/ɛ̃/ - Nasalized Vowel

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 challenging as it is mentally. Your mission is to identify a feeling, then turn that feeling into voluntary movement.

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 /m/. This should make sense when you think about it. 

A nasal vowel is 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. The point when you switch from a oral vowel to a nasal /n/ or /m/ is blurry, causing you to perceive two sounds. As a result, you will sometimes nasalize the vowel since it sounds pretty much the same. 

You can hear this phenomenon in the English word examples below.  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.

Velar "Humming" Drills

Humming is the act of passing voiced air ONLY through your nose. 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:

1. Hum a note to yourself and sustain that note.
2. 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 a complete block of the oral passage with your velum. To further develop your awareness of this muscle, do the following: 

1. Start with the same open mouth humming sound.
2. Without stopping your breath and voice, switch to an oral /a/ vowel sound.
3. Go back to the humming sound and continue to alternate back and forth between humming and the oral /ɐ/ vowel (what we think of as "uh" in English).

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 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 mouth and my nose. 

In other words, I need the two sounds above to occur at the same time to make a nasal vowel.

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

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:

1. Start with the oral vowel
2. Adjust to the nasal vowel (oral + humming)
3. Adjust to the humming sound
4. Adjust back to the nasal vowel
5. Adjust back to the oral vowel
6. Repeat the whole process

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.

Nasal vowels already exist in English even though we don't realize it. So there's no actual physical challenge to creating a nasal vowel in isolation. It's more of a mental task of building an awareness of that movement.

The real challenge in Nasal Vowels is in the rapid alternation between nasal and oral in regular speech.  

You may lack the motor coordination and velar control need to switch between oral and nasal vowels at the speed that native speakers do.  You cannot master them without first developing your Nasal Control.

The techniques below are based off of those used by musicians to build their hand and finger speed for playing fast tempo music.

Speed Drills

The Rally drill is for boosting your max speed of the nasal-oral switch.

1. Start by alternating slowly between the nasal vowel and the oral equivalent.
2. Gradually build the speed until you are going as fast as you can.  You will eventually burn out.
3. Try to make it last at least 10 seconds before you burnout
4. Each burnout is a set. Do 5 sets in a row per training session for each nasal vowel.
5. Do at least two sessions a day, with one session being before you go to sleep.

Endurance Drills

In this drill, you will find a fast but comfortable speed to focus on your endurance.  

1. While keeping a steady beat, alternate between the nasal vowel and oral vowel on each beat.
2. After two measures of this, double the speed so that you're making 8 sounds per measure.
3. After two measures of this, double the speed again so that you're making 16 sounds per measure.
4. After two measures of this, do one more slow measure (4 sounds per measure).
5. This counts as one set, do 5 sets per session, and at least two sessions per day.
6. Start with a slow tempo then increase the tempo every day as your nasal control strengthens.

Practice these two drills daily for a bit and you will notice DRASTIC improvements in your ability to mimic nasal sounds at normal speed. Nasal vowels should not feel belabored; they should be easy and natural. 

If they don't feel easy and natural to you, then you need to continue this training until they do. Remember, with enough practice you WILL see improvement.

You'll know that you've had a good session if your velum is actually sore at the end. Let this remind you that your speech organ is just another group of muscles. Whatever soreness you feel today will translate into newfound strength tomorrow.