Dear lunaKM,

I am new to being in a D/s relationship, and I am having difficulty with learning how to speak to Him more properly. I have no problem when emailing, or messaging, but that is because I have time to think about what I am saying to Him. He is wonderful at correcting me, but are there any steps or things I can do to speak more respectfully to Him?

Dear respectful speaker,

There are a lot of things you can do to learn how to speak more respectfully. First, make sure you have a clear understanding from him on what is expected of your speech. Since you didn't detail anything here I can only make assumptions. My Dominant requires that I'm polite and that I call him Master in private when addressing him. I have special phrases I am to say for certain situations and I'm never to curse or raise my voice at him. We'll use my speech requirements to describe what you can do to improve yours.

If you are better at writing to him then speaking, then work on thinking before you speak. There is no reason there can't be a pause before responding to questions or in your address to him. I know I was a lot better at remembering to call him Master when I was writing to him at first, then using it in speech. It was mostly because saying "Master" out loud felt odd. Of course, the only way for it to stop feeling odd is with practice. The more you say his title, the less uncomfortable you will feel about it. Since you are new I'm going to guess that you haven't had much practice using whatever title he's chosen for you to use. Don't worry - he's giving you a lot of time to learn what is expected of you. That's good!

It works the same way with adding more polite speech. You have to practice to make it a part of your everyday speech. Use "please" every time you want something. Thank you's once you've received something. "May I's" instead of "Can I's" and fewer statements like "I'm going to the store" to questions, "May I go to the store?" Once you get a good grip on it, you won't even notice it. That is unless someone brings it to your attention. I often get complimented for being so polite to customer service people. I guess they just don't get treated well so when they do it gets noticed. It is a good thing to be noticed over.

Speaking slower with a more lowered voice is a hard one because we learn our speech patterns at a young age from our parents and family around us. If your family is fast or loud talkers, frequent cursers, or use a lot of slang or poor grammar then it will rub off on you too. Learning better word choice and slowing your speech down can help you tremendously when you are asked to talk slower, or softer or not to use slang like, "huh", "nu-huh", "yup" or "yeah" (that might be just my rule).

Overall, as you can see, practice is the key to learning different speech patterns than what you are used to. So keep practicing and you'll be showing him how respectful you are in your speech in no time.