Gently clench your teeth. Separate your lips just enough to allow the passage of air in and out. Arch the back of your tongue so that it kisses the roof of your mouth.
Maintain the oral posture outlined in Step 1 as you practice saying the following phonemic sounds and words. A “phoneme” is the smallest isolatable unit of sound in a language. There are more than 40 phonemes in the standard American English dialect. These phonemes can be broken down into nine general categories: “fricative consonants,” “stop-plosive consonants,” “affricative consonants,” “nasal consonants,” “front vowels,” “central vowels,” “back vowels,” “glides” and “diphthongs.” Phonemes within the same category are pronounced using the same general articulation tactic.
Fricative Consonants
“th” as in “thin”
“th” (italicized) as in “this”
“s” as in “sat”
“z” as in “zany”
“sh” as in “shirt”
“zh” as in “genre”
“h” as in “hat”
Stop-Plosive Consonants
“t” as in “tall”
“d” as in “dog”
“k” as in “kick”
“g” as in “got”
Affricative Consonants
“ch” as in “churn”
“j” as in “just”
Nasal Consonants
“n” as in “nice”
“ng” as in the ing sound “sing”
Front Vowels
“ē” as in “east”
“ĭ” as in “it”
“ā” as in “ace”
“ĕ” as in “egg”
“ă” as in “add”
Central Vowels
“ûr” as in “urge”
“ər” as in the er sound in “butter”
“ŭ” as in “up”
“ə” as in the a sound in “about”
Back Vowels
“ä” as in “autumn”
“ô” as in the aw sound in “paw”
“ō” as in “ocean”
“ʊ” as in the oo sound in “took”
“ū” as in the oo sound in “shoot”
Glide
“l” as in “log”
“r” as in “rat”
“y” as in “you”
Diphthongs
“oi” as in “noise”
“ou” as in “out”
Try to say the following phonemic sounds and words (excluded from the list in Step 2) while maintaining the posture outlined in Step 1.
Fricative Consonants
“f” as in “fog”
“v” as in “van”
Stop-Plosive Consonants
“p” as in “pin”
“b” as in “bat”
Nasal Consonants
“m” as in “mat”
Glide
“w” as in “with”
These sounds and words are more difficult to pronounce because you cannot articulate the sounds for the phonemes "b," "f," "m," "p," "v" and "w" without using your lips.
Practice substituting similar sounding phonemes that do not require you to use your lips in place of the phonemes listed in Step 3.
For example:
Substitute the “d” or “g” phoneme for “b.” “Bat” becomes “dat” or “gat.”
Substitute the “n” phoneme for “m.” “Mat” becomes “nat.”
Substitute the “t” phoneme for “p.” “Pin” becomes “tin."
Substitute the soft-sounding “th” phoneme for “f.” “Fog” becomes “thog.”
Substitute soft-sounding “th” phoneme for “v.” “Van” becomes “than.”
Substitute “ū” phoneme for “w.” “With” becomes “ooith”
Move the puppet’s mouth in sync with each syllable you say as you speak using these ventriloquism techniques.