scop Diglot Groupie Ireland Joined 5851 days ago 70 posts - 73 votes Speaks: English*, Irish Studies: German, Ancient Greek
| Message 9 of 14 18 May 2009 at 9:00pm | IP Logged |
You don't sound American, but you are easily understood. Well done! I suggest watching more movies, and pop culture immersion, but I wouldn't worry too much.
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jaguar8311 Groupie Canada Joined 6658 days ago 84 posts - 96 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French
| Message 10 of 14 19 May 2009 at 3:45am | IP Logged |
I think it sounds pretty good! alot better than what I hear in Toronto(most multicultural city in the world).
I commend you for your effort and I hope that my french accent can be somewhat-native someday.
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WFU03 Groupie Norway Joined 6677 days ago 62 posts - 70 votes Speaks: English* Studies: Norwegian, French
| Message 11 of 14 19 May 2009 at 4:24pm | IP Logged |
Overall, very, very understandable even when reading that quickly.
Here are some of the words that sounded very odd (probably the vowel sounds an earlier poster mentioned):
-0:08 "nothing"...it should be very flat in American English...yours had a large change in pitch
-0:13 "well" and "life"...again, your pronunciation had too much change in pitch or a dipthong or something (not a linguist, but I know it sounds off)
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chronik Diglot Groupie Brazil Joined 6008 days ago 42 posts - 42 votes Speaks: Portuguese*, English Studies: Italian
| Message 12 of 14 20 May 2009 at 3:21am | IP Logged |
English vowels are very tricky for me, there are lots of them that don't exist in Portuguese. Also there are lax and tense vowels which make the job harder. I'm glad to know that I can be fully understood, but I'll keep working a little more on my vowels.
Thanks everyone that answered me, I really appreciate it.
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Ashley_Victrola Senior Member United States Joined 5708 days ago 416 posts - 429 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French, Romanian
| Message 13 of 14 20 May 2009 at 6:33am | IP Logged |
On the word sentence I noticed you kind of slid over the "t" sound. Usually most people don't pronounce the "t" in the word very hard, but you almost didn't say it at all. Every time it sounded like the word "sence". I definitely noticed it was the same accent as some Brazilian Portugese speakers I know who moved to the States after growing up in Brazil. That isn't necessarily bad though. I like that accent better than the ones of most Spanish-native speaking accents.
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pfwillard Pro Member United States Joined 5701 days ago 169 posts - 205 votes Speaks: English* Studies: French Personal Language Map
| Message 14 of 14 20 May 2009 at 10:14pm | IP Logged |
Very good. You sound like you have lived in the U. S. I agree with WFU03 that you have some non-English pitch accent. In U. S. English, pitch can add unintended meaning so use the most level monotone you can stand; try using an electronic tuner like guitarists use and chant the text into the tuner's microphone, watching out for little rises in pitch. Speed can also convey unwanted meaning and "foreign-ness" so it's always best to speak very slowly; try to keep each syllable voiced for a full second.
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