edd396 Wrote:The chinese materials on this site helped me a lot. Look for the section “Pronunciation and Romanization”, in the Resource Module:
http://fsi-language-courses.org/Content.php
This is definitely the best thing I know of. You need the Resource Module text (PDF file) and the 6 Pronunciation and Romanization "tapes" (MP3 files).
After that, something that helps me, and that I still do from time to time, is called "chorusing." I'm sure it's been talked about here before, but here's a brief description. Make audio clips of sentences (using Audacity or whatever) and put them on repeat. Just let it repeat over and over, and speak right along with it. Listen to yourself in comparison with the native speaker while you do it and make the necessary adjustments where you hear a difference. Just keep repeating the sentence until you're satisfied that you sound like the speaker. You can spend a few minutes on a sentence and by the end you will have said it quite a few times (a 3 second clip repeated for 5 minutes would be 100 repetitions). That's good, because repetitio est mater studiorum. Try to pick sentences that have a good variety of different sounds and tones. Once you get good, move on to tongue twisters. Switching back and forth between words with retroflex (r, sh, zh, ch) and palatal (s, x, j, q) initials is a good challenge.
After doing this for a few minutes per day on my way to work, a Chinese friend of mine told me I had a nice, standard, Chinese-sounding accent. She said I didn't sound American. She was probably being overly nice, but I did notice quite an improvement.
I really should get back to doing this. My accent has gotten worse.
