masaman Wrote:

igordesu Wrote:Masaman should make a recording, too. And then Tobberoth can make another recording in Swedish, lol.

Nooooo, seriously, I bite my tongue and can't even finish long sentences. That's MY problem. English pronunciation is too subtle and it has so many sounds. I'll be there though. And I am interested in Swedish

psh, it doesn't matter. I know it's hard (I actually don't *know* personally, but...I understand), but just go for it. Anything helps, right? Like, think of it this way. Let's say you fail miserably (you won't, but let's pretend). Dude, it doesn't even matter because you still tried and learned something. Unlike some barely educated adults living in America that are native speakers but can barely understand their own language on an educated level (like the news--though that's a separate issue, lol...), you are trying and making an effort. And anyways, I bet your guys' pronunciation and all that is better than you think

Since Igordesu wanted it, here's me reading a part of english wikipedias article on pronunciation:

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d21bbbe60b8e1...30485c71d2

Here's a reading of the Swedish wikipedia page:

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/f35ac8c40b8e1...30485c71d2

One thing to note: I'm missing one of my front teeth, making pronunciation slightly difficult, especially "s" and "th" sounds.

Tobberoth Wrote:http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d21bbbe60b8e1...30485c71d2

It sounds pretty American to me except for some transitions between words. "Language" sounds off. The first part is too stressed? I am not very good at critiques. "Area in" I had a hard time figuring out what it was until I looked at the article. It sounded like "Ariang" or something similar to me. It is also worth noting that "pronunciation" is pronounced with the "nun" in it like the word "nun." Your first "a" was pronounced like a long "a" to my ears, but the rest were fine. The "a" rule is not really for correctness, but you sound more educated and pleasant if you pronounce it "uh."

Tobberoth Wrote:Here's a reading of the Swedish wikipedia page.

Swedish sound really interesting too. It's like I kind of feel like I know what sound you are making and still I have no idea. man, I don't even know what I'm talking about


I kind of feel obligated to embarrass myself, after acting like god of Japanese, so here is my English. I read out some strange text on the web that's for some reason is pretty popular among English learners.
http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90277.mp3

The script goes like this

"Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station."

I know I am making a lot of mistakes, but what bugs you the most?

Nuriko Wrote:captal,
I'm not sure if it makes sense, but your voice alone sounds very Japanese. Anyone else get what I mean? Maybe it's also how you sound dramatic/poetic in the same way Japanese are? Also, your voice is pleasant as well and you seem like you really know your stuff when it comes to grammar and word usage and stuff like that. I was extremely impressed! Anyway, on with the advice! What stands out the most, I think, is how pauses sound a little unnatural. For example "頑張ってという 言葉を覚えたら." Actually, to me it sounds like it should just flow and have no pauses, you know? Also: "特有な表現だ." It sounds like there is emphasis that shouldn't there (especially on "na"), while I think Japanese speakers would just almost flat-line it. I made similar mistakes I think. Whenever I've gotten advice from Japanese people, the most important point seems to be to stay almost as monotone as you can. Sometimes I'm afraid if I take this advice too seriously I'll sound too much like a robot by the time I get to Japan though (my friend actually told me to sound like a robot though). Anyway, I am impressed and can tell you've had a lot of practice. As for what may need work, tons of listening and shadowing will always work things out the more active you are. Reading your speech, I was able to mentally refer to a line with a similar speech pattern and realize the difference between your pronunciation and the actor's pronunciation. Maybe that shows just how important tons and tons of listening is. Shadowing, I think, will get you to the point of being able to flow through sentences like a native. Even listening alone will do that I believe.

The reason I sound awkward at "頑張ってという 言葉を覚えたら" and "特有な表現だ" are because these are the two expressions I added after getting feedback on ling-8 so they aren't phrases I use normally. I stumbled over them in class too

Thanks a lot for the feedback, and for starting the thread- it has helped me to concentrate more on improving my intonation.

masaman Wrote:The script goes like this

"Please call Stella. Ask her to bring these things with her from the store: Six spoons of fresh snow peas, five thick slabs of blue cheese, and maybe a snack for her brother Bob. We also need a small plastic snake and a big toy frog for the kids. She can scoop these things into three red bags, and we will go meet her Wednesday at the train station."

I know I am making a lot of mistakes, but what bugs you the most?

You sound... European to me- I can't pin the accent that I'm thinking of, but I definitely wouldn't pick you as a native Japanese speaker. Your Ls and Rs are definitely better than most native Japanese speakers. I'll pick a few things:
First, it's a bit slow. Also, you said "ass her to bring these things"- you dropped the k of ask. The "a" in front of "big" is missing. The "ck" of thick doesn't sound right to me either. Not a pronounciation error, but if you follow the transcript you said "we'll" instead of "we will."

Here's my go at at (I'm from Chicago- we typically have strong A and O sounds as well as strong R sounds). http://www.snapvine.com/bp/c3lVGAuhEd6EFgAwSFxx0g

After doing it myself some of those sentences are tricky (six spoons of fresh snow peas made me do a second recording haha).

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/2a28aa560ba31...30485b0f88
Here is me reading that passage. I have been told that my spoken English sometimes sounds unnatural, so I do not know how much it will help.

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/40cd75580ba21...30485b0f88
Here is me reading something else in Japanese. It is pretty bad too.

Smackle Wrote:http://www.snapvine.com/sb/2a28aa560ba31...30485b0f88
Here is me reading that passage. I have been told that my spoken English sometimes sounds unnatural, so I do not know how much it will help.

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/40cd75580ba21...30485b0f88
Here is me reading something else in Japanese. It is pretty bad too.

I like your Japanese more than your English

This was harder than I expected. I recorded 10 times and finally decided to post what I have. I'm basically talking about what I wrote on my mixi journal. I may sound nervous due to being self conscious about everything.　Just noticed I said 兄　instead of 姉 lol。 Well, this is as realistic as what my Japanese will be.

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/vSz4FgutEd6EFgAwSFxx0g

masaman Wrote:では不肖私めが。You've already got the mispronunciation of 漢字 words corrected, so I'll skip these. You do sound pretty unique. Is this finnish?

I have no idea what they are saying but for some reason it sounds weirdly familiar. Addictive. Anyway, You have almost perfect rhythm, with only one exception where 本 became ほーん, really good pitch, but you have a tendency of using a declining pitch pattern in places. like　高校 being

こ
　う
　　こ
　　　う

It's actually a straight pitch word like

こーこー

I noticed you used the same pitch pattern in some other words too. I'll list them with correct pitch.

冒険を：　ぼーけんを

再び：　　たたび
　　　　ふ

転生：　んせい　
　　　て

ところが：　ころ
　　　　　と　　が

邪悪な：　　あくな
　　　　じゃ

魔人：　じん
　　　ま

恋人の：　いびとの
　　　　こ

時計：　けい
　　　と

And if I nitpick even further, It seems you have very delicate 「つ」 sound that sometimes sound more like 「ちゅ」. That's probably about it.

Thanks for your feedback masaman!
So the pronunciations of those words were still wrong even though they were from the dictionary.. :/
They weren't the first ones that http://jisho.org/ gave me when I later checked em' again while the ones that you guys gave were on the top of the list.. :/ I'll have to remember that!

I have never really bothered before but I'll have to look into the pitch pattern more. Perhaps some of this famous shadowing will do the trick..

masaman, I don't have a clue what that is on the video! It's not Finnish but I have a remote impression that it might perhaps be Saami. I don't know though..

I decided to following Tobberoth's example and made a sample of Finnish for you, if you're interested!
http://www.saunalahti.fi/alantin/salaa/Finnish.mp3

And as it is also getting some characteristics of English pronunciation assessment for non-English speakers too, I took the liberty of making a recording of my English too!
I speak English a lot and I have tried to lose my accent but I have never really gotten an honest native opinnion on how well I've succeeded, so...
I fear, it is still pretty monotonous though.. :/
http://www.saunalahti.fi/alantin/salaa/English.mp3

Both recordings are from the respective Wikipedia articles of airplanes.

alantin, I don't think you need to loose your accent. It makes you unique, and it actually sounds professional.

Hey, I like what you guys are doing with this thread! Turning it into a trilingual kinda thing! Just came to see what's going on here, and now I'm off to bed z_z I'll be back tomorrow with critiques and stuff like that

Oh yeah, before I leave! I agree with mr_hans_moleman. alantin, I think your accent is an advantage. You sound like one of those cool documentary narrators or a foreign professor at a prestigious university who really knows what he's talking about.

I'll give it a try.

First, that one from Minami-ke:

この物語は、南家三姉妹の平凡な日常を淡々と描く物です。 過度な期待はしないでください。 あと、部屋は明るくして、 TVから3メートルは離れて見やがってください。
http://isoron.org/stuff/japanese/audio/minami.mp3

Then, the very first lines of the Clannad Visual Novel.

この町は嫌いだ。忘れたい思い出が染みついた場所だから。毎日学校に通い、授業を受け、友達とだべり、そして帰りたくもない家に帰る。何も新しいことなど始まらない。
「こうしていて、何かが変わるんだろうか…」
「俺の生活は、いつか変わるんだろうか…」
http://isoron.org/stuff/japanese/audio/clannad.mp3

By the way, each of my vocab cards contains pitch-accent.

mr_hans_moleman Wrote:alantin, I don't think you need to loose your accent. It makes you unique, and it actually sounds professional.

I agree. It's funny how that works in America. If you can nail English pronunciation while retaining a foreign accent it is arguably better than having no accent. We American's are so behind when it comes to foreign language acquisition that when someone is able to do it, and do it well, you're perceived as being "smart" sounding.

I just listened to the OPs recording and wow...that's really impressive considering you have never had a conversation with a native Japanese speaker before!

Tobberoth Wrote:Since Igordesu wanted it, here's me reading a part of english wikipedias article on pronunciation:

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/d21bbbe60b8e1...30485c71d2

Here's a reading of the Swedish wikipedia page:

http://www.snapvine.com/sb/f35ac8c40b8e1...30485c71d2

One thing to note: I'm missing one of my front teeth, making pronunciation slightly difficult, especially "s" and "th" sounds.

First, the Swedish sounds really cool. Just, yeah. It sounds cool.

Your English is very, very good. Just don't make it sound like you're trying too hard to pronounce every single thing correctly. A lot of your consonants were like "BAM BAM BAM". You know? Maybe you could try slurring your words a bit or something? Whatever, my opinion probably doesn't even count on this matter because I'm from Wisconsin. Apparently, we all slur our words up here, and I know for sure I do reeeaaally bad. So I won't even try to record my English. Umm...yeah, so take that with a gigantic serving of salt. Otherwise, great job

masaman Wrote:I kind of feel obligated to embarrass myself, after acting like god of Japanese, so here is my English. I read out some strange text on the web that's for some reason is pretty popular among English learners.
http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90277.mp3

You did a good job. It wasn't so smooth, but I could definitely understand everything you were saying. Like you said, there were some minor mistakes. I guess just focus on the bigger ones, like...yeah, I think some others pointed some things out. You kinda missed the "a" before "big." One thing that stood out to me was the "at" near the end. You pronounced the "at the" very, very clearly and separately. It was unnatural. You might want to slur it together. Like, don't make the "t" on "at" a "th" sound, but the "t" doesn't have to be so sharp. If that makes sense? I don't know. Maybe put more emphasis on the word "train". Anyways, it doesn't really matter. You did a great job. I could be wrong for both of you about the slurring thing because that may just be regional.

alantin Wrote:And as it is also getting some characteristics of English pronunciation assessment for non-English speakers too, I took the liberty of making a recording of my English too!
I speak English a lot and I have tried to lose my accent but I have never really gotten an honest native opinnion on how well I've succeeded, so...
I fear, it is still pretty monotonous though.. :/
http://www.saunalahti.fi/alantin/salaa/English.mp3

Both recordings are from the respective Wikipedia articles of airplanes.

Good job. Like the others said, I don't think your "accent" is a problem. Don't worry about it sounding "monotonous," it was fine. The only thing I noticed is that you pronounce your t's a bit too well. Again, maybe this is a regional thing (anyone? anyone?), but I think you don't have to worry about pronouncing each one so clearly. Anyways, great job.

Okay, so I did decide to record my english for you. Umm, actually, it's early in the morning and I don't want to wake people up by talking to myself, lol, so I didn't have the option of recording again. So...sorry about the lack of clarity. I screwed up in the beginning and in one other spot, but I didn't feel like recording again

http://www.snapvine.com/bp/NTNK5AvXEd6a3gAwSFsPiA

Hey! Thanks for all the encouragement
I never really thought of the accent as an advantage! Merely as something that needs to be shed as soon as possible so I could sound more credible.

I guess I'll stop worrying about it so much and transfer that energy into Japanese!


igordesu, I think that just the fact that it is being recorded, easily makes people speak more clearly than they usually do.
Hmm.. Too bad I can't seem to be able to listen to those voice blogs from here.. They just don't load!
I used to know some people from Wisconsin, but they had lived abroad for long while and learned to speak really clearly. I was kinda looking forward to hearing what this famous accent really sounds like.. :/
Well.. I'll have to try again later!

iSoron Wrote:Then, the very first lines of the Clannad Visual Novel.

この町は嫌いだ。忘れたい思い出が染みついた場所だから。毎日学校に通い、授業を受け、友達とだべり、そして帰りたくもない家に帰る。何も新しいことなど始まらない。
「こうしていて、何かが変わるんだろうか…」
「俺の生活は、いつか変わるんだろうか…」
http://isoron.org/stuff/japanese/audio/clannad.mp3

By the way, each of my vocab cards contains pitch-accent.

I think your pronunciation is very good, just a bit too "soft" I think, I can feel a little of Portuguese in your speaking (in the 始まらない part), but maybe it's because I know you're from Brasil.

I like this "Clannad Visual Novel" piece, it reflects myself So here is my version, waiting for feedback::
http://www.snapvine.com/bp/OlhbMAviEd6kDQAwSFsOKg

Portuguese pronunciation interferes in a different way than English.
The trick stuff comes from the vowels.

In Portuguese, sometimes:

'あ' turns into /ã/
'お turns into /õ/ or /u/
'え' turns into /i/ or /ie/
'ん' turns into /in/ or /m/

If you hear both iSoron and me carefully, you'll notice all of that.

I am just addicted to recording my voice. Here is that Clannad thing if anyone wants to listen.
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/a8e388e20c261...30485b0f88

captal Wrote:Here's my go at at (I'm from Chicago- we typically have strong A and O sounds as well as strong R sounds). http://www.snapvine.com/bp/c3lVGAuhEd6EFgAwSFxx0g

Cool! I can try shadowing thing with this, thanks a lot! It sounds like my K is pretty weak, and I'm probably pronouncing some words too weak or too strong.

You're the 3rd or 4th person who told me I sounded like European. Well, I'll be optimistic and take it as I'm getting closer to English in the linguistic map.

Smackle Wrote:Here is me reading that passage.

Wow that's a death trap for me! I'll bite my tongue off if I try to speak that fast. But it helps me to get the whole rhythm of the sentence, thanks!

Your Japanese is actually easy to listen to but I assume you want to me to nitpick so here we go.

だってsounds more like だて. Rhythm is kind of like you have a T, but you don't actually pronounce it. Like this

http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90331.mp3

Pitch wise, たたかう is a straight flat pitch. つらい goes up at ら, ずっと goes up instead of down. 過去 on the other hand goes down instead of up, but most of other part sound pretty natural.

mr_hans_moleman Wrote:This was harder than I expected

Your rhythm and pronunciation feels pretty natural to me, and it doesn't sound like it's because you practiced. It sounds like you just have it. You could probably pay more attention to the pitch of the words though. But I know reading out long sentence like that is hard.

alantin Wrote:So the pronunciations of those words were still wrong even though they were from the dictionary..

There could be slight variations, but they are definitely not simple declining pitch.

It seems the song possibly some gibberish.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ievan_PolkkaAnd And thanks for the Finnish clip, it does have very unique tone and makes me want to put some random Japanese in it. Like 俺んとこにいる　入間ソリークは　有馬アラスカン 北京ターシープね　入間アロス

iSoron Wrote:I'll give it a try.

You did get most of the tone right on the top one. There are couple of places though, 三姉妹 and 3メーター are like this.

http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90332.mp3

you can use it on a lot of other words, like 郵便局、冷蔵庫、洗濯機 are pretty much the same pattern.

pronunciation wise 平凡 sounded more like へいぼう, and I agree with LordGolem, it sounds little 'soft' for some reason, but as I have been saying we care more about tone and rhythm, and overall it's pretty good!

The bottom one has a little bit more tonal hiccups. I'll post mine later so you can get the pitch.

igordesu Wrote:You pronounced the "at the" very, very clearly and separately.

Definitely my Japanese back ground is hindering me in that area. It's hard for me to pronounce things lightly. I have a tendency to pronounce all the vowels for the same length of time with the same strengh. But it sounds like I am pronouncing most words as they should be, so I can now focus on the smoothness. I am actually re-learning English pronunciation as I have been using カタカナ for the longest time and realized I would not improve anymore unless I learn the proper pronunciation from the scratch. Thanks for the comment!

igordesu Wrote:Okay, so I did decide to record my english for you.

Got another sample It's not very clear, but I can still get the rhythm and compare it with other peoples so it helps a lot. Thanks!

LordGolem Wrote:I like this "Clannad Visual Novel" piece, it reflects myself So here is my version, waiting for feedback

I think この町は嫌いだ is perfect. Your サシスセソ may be a bit soft, 忘れたい and 染み付いた sound more like わしゅれたい、しゅみついた. Other part sound really crisp and nice. Pitch is a little off in places though. I'll attach mine at the bottom so you can see.

Smackle Wrote:I am just addicted to recording my voice. Here is that Clannad thing if anyone wants to listen.
http://www.snapvine.com/sb/a8e388e20c261...30485b0f88

Your pronunciation is good as usual だろうか's ろう(often pronounced ろー) can be longer though. Here is my clip if your interested.

http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90334.mp3



man It's a looong post. If I'm missing anybody, it's definitely not on purpose. I'm just lost.

masaman Wrote:http://hisazin-up.dyndns.org/up/src/90334.mp3

You actually said 僕の世界 instead of 俺の生活
But do I sound foreign? My acquaintance (who is not Japanese) said a while ago that I sounded "really American."