Nuriko and masaman - thank you for your feedback! Very encouraging. I have made note of your comments and will try to put them into practice. By the way masaman, I am actually a girl/woman so... it made doing all those deep voices all the more silly/fun.

By the way Nuriko, your clips are very impressive -- very pleasant to listen to with excellent pronunciation.

mgbp7 Wrote:By the way masaman, I am actually a girl/woman so... it made doing all those deep voices all the more silly/fun..

oh really? not like your girls part was manly but your deaths were too convincing It sounds like you could be a good singer.

masaman Wrote:

mgbp7 Wrote:By the way masaman, I am actually a girl/woman so... it made doing all those deep voices all the more silly/fun..

oh really? not like your girls part was manly but your deaths were too convincing It sounds like you could be a good singer.

I wish I could pull off a man-voice like that...

mgbp7 Wrote:Nuriko and masaman - thank you for your feedback! Very encouraging. I have made note of your comments and will try to put them into practice. By the way masaman, I am actually a girl/woman so... it made doing all those deep voices all the more silly/fun.

By the way Nuriko, your clips are very impressive -- very pleasant to listen to with excellent pronunciation.

You're very welcome (although I don't think I could help much, you were too good for me to find many problems). And thank you for your compliments, I appreciate that very much

Nuriko Wrote:

masaman Wrote:

mgbp7 Wrote:By the way masaman, I am actually a girl/woman so... it made doing all those deep voices all the more silly/fun..

oh really? not like your girls part was manly but your deaths were too convincing It sounds like you could be a good singer.

I wish I could pull off a man-voice like that...

As a guy, I'm tooootally fine I can't pull off a girl-voice like yours, hehe.

http://www.nicovideo.jp/watch/sm1478003

ちょっと羨ましいんですけどΣ（ﾟдﾟ；）

　( ﾟдﾟ )　プロみたい

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/ZDjnVq4oEd6XtQAwSFsPiA


>_>

I blame it on peer pressure.

ropsta Wrote:http://www.snapvine.com/bp/ZDjnVq4oEd6XtQAwSFsPiA
>_>
I blame it on peer pressure.

雪国 eh? very classy. And I think you have a very good sense of mora.
Here are the words I noticed.

Pronunciation:
白く（しろく)

mora:
信号所（しんごうしょ or しんごうじょ）
座席(ざせき)

Pitch:
国境
ガラス窓
娘は
いっぱいに

As it was such a good line, I tried it myself but I kept stammering! this was hard!! I ended up spending 30 min. so I'm not sure if this helps anything but I'll post it just for fun.

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/7seilq42Ed6XtQAwSFsPiA

Here's 2009 October's submission. It's from 27 minutes into Last Friends at the bar scene. Apologies about my horrid ability at the female voice (or even male voice in Japanese).

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d0cf4892b79c1...30485c72b4

Here's the text:

http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/1892879/Share...araoke.txt

************************
Previous submissions

2009 March, iKnow Sentences
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/FQiUbgq0Ed65hgAwSFsOKg

2009 March, Ashita Hareru Kana.
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/PZ43fg7VEd6uTwAwSFxytA

2009 August Zettai Kareshi second submission
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/f72315e27f791...30485c71d2

2009 August Zettai Kareshi Intro
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/9yMV4n95Ed6SswAwSFxx0g

2009 Sept., Rookies J-drama karaoke, Ep 01 about 22 minutes in. http://www.snapvine.com/bp/x4qAIp1HEd6BhgAwSFsPiA

Nukemarine,
I'm impressed that you can go through all this stuff while hardly even tripping over it. It takes me way too much time to make a 20 second recording without nearly biting my tongue off and/or sounding like porky pig.

I edited your text file and highlighted things here and there and added comments, mainly about where the accent on the word should be, or how a sound needs to be lengthened (which is a tricky thing to learn to maintain - I'm just baaarely starting to get more conscious about pronouncing those), or if I noticed that a word sounded different, I mentioned that too. It's probably not to be taken seriously though, being from a non-native and all. Just suggestions to take into mind

Are you keeping note of where the accents should be on words in your SRS? Doing that helped me fix a lot of accent errors.

Here is the edited rtf:
http://dl.getdropbox.com/u/673006/%E3%81...%AD%A3.rtf

Let me know if it doesn't work for you and I'll try a different service or format.

Looking forward to next month's recording! This kind of practice is really going to pay off, I think

Wanting to record everything I read in the book 魔女がいっぱい！(The Witches by Roald Dahl) is really slowing the whole reading process down a lot XD I'm reading it aloud anyway and only notice my mistakes when I hear them recorded, so I really want to make sure I'm reading this all correctly as possible.

Here's a 28 second one I just did (which resembles the voice of a sleepy preschooler):
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d0c0e138b6f91...30485b0f88

I can just barely hear errors throughout. As for how I said the word "とても” - yeah, somehow that came out pretty mangled.

Can anyone else point some mistakes out? I really really don't want to be oblivious to my mistakes.

Thanks!

Nuriko, thanks for the critique.

To be honest, Masaman's comments about Pitch and Mora go over my head. Same goes with accent marks. Granted, even in English, I never could get the concept of "schwa" down. For me, I pretty much have to hear it then adjust based on that. That may be part of the reason I've been using subs2srs with dramas so much.

Also, the file worked great and I was able to read it. Thanks for that. I hope most of the mistakes are just from reading too fast. However, it's going fast that reveals where the weaknesses are. Not stretching out 女　or having a longer pause on the っ amoung others are mistakes I may not have realized till pointed out here.

Not really intending this to be practice, just milestone checks (where I was, where I am now). However, I'm getting benefit from the critiques.

I always wanted to try this, but I'm dissatisfied with how my voice sounds when it's recorded. But it's not like anyone online has ever heard my real voice, so what difference does it make? I want to make a post today no matter how much I dislike how I sound.

http://uploading.com/files/6229fbfm/happineba.zip/
(I picked "Moments of Happiness" by Banana Yoshimoto to read, but I realize it's a little above my reading "out loud" ability. Seems I can always read more in my head than I can actually read out loud.)

Well, I guess I should introduce myself, so you guys have a baseline to "judge" me.
My dominant language as of now is English, but at one point, it was Korean (technically this is my first language, and for now, my second most dominant language.) I studied some Mandarin, Spanish, and French. ...but anyway, I'm guessing that most of the pitch errors I make will be because of my Korean language.

I've been studying Japanese on and off since middle school, but I'm still surprised sometimes by how "Japanese" some of the recordings I have of people reading stories sound. I don't get to talk to (or hear) actual Japanese people talking in person very often. (I can actually count the number of people I've had conversations in Japanes with who were actually Japanese on one hand.)

ocircle, to my ears you seem to be very very good at reading in Japanese. It sounds like you have a good hold of the sounds of the Japanese language, and I think you only need to tweak things here and there (many of which I can't exactly point out but I'll try to find a few specific things which I'll include in the bottom of this post). Your voice, of course, sounds very nice, which itself sounds Japanese, somehow. Not exactly sure why. It just seems to match with the language nicely. I did notice, though, that your reading wasn't always smooth (once you read the passage more and get more reading practice in general, that goes away, of course). It's a great thing that you are noticing mistakes and repeating words/phrases again in your recording. I think that's really important to have that kind of error recognition and feel a need to repeat it.

I noticed something different-sounding about the word ほとんど。I think it was that I didn't hear the H that much and it sounded like there was a う sound at the end. Unless you were saying a different word? It was at 1:09.

When you say "ではなく” and ”なんとなく” you put the accent on the く syllable when it should be on な。

I can mostly just think of positive things, such as how you pronounce the ふ sound delicately, lengthen vowels where they need to be lengthened, and keep the volume of your voice generally flat. You definitely have the monotone thing down, too.

As a non-native, there's not much more I can say. Very good work, I'd say! I'd like to hear further additions, like what Nukemarine has been doing monthly.

Okay here goes nothing.

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d7621ca6b86f1...30485c71d2

This is a speech I have on tomorrow. It has to be completely memorised . As you can tell I'm actually reading in that recording lol

Lol I already found a mistake 使っているのでは, I said つかわれ：Ｓ：Ｓ：Ｓ：Ｓ

liosama Wrote:Okay here goes nothing.

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d7621ca6b86f1...30485c71d2

This is a speech I have on tomorrow. It has to be completely memorised . As you can tell I'm actually reading in that recording lol

Lol I already found a mistake 使っているのでは, I said つかわれ：Ｓ：Ｓ：Ｓ：Ｓ

Wow, you wrote this yourself too? Really good work, interesting topic, something to be proud of (both writing and reading). Your pronunciation is very clear and easy to understand. I felt like I didn't even need the written paragraph most of the time because it was so clear.

I did notice that some syllables sounded different. ろ（in 1600)　sounded more like りょ。Also, きょう in 勉強 sounds like the accent is going up too far and should be more flat. The word 勉強 doesn't have an accent. Of course, keep the う sound there, just keep that second syllable monotone along with the first syllable.
Here's the iKnow recording for the word: http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%...9%E5%BC%B7

Also, the accent for 他 should be on か, so the sound will go more upward on the second syllable.
http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%...anguage=en

In the sentence 「間違っている」ということです。」 と is sounding like ど to me.

What stands out mostly as needing improvement is the volume changes of your voice. I learned this at the beginning of this thread in March when a user had a Japanese speaker critique my recording. The volume of my voice went up and down a lot, and since then I have mostly fixed it. I noticed that you are doing the same thing I did. Pretty much, just focus on putting more "monotone" into how you talk while maintaining a flat-line level of volume unless there are some things you really want to stress with emotion.

I've found lately that it's really important to focus on each and every separate syllable in words like など. In English, d often comes out as a more dull, soft sound but in Japanese and Spanish, they have more of a hard sound. I notice you're saying "ど” in ”など” more like how it might be said in English.
"など”：http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A9&language=ja&translation_language=en

In this sentence: しょうがないと言えるのではないでしょうか。
It sounds like the　う needs to be extended just a little more. It sounds closer to "しょ”

Good luck, but you probably don't need it as you are doing great. It's quite an accomplishment to have come this far, I'd say, especially hearing you bust out with statistics like a pro. By listening to this, I can tell you've picked up the correct ways of saying certain phrases, so it's evident you've been listening quite a lot.

Hope to hear about how the speech goes!

edit: was "数(かぞ)" a typing error? I've always known that word as "かず”, is there such a pronunciation as かぞ as well?

Nuriko Wrote:Wow, you wrote this yourself too? Really good work, interesting topic, something to be proud of (both writing and reading). Your pronunciation is very clear and easy to understand. I felt like I didn't even need the written paragraph most of the time because it was so clear.

I did notice that some syllables sounded different. ろ（in 1600)　sounded more like りょ。Also, きょう in 勉強 sounds like the accent is going up too far and should be more flat. The word 勉強 doesn't have an accent. Of course, keep the う sound there, just keep that second syllable monotone along with the first syllable.
Here's the iKnow recording for the word: http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%...9%E5%BC%B7

Also, the accent for 他 should be on か, so the sound will go more upward on the second syllable.
http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%...anguage=en

In the sentence 「間違っている」ということです。」 と is sounding like ど to me.

What stands out mostly as needing improvement is the volume changes of your voice. I learned this at the beginning of this thread in March when a user had a Japanese speaker critique my recording. The volume of my voice went up and down a lot, and since then I have mostly fixed it. I noticed that you are doing the same thing I did. Pretty much, just focus on putting more "monotone" into how you talk while maintaining a flat-line level of volume unless there are some things you really want to stress with emotion.

I've found lately that it's really important to focus on each and every separate syllable in words like など. In English, d often comes out as a more dull, soft sound but in Japanese and Spanish, they have more of a hard sound. I notice you're saying "ど” in ”など” more like how it might be said in English.
"など”：http://smart.fm/items/matching?keyword=%E3%81%AA%E3%81%A9&language=ja&translation_language=en

In this sentence: しょうがないと言えるのではないでしょうか。
It sounds like the　う needs to be extended just a little more. It sounds closer to "しょ”

Good luck, but you probably don't need it as you are doing great. It's quite an accomplishment to have come this far, I'd say, especially hearing you bust out with statistics like a pro. By listening to this, I can tell you've picked up the correct ways of saying certain phrases, so it's evident you've been listening quite a lot.

Hope to hear about how the speech goes!

edit: was "数(かぞ)" a typing error? I've always known that word as "かず”, is there such a pronunciation as かぞ as well?

Holy shit, so much detail Thankyou first of all. I personally hate my Japanese voice it annoys the shit out of me, imagine how annoying it is when I have to practice it until it's memorised? Yeah it's annoying. Yeah I think its when my pronunciation of など when it is next to です that everything goes crap. The "などで" part KILLS me. I end up trying to say something like なろです since that is what my tongue slips into most easily.

Yeah 数 is meant to be かず. When I first typed out my speech I had something like 数えれば～ and I had かぞ in furigana, but i changed it later to 外来語の数は after finding out there is a noun for count. So I got used to saying かぞ I gotta try fix that :o.

When I get around to it I'll record another speech I entered in a Japanese Speech competition with.

Anyway must continue memorising! I keep procrastinating here ~

Ah, yes, it is definitely ほとんど there. This is the sentence:
不幸、というのはすべてほとんど、バランスの不在からやって来る。

I guess the katakana caught me by surprise. I probably almost burst out "hachi(八)RANSU".

o_o I have a harder time reading text that's up and down unless it's studded with kanji where ever it can be used. In the Korean writing system, we haven't used an up and down writing system to publish literature since like the 70s or 80s.

But keeping things general flat toned and speaking each syllable clearly has been emphasized time after time.

I haven't done one of these yet but its just me trying to read a news article. I haven't even starteddd to work on my pronunciation yet! So feedback would be good

mezbup Wrote:

I haven't done one of these yet but its just me trying to read a news article. I haven't even starteddd to work on my pronunciation yet! So feedback would be good

For not having worked on pronunciation, I think you're doing extremely, -extremely- well. Upon my first listen, I came across just a few errors and noticed an overall slight lack of sounding monotone. It's not noticeable to me as much as it would be to a native, but there are some volume changes here and there and should be kept monotone.

For 植物 the accent/mora is on the second syllable according to http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn/9620...%E7%89%A9/ and at the moment iKnow isn't working but a search on http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-b...dic.cgi?1C gave me an audio file that helped confirm it.

Also, when you said いろいろ in the beginning on the article, it sounds more like "いろいら” to me. Doesn't seem like a reading error, you obviously know that word is いろいろ but it just kinda got jumbled up in the midst of reading many many other syllables, it seems.

様々な方法： "na" sounds like it could be said just a little more clearly to keep it from sounding like "no." At first it sounded like "no" to me but as I listened a little better I could hear the "na" but it's still not a clear, outright "na." Perhaps natives do it too -- I know in English, for example, sounds can be changed a lot. For instance "a [noun]" -- the "a" sound often comes out like "uh."

技術's mora is 1, so when you pronounce it, place the accent on the ぎ syllable.

This is slightly more of a hunch than the above corrections, but when you say 「作りやすく」や「おいしく」 there's a larger emphasis on the く sound than I'm used to hearing. It's just a small thing to keep it mind though, perhaps something to ask a native if you would like to know for sure if it sounds correct or not.

There are a few other small things I noticed as just sounding different from how I usually hear (or "think" I hear them), but I'm not going to mention them. Not being a native and all, I don't want to lead you in a wrong direction.

And here's the best part, the pros:

- It's understable without looking at the text. (however, I did read this when it first came out and read it many times over so that's probably part of it)
- At least with my non-native ear, I didn't notice many incorrect mora placements (however do keep in mind that this is completely different from a native listening)
- Your pronunciation sounds very smooth to me -- words with many syllables come out very clearly and at a good speed. Seems to be a sign you've been doing a great deal of listening, but the fact that you don't practice pronunciation and have results such as these, it's quite impressive.
- "など” has just the right d sound (to me, anyway). Getting the correct ど syllable was a big hurdle for me, btw, and in this thread I've heard how other people have had a little trouble with it too.
- Overall, you focus on how individual syllables need to be pronounced, such as how you said 研究 while including the う。

Good luck with your studies

Nuriko Wrote:

mezbup Wrote:

I haven't done one of these yet but its just me trying to read a news article. I haven't even starteddd to work on my pronunciation yet! So feedback would be good

For not having worked on pronunciation, I think you're doing extremely, -extremely- well. Upon my first listen, I came across just a few errors and noticed an overall slight lack of sounding monotone. It's not noticeable to me as much as it would be to a native, but there are some volume changes here and there and should be kept monotone.

For 植物 the accent/mora is on the second syllable according to http://dictionary.goo.ne.jp/leaf/jn/9620...%E7%89%A9/ and at the moment iKnow isn't working but a search on http://www.csse.monash.edu.au/~jwb/cgi-b...dic.cgi?1C gave me an audio file that helped confirm it.

Also, when you said いろいろ in the beginning on the article, it sounds more like "いろいら” to me. Doesn't seem like a reading error, you obviously know that word is いろいろ but it just kinda got jumbled up in the midst of reading many many other syllables, it seems.

様々な方法： "na" sounds like it could be said just a little more clearly to keep it from sounding like "no." At first it sounded like "no" to me but as I listened a little better I could hear the "na" but it's still not a clear, outright "na." Perhaps natives do it too -- I know in English, for example, sounds can be changed a lot. For instance "a [noun]" -- the "a" sound often comes out like "uh."

技術's mora is 1, so when you pronounce it, place the accent on the ぎ syllable.

This is slightly more of a hunch than the above corrections, but when you say 「作りやすく」や「おいしく」 there's a larger emphasis on the く sound than I'm used to hearing. It's just a small thing to keep it mind though, perhaps something to ask a native if you would like to know for sure if it sounds correct or not.

There are a few other small things I noticed as just sounding different from how I usually hear (or "think" I hear them), but I'm not going to mention them. Not being a native and all, I don't want to lead you in a wrong direction.

And here's the best part, the pros:

- It's understable without looking at the text. (however, I did read this when it first came out and read it many times over so that's probably part of it)
- At least with my non-native ear, I didn't notice many incorrect mora placements (however do keep in mind that this is completely different from a native listening)
- Your pronunciation sounds very smooth to me -- words with many syllables come out very clearly and at a good speed. Seems to be a sign you've been doing a great deal of listening, but the fact that you don't practice pronunciation and have results such as these, it's quite impressive.
- "など” has just the right d sound (to me, anyway). Getting the correct ど syllable was a big hurdle for me, btw, and in this thread I've heard how other people have had a little trouble with it too.
- Overall, you focus on how individual syllables need to be pronounced, such as how you said 研究 while including the う。

Good luck with your studies

Thanks heaps! Interesting stuff about the mora placements, I didn't really know that but now that you mention it you're right Saying いろいろ in amongst all that stuff was a real tongue twister! I felt that 「作りやすく」や「おいしく」 was off too but I couldn't work out how to make it flow xD

Here's my 2009 November's submission a little late. I was going to read from Hana Yori Dango, but decided to try something different. Last night after the Eikaiwa on base, I asked the Japanese Public Affairs Officer if I could record a conversation with him.

To be honest, recording it and listening to it afterward I was thinking about not posting it. It's not a conversation so much as me trying to speak for 3 minutes. I'm stammering and grasping for words. However, this is an honest snapshot of sort of where I'm at, though not at my best. Being prepared about what to say is easier than trying spontaneous speech with no notes.

If I try this again, I might have an outline written up to help the flow of what I'm trying to say.

Here's the dropbox link until I can upload it on snapvine.

http://dl.dropbox.com/u/1892879/Shared%2...ording.mp3


************************
Previous submissions

2009 March, iKnow Sentences
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/FQiUbgq0Ed65hgAwSFsOKg

2009 March, Ashita Hareru Kana.
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/PZ43fg7VEd6uTwAwSFxytA

2009 August Zettai Kareshi second submission
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/f72315e27f791...30485c71d2

2009 August Zettai Kareshi Intro
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/9yMV4n95Ed6SswAwSFxx0g

2009 Sept., Rookies Ep 01 about 22 minutes in. http://www.snapvine.com/bp/x4qAIp1HEd6BhgAwSFsPiA

2009 Oct, Last Friends Bar Scene
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d0cf4892b79c1...30485c72b4

Nukemarine, 根性ありますねー 感心感心！
I was just recently talking with a bilingual Japanese-American and was too shy to even get past saying things like "そうですね” "はい” even though I'm always talking to myself in Japanese sentence after sentence. This was very interesting to listen to. This has shown me how important courage is to gaining fluency.

Also, I only listenened once so far but I think you said at one point "ろくかげつ”. Sorry if I'm mistaking that for something else or if I just heard wrong. According to Tae Kim, this would be pronounced as ろっかげつ。Until I added this to my SRS, I was making the mistake of ろくかげつ.
Here's the link~ it's mentioned under "A Span of Time":
http://www.guidetojapanese.org/learn/grammar/numbers

Keep it up! Looking forward to next month's!

I thought I'd also make a recording that wasn't perfected, so I read part of an article that I hadn't read before and recorded it during the first read. It's kinda goofy sounding because I didn't know a word and then the fire alarm started going off in the other room so it ends abruptly...

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/fddf5c90ddea1...30485b0f88

edit: snapvine doesn't seem to allow that much text, so here's the rest of the article:

この、「時間が無いゆえに紛れ込んでくるものたち」が、生活がスッキリしない原因となっているのです。時間がなくて実際に使ったり楽しんだりできないものたち、何とかする必要があるのにできていないものたちが、家の中や1日の時間を埋めていき、生活全体を作っているというのです。

and here's the actual article:
http://www.lifehacker.jp/2009/11/post_1296.html