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I can imagine. You essentially need to reprogram your brain and the motorical execution of how you produce the s-sounds which takes a lot of time and effort. In some cases, there are even external factors that could even prevent you from learning the "correct" pronunciation, like the way your teeth have grown, the way your upper and lower jaw bones are set in relation to one another, and more. You'd need to go to an orthodontist first to achieve results in the speech therapy.
Do you remember what kind of lisp it was and why you had it? Did your tongue protrude between your front teeth when producing s-sounds, for example, or was the tip of your tongue right at your upper front teeth?
My tongue protruded between upper and lower creating the "classic" lisp, not the "cool" Sean Connery sh lisp haha. Didn't even know I had it until some new kid in school made fun of me in grade 6.
I remember I came home and asked my mum if I talked funny and she reluctantly told me I had a lisp. I asked her to hold her mouth open with her fingers to see her teeth when she made an 's', then show me how I did it. Once I saw the difference I understood to keep my tongue behind my teeth and just made a conscious effort to correct it every time I spoke for months.
I have an overbite so it was challenging to land the bottom of my top teeth on the top of my bottom teeth, but after a few months it became habit. I'm a freelance voice actor now haha.
That's exactly what you'd have learned in therapy, so kudos to you! Pretty awesome that you thought of using your mother as a mirror for yourself. And you being made fun of, even though rude, explains why you were motivated enough to work on it yourself even.
I just realised something. In my previous comments, I put "correct" into quotation marks because in Germany there is no /th/ (voice or voiceless), so working on a lisp is more of an aesthetics kind of question because there would be no misunderstandings in German if a speaker used a /th/ instead of an /s/. Assuming you're from an English-speaking country, it's also great that you worked on it since your lisp likely led to misunderstandings, right?
And so cool that you're a voice actor now. Funny how things work out! Good thing you worked on the lisp, then, since it likely would have prevented your being able to pursue a speaking career.
Haha appreciate the kind words thank you. I'm Canadian so it didn't affect any understanding, just sounded funny. Sean Connery made the sh lisp work for him but I don't imagine he could have with a th lisp.
English speaking actors/characters with a th lisp tend to be stereotypically nerdy/child like/adorable kid types, characters that are meant to be cute or sympathetic, but not to be taken very seriously.
As far as mirroring, I'm an artist as well so I learn visually the best. Seeing my mum make the correct sound and then how I made my incorrect sound made me understand completely.
It's not something I often think about, but I am proud to have corrected it myself. My parents were looking into speech therapists after I brought it up but I wanted to see if I could do it myself first. I still make a sharp whistle at times which I suspect stems from maybe "overcorrecting" my teeth/tongue placement early on.