shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4300 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*
| Message 1 of 12 28 May 2015 at 9:17am | IP Logged |
I think the time has come for me to improve my pronunciation in English. Right now it is... rotten.
This is how I speak now (if I really try): http://vocaroo.com/i/s1ZZMcfP5pbP
1 person has voted this message useful
|
tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 2 of 12 29 May 2015 at 3:06pm | IP Logged |
Good luck! You may want to try reading a paragraph that does not include French or other non-English terms, though. There is no real "rule" for how to pronounce those italicized foreign phrases when reading English, and even native English speakers can stumble over it.
I am not even certain how I would do it. :-)
Edited by tastyonions on 29 May 2015 at 3:14pm
1 person has voted this message useful
|
shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4300 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*
| Message 3 of 12 29 May 2015 at 4:01pm | IP Logged |
Other than this, am I understandable? (This was read from the Wikipedia article)
1 person has voted this message useful
|
tastyonions Triglot Senior Member United States goo.gl/UIdChYRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4657 days ago 1044 posts - 1823 votes Speaks: English*, French, Spanish Studies: Italian
| Message 4 of 12 29 May 2015 at 4:25pm | IP Logged |
Yes, you are understandable. Since you are going for an American accent, you will need to work on a few things:
1. The "r," which you trilled a few times.
2. The "th," which you pronounced as s / z.
3. Voiced and unvoiced consonants, particularly the "d / t" contrast. Americans will usually say "sevendee" (70) rather than "seventee," for example. And when you said "extended," it sounded kind of like "extentet."
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
shinkarom Diglot Groupie Ukraine allthetongues.hRegistered users can see my Skype Name Joined 4300 days ago 40 posts - 59 votes Speaks: Ukrainian, Russian*
| Message 5 of 12 29 May 2015 at 4:54pm | IP Logged |
Thank you for your feedback. Maybe I'll record another sample specifically for this thread. (By the way, I'm really shooting at the New York accent - no, not Fran Drescher's. I just love this city).
Having downloaded some courses in American accent, I start by watching Lisa Moisin's "The American Accent Course - 50 Rules You Should Know".
So far I've watched the first two videos - the introduction to the course and the introduction to vowels.
1 person has voted this message useful
|
nikolic993 Diglot Senior Member Yugoslavia Joined 3772 days ago 106 posts - 205 votes Speaks: Serbian*, English Studies: Italian, Mandarin, Romanian, Persian
| Message 6 of 12 29 May 2015 at 6:09pm | IP Logged |
You are understandable, but here are a couple of things that you can work on:
1. Work on your ʃ(she), t͡ʃ(church), d͡ʒ(Jerry), ʒ(garage), r(run) sounds. I don't know how to explain it, but the tongue is further up in the mouth and they are kinda "softer". I recorded this just to give you an example. The first one is how I pronounce the Serbian variation and the second one is English + a word containing it:
Recording
2. Work on your "θ"(thing) and "ð"(this) sound.
3. "p", "t", and "k" are aspirated when located at the beginning of a word.
4. The "t" sound in connected speech is often converted to a "d" sound or is omitted in American English.
I'll call you tomorrow -> I'll call you dmorrow.
water -> wader
spitting image -> spidding image
Edited by nikolic993 on 29 May 2015 at 6:27pm
2 persons have voted this message useful
|
hrhenry Octoglot Senior Member United States languagehopper.blogs Joined 5122 days ago 1871 posts - 3642 votes Speaks: English*, SpanishC2, ItalianC2, Norwegian, Catalan, Galician, Turkish, Portuguese Studies: Polish, Indonesian, Ojibwe
| Message 7 of 12 29 May 2015 at 9:24pm | IP Logged |
nikolic993 wrote:
4. The "t" sound in connected speech is often converted to a "d" sound or is omitted in American English.
I'll call you tomorrow -> I'll call you dmorrow.
water -> wader
spitting image -> spidding image |
|
|
I think this really depends on which part of the US/Canada you're in. I've never heard "dmorrrow", for example. It's always a voiceless "T" where I am (North Central US).
While at first listen, spitting may sound like "spidding" but it's actually somewhere between a voiceless "T" and a voiced "D". I definitely hear "wader" much more often than "water", though.
R.
==
1 person has voted this message useful
|
tarvos Super Polyglot Winner TAC 2012 Senior Member China likeapolyglot.wordpr Joined 4699 days ago 5310 posts - 9399 votes Speaks: Dutch*, English, Swedish, French, Russian, German, Italian, Norwegian, Mandarin, Romanian, Afrikaans Studies: Greek, Modern Hebrew, Spanish, Portuguese, Czech, Korean, Esperanto, Finnish
| Message 8 of 12 30 May 2015 at 3:22am | IP Logged |
I would pronounce "tomorrow" with a t. T only lenites intervocalically, that is to say,
between two vowels. And in my opinion it's almost not even a d but a flapped r. :)
Edited by tarvos on 30 May 2015 at 3:27am
1 person has voted this message useful
|