what you are trying to accomplish with your nasal vowel articulation - a complete relaxation of the velum to allow air to pass through. Now that you know what you need to do physiologically, let's train your ear to be sensitive to nasalization.
Nasal Vowel Perception
If you've read the information above carefully, you should have a basic understanding of what is supposed to be going on in your speech organ when you create nasal vowels. Now it's just a question of actually making this happen.
In this exercise, you are going to practice perceiving, producing and distinguishing the following three sounds:
In this exercise, you are going to practice perceiving, producing and distinguishing the following three sounds:
- The oral vowel
- The pure nasal humming sound
- The Nasal vowel (i.e. oral vowel + humming)
Listen to the audio and follow the directions below:
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Do not move on to the next section until you are comfortable both hearing and producing the differences between these three sounds. Once you have mastered nasal awareness, you can move on to the real challenge - developing Nasal Control.