How to Fix a Nasally Voice
A voice can sound nasal when too much sound comes through your nose, or when too little does. How you fix it depends on the cause. A learned speech habit can improve with awareness and practice, but a structural or medical cause, like congestion or a difference you were born with, needs to be checked first.
If you've wondered how to fix a nasally voice after hearing yourself on a recording, many of the causes can be helped. The first step is figuring out what is behind it.
This article explains what causes a nasal voice, how to tell the type you have, exercises that can help you sound clearer, and when to see a doctor. This article is for any adult who wants a clearer, more balanced speaking voice.
Key Takeaways
Two common types: A nasal voice may be hypernasal, with too much nasal sound, or hyponasal, with too little, often because the nasal passages are blocked, and the right fix depends on the cause.
Sometimes a learned pattern: Some nasal voices come from learned speech habits that improve with practice, while others have a structural or medical cause.
Check the cause first: Congestion, allergies, or a structural difference can cause nasality, so see a doctor if yours is new, persistent, or came on suddenly.
Awareness helps: When nasality comes from a learned pattern, simple exercises that build awareness of oral versus nasal sound can help you sound clearer.
How to Tell If Your Voice Sounds Nasal
How to Improve a Nasally Voice
When to See a Doctor About a Nasal Voice
What We See Working with Clients
What Causes a Nasal Voice
A nasal voice is a resonance issue, meaning it comes down to where your voice vibrates as you speak. For most speech sounds, the sound should resonate mainly in your mouth. When too much of it resonates in your nose instead, your voice can sound nasal and affect your overall clarity of speech.
How nasal resonance works
Your nasal passages sit behind a small, movable doorway called the soft palate, which acts like a trapdoor. Raising the soft palate during most speech sounds, along with the walls of your throat, closes off the nasal passage, so air and sound come out through your mouth. If the soft palate stays low, airflow and sound continue into the nasal cavity instead.
Only three nasal consonants in American English are meant to sound nasal, and those are m, n, and ng. The other sounds, the non-nasal sounds, should not carry much nasal resonance, so when they do, your voice starts to sound nasal, though a little of this is normal in some accents.
Hypernasal vs. hyponasal voice
There are two common kinds of nasal voice, and telling them apart matters because the right fix depends on the cause. Hypernasality means too much sound comes through your nose while producing sounds that should not be nasal. Hyponasality means too little nasal sound, usually because something blocks the nasal cavity, so even m, n, and ng sounds get stuck and stopped up.
| Feature | Hypernasal voice | Hyponasal voice |
|---|---|---|
| What it is | Too much sound comes through the nose on sounds that should not be nasal | Too little sound comes through the nose, usually from a blockage |
| How it sounds | Whiny, or like air is leaking through the nose | Stuffed up, as if you have a cold, even on m, n, and ng |
| Common causes | Soft palate habits, learned speech patterns, or a structural difference like a cleft palate | Congestion, allergies, enlarged adenoids, or a deviated septum |
| What tends to help | Awareness and voice exercises, guided by a speech-language pathologist | Treating the blockage with a doctor first, then voice work if needed |
| Connected Speech Pathology | connectedspeechpathology.com | ||
A nasal voice can happen because of a learned speech pattern, your anatomy, or a health issue. Learned patterns are the kind that may improve with speech therapy and practice.
Anatomical differences you are born with, such as a cleft palate, can play a role, and health issues like allergies, congestion, enlarged adenoids, or a deviated septum can too. Those causes may need a medical evaluation, sometimes along with an evaluation by a speech-language pathologist.
How to Tell If Your Voice Sounds Nasal
You can get a rough sense of nasality yourself with a quick test. The simplest one is the nose-pinch test.
Say a sentence where no word has an m, n, or ng sound, like “Buy Bobby a puppy,” first in your normal voice and then while gently pinching your nose shut with your fingers. If the sound changes a lot when you pinch, that can point to extra nasal resonance. Slight nasality is a common aspect of many English dialects, so this is not a foolproof test. Keep in mind this is an informal check, not a diagnosis, but it can tell you whether it is worth looking into.
How to Improve a Nasally Voice
When a nasal voice comes from a learned pattern, awareness and practice can help you sound more balanced. The exercises below are examples a speech-language pathologist might choose to help you sound less nasal, and the right ones depend on what's causing your nasality.
Feedback, like a recording or a therapist's ear, helps you tell whether you're doing the exercises correctly.
Shift the sound toward your mouth
A gentle yawn can help you notice your soft palate lifting into a more open, oral-resonance space, though you do not need to hold that exaggerated position when you speak. Producing plosive sounds like b and p at the lips, t and d behind the teeth, or g and k at the back of the mouth, uses oral pressure. Focusing on them can help you pay attention to how your speech sounds and feels.
Lower your tongue and open your mouth
Tongue position affects how your voice resonates, and if you tend to hold your tongue high or tense, relaxing it can help create a more open sound. Speak slowly, and let your jaw drop a bit more than usual on vowels, and notice how it feels. Letting your breathing stay easy and even as you practice supports a steadier, fuller vocal tone.
Build awareness with contrast practice
Contrast practice helps you hear and feel the difference between nasal and oral sounds. In the ng-to-ah drill, move from ng, which normally uses nasal resonance, into ah, which should sound more oral, and listen for the change. Finally, recording yourself can help you hear whether the change is carrying over into your speech.
Resonant Voice Therapy
A guide to resonant voice therapy, an approach that can help you speak with less effort.
When to See a Doctor About a Nasal Voice
See a doctor if your nasal voice is new, persistent, or came on suddenly because some causes are medical. Congestion, allergies, and enlarged adenoids can block the nasal cavity and change how you sound, and structural differences, such as a deviated septum or a cleft palate, can do the same.
A physician or ear, nose, and throat doctor can determine the cause. Once the cause is understood, a speech-language pathologist who works with resonance can tell you whether speech therapy is likely to help.
What We See Working with Clients
We work with adults who want to sound clearer and more confident when speaking and expressing themselves. The examples below are based on real clients we have worked with. Identifying details have been changed to protect privacy.
One man in his thirties came to us after hearing how nasal he sounded on work video calls. He worried it made him seem less confident when he presented to his team.
We helped him hear the difference between oral and nasal resonance, then worked on lowering his tongue and letting his jaw drop on vowels to create a more open sound. He told us his voice sounded clearer to him on recordings, and he felt more at ease speaking up in meetings.
A woman preparing for more public speaking noticed a nasal quality that did not match how she wanted to come across. Because the change was long-standing and she had no congestion, we focused on awareness and soft palate control.
She practiced contrast drills and checked her progress with recordings between sessions. Over time, she reported a more natural, balanced sound, and said she stopped thinking about her voice every time she spoke.
Frequently Asked Questions About Nasal Voice
1. How do I know if my voice sounds nasal?
One informal check is the nose-pinch test. Say a sentence where no word has an m, n, or ng sound, first normally and then while gently pinching your nose shut with your fingers. If the sound changes noticeably when you pinch, it may suggest extra nasal resonance, though this test cannot diagnose the cause.
2. What causes a nasal voice?
A nasal voice can come from several causes. Some come from learned speech patterns, while others involve congestion, allergies, structural differences like a deviated septum or cleft palate, or neurological conditions. Finding the cause shows whether speech therapy, medical treatment, or both make sense.
3. How long does it take to stop sounding nasal?
It depends on the cause and cannot be predicted in advance. If your nasality is the kind that responds to speech therapy, how quickly you stop sounding nasal depends on its severity and how consistently you practice. Some causes need medical treatment rather than practice.
4. Which English sounds are supposed to be nasal?
American English has three nasal consonants, and those are m, n, and ng. Other speech sounds should not carry much nasal resonance. A nasal quality on those sounds is what people usually hear as a nasal voice.
5. Can nasal congestion cause a nasally voice?
Yes. Congestion from a cold or allergies blocks the nasal passages and tends to make your voice sound stuffed up, which is the hyponasal type. If it does not clear up or keeps coming back, see a doctor to find out why.
How Connected Speech Pathology Can Help
At Connected Speech Pathology, our licensed speech-language pathologists specialize in voice and resonance. If a nasal voice affects how you sound at work or in daily life, we can help you understand what may be contributing to it and work toward clearer, more balanced speech. In many cases, we can get started right away, and if we hear signs of a medical or structural issue, we’ll let you know if an evaluation is needed.
We also offer voice and performance coaching, as well as communication coaching, for people who want to improve how they sound when speaking professionally, presenting, or performing.
Summary
Knowing how to fix a nasally voice starts with where your sound resonates. Hypernasal means too much sound comes through your nose, while hyponasal means too little, often because the nasal passages are blocked. The two need different fixes.
When nasality stems from a learned pattern, targeted practice may help, such as relaxing your tongue, opening your jaw, and practicing the difference between nasal and oral sounds. Congestion and structural problems can also cause a nasal voice, so see a doctor if yours is new or persistent. From there, a speech-language pathologist who works with resonance can tell you whether speech therapy is likely to help.
About the Author
Allison Geller, M.A., CCC-SLP, is a communication coach, speech-language pathologist, and founder of Connected Speech Pathology, an international online practice providing professional communication coaching and speech therapy for children, teens, and adults. With more than two decades of experience, she has worked in medical and educational settings and published research on aphasia. Today, she leads a team of specialists who help clients improve their skills in public speaking, vocal presence, accent clarity, articulation, language, fluency, and interpersonal communication.
