Pronunciation Criticism

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Godmy mentioned elsewhere the idea of making (quoting him) "some thread where we would try to reproduce some accents of the target languages (by reading some little bits in them): be it English, French or whatever (sub-accents of English and French) and it would be evaluated by a native speaker of that dialect. But not just in "It doesn't sound bad" way but in a really nit-picky way of the sort "it's not the worst, but this and that thing is definitely not how we say it here" - I mean a thorough phonetic criticism (even if you don't use phonetic terms and alphabet...)."

Which I thought was a good idea, so I'm creating this thread.

If anyone wants to start... I certainly will participate later.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Perfect! I will attempt (now or tomorrow) probably to read something in French to amuse Pacifica - just to find out how faithfully I would be able in theory to reproduce some standard 'Parisian' accent without any special marks that would determine that I'm not from that place by far. (I don't speak French and my exposure to French is incredibly low: usually through some songs, but I'm interested in phonetics, so I would do it as a phonetical exercise, using all the sources I can to achieve that... and to amuse myself too :) ).

Any ideas, Pacifica, what to read in French? Let's say some 2 sentences of a standard length? (Like, so the recoding is let's say under 20-30 seconds at least :D).
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

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Location:
Belgium
Well, what about just two random sentences from a magazine I'm having at hand here:

François premier monta sur le trône à vingt ans, le premier janvier mille cinq cent quinze. Infatigable bâtisseur, le roi légua à ses successeurs une suite impressionnante de châteaux somptueux.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
Well, what about just two random sentences from a magazine I'm having at hand here:

François premier monta sur le trône à vingt ans, le premier janvier mille cinq cent quinze. Infatigable bâtisseur, le roi légua à ses successeurs une suite impressionnante de châteaux somptueux.
Ok, so I was a bit slower about it than I thought, so for now just the first sentence, so we know how bad it is :D Be nit-picky!

If it sounds stupid, say it sounds stupid! ;D

(It is a worse sound/voice quality than the usual, since I'm not at home...)
 

Attachments

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Not bad!

Just:

1) Some general foreign sound to it, but that was unavoidable.

2) The most striking mistake is that you pronounced "trône" as if it were "tron", i.e. with a nasalized "o", and without pronouncing the "n" (or if you did, really not clearly enough). It should be the reverse: the "o" — some sort of a long "o", though I'm not sure it's the proper term — not nasalized, and the "n" pronounced.

3) The "in" sound in "vingt" wasn't exactly the right one.

I'll try to post some recordings later to make it clearer what I mean.
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Thanks PP for the answer!
with 1) yeah, I guess that's hard to nail down... 2) oh, I probably overgeneralized 3) yeah, I regularly see/hear some contradicting pronunciations of this one, so I just gave this version just a try - I realized that as the weakest point probably


I may try some English in the future here (GA or RP) - then I would be glad for some natives to give me such kind of response too :)
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

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Location:
Bohemia
Ok, I'll do it now:

Trône
Vingt
Oh, great!

With that "vingt" it's funny that the phonetical transcriptions of this one tend to disagree a bit [from the spoken examples]... there must have been some shift between how it is traditionally described and pronounced right now.

The whole thing
So fast xD I always privately admire how French/Belgium.. people can speak & understand that amount of information from such a fast mix (of course that linguistically there's nothing really weird about it, but it's just some irrational feeling I tend to have :p)
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
still a beginner, so forgive the butchery:
https://clyp.it/qxq54yb4
It isn't a butchery.

Again, the "problem" would be difficult to pinpoint. I can't say that you really made a mistake here or there, but it's more the general sound of it that's foreign. Perhaps it moves a bit too much in waves like English, or something like that... though it doesn't really sound English, either. I'm sorry for not being that helpful here, but it's really hard to pinpoint.
 
 

Imperfacundus

Reprobatissimus

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

as for the pronunciation, I can give a breakdown, but it would help if I had a transcription (I can't make out some of the words near the middle)
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
I suspected some of it wasn't quite audible. What did you make out? I'll give a transcription after that.
 
 

Imperfacundus

Reprobatissimus

  • Civis Illustris

  • Patronus

"Here's some English of mine, it's a 'good night' to you. I'm more tired now, so be a bit indulgent [~forgiving] please. Right now... joking... um, don't be too indulgent, ?can it be described? as much as you want that word, heh. Good night."
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
This is what I meant to say:

"Here's some English of mine to say good night to you. I'm rather tired now, so be a bit indulgent, please. Well, now... I'm joking. Don't be too indulgent; you can criticize as much as you want, but... well... good night."
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Probably some English native should write something...

Just one thing where I can easily notice that the pronunciation has both US and UK elements, like the word "rather": in the standard (RP) UK dialect (and I'd say probably across most of the England; probably not Scotland) the "r" is pronounced these days only on the beginning of a word (where it tends to be more with rounded lips) and between two vowels. But before a consonant and in the end of a word (unless in connected phrases as "far away") the "r" is pretty much dead in the UK dialects (probably save some Scottish ones(?) ) but it survived in all positions in the general American pronunciation (GA; and afaik in most of the American accents - maybe not in Boston?).

Also that pretty much means that if French speakers don't really like learning new r's (but you do it well!) they can just go with the UK accents and still sound genuine :D

So, as a foreign language speaker, once you pronounce "r" in all positions, you pretty much out yourself as a US accent user (or GA) but then for the "a" before "th" (rather, bath, path) or "a" before "ss" (pass, but also sometimes before "s" as in "past, ask, answer") you can't use the Brittish vowel which is pretty much alike the Latin/French "a". The American dialects use in all these words the vowel that you can here e.g. in "bank" or "lamb, damn..." (sometimes they tense it more so it seems also longer).

(Here are the transcriptions + also audio)

So this is for example how I can easily recognize whether a European foreign speaker (who is usually taught predominantly the Brittish use in school/most courses but hears just American stuff in the media & on the internet) consciously tries to differentiate between these pronunciations or not: you either don't use the "r" and use the same vowel (similar one) which is French/Latin "a" (almost the same), or you use the "r" and but use the different vowel as in "bank, ran, sank, ....".

I guess that the Boston(?) US dialect would also permit to use the other vowel (bank) and not pronounce the "r" though :p

But sorry for this awful wall of text + I'm not even a native!

I'll be happy if some native speakers (or those who have grew up in US/UK since their early childhood) join and give us more feedback :) I'll certainly post something also... I just have to think what .P
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Just one thing where I can easily notice that the pronunciation has both US and UK elements, like the word "rather": in the standard (RP) UK dialect (and I'd say probably across most of the England; probably not Scotland) the "r" is pronounced these days only on the beginning of a word (where it tends to be more with rounded lips) and between two vowels. But before a consonant and in the end of a word (unless in connected phrases as "far away") the "r" is pretty much dead in the UK dialects (probably save some Scottish ones(?) ) but it survived in all positions in the general American pronunciation (GA; and afaik in most of the American accents - maybe not in Boston?).
Yeah, I was aware of that difference. I didn't think I'd pronounced the last "r" in "rather", did I?
Also that pretty much means that if French speakers don't really like learning new r's (but you do it well!) they can just go with the UK accents and still sound genuine :D
Well, not quite, since you'd still need it in the beginning of words and between vowels. ;) But, even though it's a sound completely foreign to French, I've never found the English "r" hard to imitate, anyway (unlike the rolled "r" of, like, almost every other language, which is a nightmare!).
 
 

Godmy

Sīmia Illūstris

  • Censor

Location:
Bohemia
Yeah, I was aware of that difference. I didn't think I'd pronounced the last "r" in "rather", did I?
Ahh,... now to be honest, I'm a bit unsure ;D The recording is a bit foggy.. I thought you did? If you didn't then never mind :p I would recommend making the recording in Audacity and save into MP3 as I posted the tutorial in the first post of the Latin pronunciation thread: the recordings will be like 10 times better :)

Well, not quite, since you'd still need it in the beginning of words and between vowels. ;) But, even though it's a sound completely foreign to French, I've never found the English "r" hard to imitate, anyway (unlike the rolled "r" of, like, almost every other language, which is a nightmare!).
Haha, yeah, you're right. But you did it well! Btw. if you want to sound as an extra conservative RP (standard UK accent speaker) you also pronounce r on those positions rolled :)) you can hear some UK speakers do that: it reportedly adds some elegance to it or what :D
 

Pacifica

grammaticissima

  • Aedilis

Location:
Belgium
Haha, yeah, you're right. But you did it well! Btw. if you want to sound as an extra conservative RP (stanrdar UK accent speaker) you also pronounce r on those positions rolled :)) you can hear some UK speakers do that: it reportedly adds some elegance to it or what :D
I think I'll just forget about that and stick to non-rolled accents. Better for me.
 
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