Hi, my name is Greg. I am 23 years old, in good health and Asian American, born and raised in America. By all means, I should be able to speak English with an American accent with no trouble at all. However, I think I have discovered something about myself that probably affects many other Asian Americans like me. I believe I have a natural speech impediment caused by the anatomy of my face. The impediment interferes with my ability to pronounce many words and enunciate well, often throwing my speech rhythm off and causing words to come out weird. For example, words involving the "ch", "re", and "j" sounds give me trouble when I use them in sentence form at a normal rate, but if I slow it down ridiculously I can say them clearly.

Now, even though I have noticed other Asian Americans with the same problem, I know many Asian Americans do not have this characteristic. Moreover, what I have noticed about the people without this impediment is that their heads project outwardly more so medially than those with the impediment, such as myself. My head is not as elongated from front to back as other races and Asians without the impediment. Now, this is just a theory of mine based on casual observations, however, when I pull the skin around my mouth back slightly, move the corners of my mouth back with my facial muscles, or press on the area directly above and/or below my lips while I speak I have no trouble at all ? these techniques all replicate the effect a longer head from front to back would have on that area. And it is an established fact that Asians, for the most part, have smaller heads than all other races, which leads me to believe that this characteristic is unique to people of Asian descent.

I have seen a speech pathologist to find out more about this but there is nothing known on the matter and it seems as though she is not taking me seriously. So, if it sounds like you may be affected by this problem and would like to do something about it, please e-mail me at greggin24@hotmail.com. I know it is not the biggest problem in the world or anything and it sounds kind of odd but I know for me it is definitely something that would improve my everyday life if I could fix it, and the more people we can gather the more compelling we will look to people who can help us.

Thank you

Greg,

Do you speak another language in your household?
If so, you probably got the accent because of the other
language that you use. What I've noticed is that Asian
Americans who have only spoken English their entire
lives speak it perfectly; however, the ones that speak
two or three languages seem to have that accent.

Don't worry about it. I speak 4 languages and have a bit
of an accent on all of them, except the first language that
I began speaking. I speak good English by all means, having
lived here for most of my life; however some of the words
come out funky. It's because I pronounce those words the
way I pronounce is about the same as I would with another
language.

Don't worry about it. If it bothers you that much, then you'd probably
need to go to a voice coach to correct the problem. Many
actors, newscasters, and models use these professionals to
help them with their accent.

Have you ever noticed that whenever you see a news program, you
never hear anyone with a southern accent or other foreign accents.
Even the Asian faces don't have the problem. It's because they
trained themselves to correct the problem.

Best of luck on you endeavor...

QUOTE

Don't worry about it. If it bothers you that much, then you'd probably need to go to a voice coach to correct the problem. Many actors, newscasters, and models use these professionals to help them with their accent.

I agree! Think of it as more a professional and/or language problem and not a racial one. Don't give yourself that excuse to not correct yourself.

Here are two examples of stutterers in the entertainment industry:

James Earl Jones (Darth Vader, the 'This is CNN.' voice, and played Jack Ryan's employer in those Tom Clancy films)
Nicolas Brandon (Xander in Buffy the TV series

Perquisition:

One of my observation is that Chinese seems pick up English quicker than Koreans and Japanese. Its that Chinese grammar - in terms of the noun/subject placement to verb - is similar to English while, Korean/Japanese is the opposite. So, if grammar evolved from our brains then is the Chinese brain wired differently than the Korean/Japanese?

Yo Greg, don't take this wrong... but what is really bothering you about the "anatomical" situation you described? The message you wrote at length is short in this area which needs further elaboration. Without it it doesn't make your entire thought complete.