Speech Impeded Tropers - G-g-g-g-gather Round!

This thread is for all people with all kinds of speech impediments, their experiences and ways of dealing with them. I have a stammer, as well as rhotacism, or, how it is called here on TV Tropes, The Elmuh Fudd Syndwome. So, let's see how many of us are here!

edited 21st May '11 8:10:32 AM by MilosStefanovic

Not a lot, apparently. I have a severe stutter.

I can't say R.

Just make friends with 50 Cent and you can join his rap clique.

G-g-g-g-g- G-Unit!

No impediment here, but thought you guys might like this

That was pretty cool.

I can't make "th" sounds.

I'm not sure if this counts as an impediment, but I'm extremely prone to spoonerisms (e.g. "You have hissed all my mystery lectures").

I average about once every several sentences.

edited 9th May '12 5:49:36 PM by Sarkastique

I stutter when nervous.

Can I join? Though I defied my speech impediment when I was fourteen. Here is my story.

I had rhotacism, Czech style, meaning I couldn't pronounce r and ř. It's fairly common, other problems being s (when pronounced as "th") or l ("dark l").

There was always some teacher at my primary school who was designated to deal with speech impediments, but it was not very useful. Except I always felt very uneasy and sometimes even embarrassed when I was sent to practice with them. I also learned a couple of little poems with R everywhere in it. And my brothers had a cool new way of making fun of me by repeating td-td-td-td. It's indeed the first way of trying to pronounce tr-tr-tr as Czech r is an alveoar consonant like t and the sounds are produced at the same spot.

When I was fourteen, my mum decided I should try a real professional. Surprisingly my doctor was against is, telling us it's now a part of my personality. Nevertheless, I was sent to a phoniatrist who said there is no problem with speech organs and she sent me to a speech therapist. I had an appointment every week and one winter did it. People would have never guessed now. I also have a perfect French r in my repertoire of consonants. :-)

I have a lisp, that makes me speak with a good German accent according to at least one Austrian born British citizen. Unfortunately, it makes me sound like A certain leader of Germany. Good job I live in England. In English, though, it's the stereotypical gay man lisp and I'd like to be rid of it, even though I'm bi. Some people can't understand what I'm saying all the time, but I had an operation on my throat when I was 11 which cured the worst of it.

edited 16th Oct '14 10:46:48 AM by TheOneWhoTropes

.... I tend to pronounce "th" sounds at the ends of words as "ff' by default. Eg. "bath" -> "baff"

I can't pronounce most words as they sound really slurred when I speak, due to my weak muscles.

My words always fuse together, even if i talk at a regular rate, so

I can't do th or any vowel/r combination. People often mistake it for a French accent.

When I was in preschool, all of my teachers told me that “S” was the “snake sound”, becuase snake started with S and a snake, when positioned right, could look like an S.

See, I thought that when they said it was the snake sound, they meant it was the sound that a snake made. Snakes, for those of you who dont know, make a hissing sound by sticking out their tongues. In my mind, this meant that I had to pronounce Ss by sticking out my tongue.

When the teachers noticed my profound lisp, rather than using a different method, they just doubled down on the snake thing. Of course, by the time I understood the issue, it was already muscle memory.

Anyways, that’s why I had to go to speech therapy until 7th grade.

I don't have a speech impediment really, but a tendency to say (this) when I'm talking a lot in Arabic, even when I can say the whole thing without using that word once. It's gotten the point where relatives have told me to try to say a statement without saying this in Arabic.

I can't pronounce R. Usually nobody cares but one time I tried to ask a cashier at a store for soybean meal but she didn't understand (the Finnish word has a R) and I had to write it on her computer.

I often repeat words if either I don't know what to say next or when I like the sound of the word.

I also make long pauses in speech when I speak in (technically not) mother tongue of Indonesians, because don't know the word, even though I speak other languages just fine.

I have a bad stutter in both my native Japanese and English. According to a person I talked to, it apparently comes from me trying to say things too fast.

I know that, but I just can't bring myself to slow down!

Edited by Cordite-455 on Feb 21st 2024 at 10:26:43 PM

I actually have another thing with speaking too fast. I have a lisp I can mostly negate if I focus on it and sometimes my R's sound like Ls (I'm a native English speaker but my mom is Panamanian who spoke Spanish as her first language) and I also frequently talk too fast which causes me to skip and merge sounds sometimes. Whats really irritating though is that if I would just be able to slow down I could mostly fix these but if I'm not focusing on it I don't even notice.