You’ve all experienced it, but imagine experiencing it every day.

And, like, doing it for a living.

I’m talking about the embarrassment of hearing what your voice really sounds like, in a video

or some other recording.

I listen to myself talk on SciShow and Vlogbrothers all the dang time, so it's something that

I've gotten used to, but I remember when I first started doing this, I HATED the sound

of my own voice.

It sounds like another person to me, and not in a good way. I mean, it’d be great if

it turned out that I sounded like Reid Reimers --

Reid: Yeaaaahhh!

Hank: -- but the fact is, to other people, I’m a little more high-pitched and nasally

than I thought I was.

But it’s that way for everybody!

So why does your voice sound different to you than to everybody else?

It all goes back to the way that we learn how to talk -- which is super-complicated

-- but it largely involves listening to other people talk, and then mimicking those noises

with our mouths.

That involves matching what our vocal folds and mouths are doing with what our ears are

hearing.

However, we hear our own voices very differently than we hear other people's voices, simply

because they're INSIDE OF OUR HEAD.

When you hear your voice as you talk, you’re really hearing a couple of different things

at once.

You’re hearing the sound that's coming out of your mouth, which is being conducted by

air, and then traveling through your auditory canal and your eardrum and then your middle

ear and finally your inner ear.

But you’re also hearing the sound bouncing around inside your own head, which is conducted

by your flesh and bones directly to your inner ear.

And all that thick, fleshy stuff in your head does a better job of transmitting lower-frequency

vibrations than higher tones, so our voices that we hear through our own heads actually

sound deeper and more resonant.

But the big difference is simply that, when you hear it recorded, you're not hearing your

voice as you've heard it your whole life...you're hearing it as other people hear it.

This doesn't mean that it's worse, it just feels really odd to hear your voice without

all of the components you're used to, and that can be unsettling since, y'know, you've

been listening to yourself talk for, I presume, a pretty long time.

I hope, though, that you never get tired of the sound of my voice. Cause I could talk

to you all day.

Thanks for asking, and thanks to our Subbable subscribers who keep these answers coming!

If you have a quick question, let us know on Facebook or Twitter or in the comments

below, or on our tumblr! We also have a tumblr. And don’t forget to go to YouTube.com/scishow

and subscribe for more answers!