Pronunciation Criticism

[Godmy]

Ok, so here's my try at the GA (standard American) and RP (standard UK) accents.

I took this from some CNN article:

"If the human race is to survive in the long-run, we will probably have to colonize other planets. Whether we make the Earth uninhabitable ourselves or it simply reaches the natural end of its ability to support life, one day we will have to look for a new home."​

Could some native UK/US ( Imber Ranae , Aurifex, Callaina ...etc.) tell me all the deficencies and oddities from the natives' point? I can't really get better if people are not honest.

(I'm not really good with the RP or any other UK accent, nor I use them personally or listen to many UK speakers, so forgive me if it sounds too artificial So I apologize in advance to UK speakers & if it sounds too funny, don't worry and tell me ;D)

Sorry for the lower sound/voice quality... I have to wait till I have access to better equipment.

 

[Aurifex]

Ok, so here's my try at a GA (standard American) and RP (standard UK) accents.

Your attempt at RP English is surprisingly good, Godmy. It certainly sounds no worse than Keanu Reeves' attempt in Dracula.

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

I'm not really sure what you're saying there, Godmy; at least it doesn't ring any bells with me.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

It's difficult to get a handle on it. It's foreign, but if I were asked where I thought the speaker was from, I'd only have a chance of getting it right by luck and eliminating the obvious suspects. The Ls and THs are a bit of a giveaway; 'support' stands out as not being quite in any native English pronunciation, and there's something about 'survive'. The second V doesn't sound voiced enough, if that makes any sense. You can tell I'm a phonological illiterate, right?

I've never heard rolled Rs in British English elsewhere than in deliberate theatrical style, as far as I can recall.

 

[Pacifica]

You sound just too good, Godmy. Wait for what the rest of the native gang will say, of course, but as far as what I can personally hear is concerned, the only thing I don't find perfect is that one (or I at any rate) can still somehow hear a bit that you're making an effort, but this is such a small, small thing, really, and the result of that "effort" is so good. I'm blazing with envy.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

Speaking of rolled Rs in English, the classic American telephone operator accent with the rolled R in 'three' was obsolete when Lily Tomlin used it for comic effect, along with the disyllabic 'ni-ən'. But it wasn't there just for laughs, but to decrease the possibility of mishearing on a bad line (9 could sound like 5). For similar reasons, 'zwo' is still often used in German over the phone rather than 'zwei' to avoid confusion with 'drei' (although that is an historical form in its own right).

And now, thinking about it, I can't see what a three with an unrolled R could have been confused with. Maybe they were just showing off.

 

[Pacifica]

I don't think I'll get any better than this, so... same text as Godmy.

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

The audio quality, at least at this end, makes it difficult to say anything detailed. It sounds as though you're stressing 'whether' on the last syllable, which you shouldn't. But there are more recognisable stresses in this one.

 

[Pacifica]

The audio quality, at least at this end, makes it difficult to say anything detailed.

Sorry, I don't know how I can make it any better. I downloaded the stuff Godmy said, but I guess it's just my microphone that's bad and there's nothing I can do about it.

It sounds as though you're stressing 'whether' on the last syllable, which you shouldn't.

Oh... well if that is so, it was completely involuntary on my part...

 

[Godmy]

Thank you very much for your answers Etaoin & Aurifex: I appreciate the nit-picking. In fact I think there were many good points that make sense for my native Czech phonology considering some mistakes I did.

Your attempt at RP English is surprisingly good, Godmy.

Hehe, thanks. I'm aware it still must sound a bit too "non-casual", but it's probably since I deliberately haven't been focusing on listening almost any UK speakers in the last few years. I pay more attention now to some forms and derives of GA and when I feel confident enough, I'll probably focus more on UK accents (since they seem quite fun = meaning it a good way).

Currently, I realize there is usually some key difference not just in vowel qualities (and occasional tenseness / occasionally different vowels in some words) but also some fundamental differences in the intonation and in the whole positioning of one's voice/tongue when using these accents. That's also what I kind of tried in this recording - to make the intonation more credible, but anytime I do that, I risk that it will sound just too bad (since I'm not really confident in this part yet / haven't nailed it down properly so far).

One day I would be immensely interested in the Estuary English, since that (& or some more colloquial derivation of RP) seems to be rather something that becomes really a widespread standard somewhere around the center of UK. (at least to my knowledge, you probably know much more about this). But it will be really hard to find credible resources / speakers to imitate. Maybe I'll buy some books...

From the people who probably never studied phonetics formally, the British comedian/actor Hugh Laurie seems to me as probably the most one, since it seems that he pulled off a very credible American accent in the TV Show House M.D. But I would be quite interested if any American here had anything to say about that

It certainly sounds no worse than Keanu Reeves' attempt in Dracula.

Haha, that's hilarious! I haven't even realized he had such role / any role where he spoke (or attempted to) with RP. I should probably see the movie.

I'm not really sure what you're saying there, Godmy; at least it doesn't ring any bells with me.

It seems to me sometimes that some older speakers prefer to pronounce the "r" (on the beginning of the word and between two vowels) with rolling. It seems that all recordings of Tolkien reading some parts of his book contain that (not always with 100% consistency, but still).

It's difficult to get a handle on it. It's foreign, but if I were asked where I thought the speaker was from, I'd only have a chance of getting it right by luck and eliminating the obvious suspects. The Ls and THs are a bit of a giveaway; 'support' stands out as not being quite in any native English pronunciation, and there's something about 'survive'. The second V doesn't sound voiced enough, if that makes any sense. You can tell I'm a phonological illiterate, right?

I've never heard rolled Rs in British English elsewhere than in deliberate theatrical style, as far as I can recall.

Believe it or not, but it all makes sense to me. In my language we have a phonological law that we call "final devoicing" = any voiced consonant that finishes the word gets devoiced (when children learn to spell, they frequently want to write there voiceless consonants instead of their voiced counterparts). I usually fight this in English - rather successfully, but here and there it happens...

With the L's would you say the L is too 'front'? I should try to read & upload here more things in the future, see if I make any progress in these details Btw., if you want get back to it, which particular instance of "th"? (or maybe it's all of them?) Since I'm aware that sometimes I articulate them differently in different contexts (one time the tongue is rather behind the teeth and reasonably low, almost not touching, the other time it's under the teeth: it also seems that not everybody does it in the same way; then in some UK dialects it gets substituted for even for some labial (bilabial/labiodental) consonants... but yeah, that's not the question in this one recording).

But again, thank you very much for this detailed feedback to you & Aurifex (maybe somebody else wants to comment too ).

Btw. there's also the PP's English recording one page earlier... ; P

You sound just too good, Godmy. Wait for what the rest of the native gang will say, of course, but as far as what I can personally hear is concerned, the only thing I don't find perfect is that one (or I at any rate) can still somehow hear a bit that you're making an effort, but this is such a small, small thing, really, and the result of that "effort" is so good. I'm blazing with envy.

Thank you very much... It is always a dilemma, since the study of phonetics pretty much says that I should put some effort into some parts where it seems unnatural to me (given my native/Czech phonology) or unnatural to my compatriots learning & speaking English: but mostly that effort goes luckily unnoticed by a native and does what it is supposed to do (sounds, if possible, rather native than weird), but sometimes it just doesn't do it 100% and there it's surely perceivable as something foreign

But ^ there's still a lot to work on I have no illusions, but I'm at least glad if I'm on the right track. I realize that most native speakers don't really care in interaction whether one has a strong foreign accent or not as long as they successfully communicate, but then I think that the whole point of learnin a "foreign language pronunciation" in the first place is to go so far that it sounds native and that every foreign language learner at least once thought or wanted to do that [before we adopted this idea that we're just getting into "foreign accents" and "approximate" native pronunciations]. Also, I found out that more I learn the unimportant phonetical details (at least about GA and RP) in length, better I am in passive understanding of GA and RP speakers. Since sometimes we have let's say just one-vowel wrong sound-image in our brain of a certain word and we don't really mind or find out, but then when hearing the word in a dialogue, we won't be able to recognize it... well, you know what I'm talking about So this helps me also passively...

 

[Etaoin Shrdlu]

I'm familiar with final devoicing, but I was querying the concept of something not being voiced enough. Before today I'd have said things were either voiced or unvoiced.

 

[Godmy]

I don't think I'll get any better than this, so... same text as Godmy.

I'll have to send you a new microphone If I didn't understand something, it was due to the quality, but it's better than the vocaroo tries .-) Also in the Audacity, you can cut some parts that you don't like after you record it with selecting the part and using the scissors

 

[Pacifica]

It is always a dilemma, since the study of phonetics pretty much says that I should put some effort into some parts where it seems unnatural to me (given my native/Czech phonology)

Yes, of course it's normal to make an effort. Now the ideal thing would be for that effort not to be perceived by listeners — or, better still, for you to get it right without needing to make an effort anymore! — but until then, it's far better for you to make an effort even if it's apparent, than not to make one and mess it all up, of course.

 

[Godmy]

Yeah, exactly

 

[Godmy]

Yes, of course it's normal to make an effort. Now the ideal thing would be for that effort not to be perceived by listeners — or, better still, for you to get it right without needing to make an effort anymore! — but until then, it's far better for you to make an effort even if it's apparent, than not to make one and mess it all up, of course.

Btw. that effort is surely heard in the RP one (I commented on that in length in the response to Aurifex - about the perceived different intonation and so on) - if that was what you had in mind... (but then, maybe you didn't ;] )

 

[Pacifica]

I think I heard some effort in both recordings (or that was my personal impression), but a bit more in the British one, yeah.

 

[Godmy]

^ Right...

 

[Imperfacundus]

@Pacis your pronunciation is good enough that, behind the static noise, it's almost impossible to pinpoint any concrete errors. There's the prosody and general articulation, of course, but that's learned via language immersion. Something we could all stand to benefit from, it seems.

Godmy I can upload myself slowly reading the same passage, if you want.

 

[Imperfacundus]

Meanwhile, some comments:

The soft f's are a bit of a giveaway. "If, of, life" to be specific. You do articulate the correct sound for that, more or less, in the word 'have'.

Did you know people often misspell "would've" as "would of" ? The anglos like hard f's. There's a joke in there somewhere, but I like to think I've matured past that level.
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The 'y' in human is stronger, at least in my English.
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'Run' sounds a bit off. The vowel's right, so that isn't it. Maybe it's the 'n'. It's a lot softer when I say it.
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There was one part where, interestingly enough, absolutely everything was correct. It was: "...or it simply reaches the natural..." I swear, after playing that part a couple of times, I'm amazed at the sudden transition into and then back out of a perfect american accent. It's all just a trick, isn't it? you're really some guy from vermont who forgot to affect a czech accent for about two seconds.

 

[Pacifica]

@Pacis your pronunciation is good enough that, behind the static noise, it's almost impossible to pinpoint any concrete errors.

There's the prosody and general articulation, of course

Much like what happened with your French recording, then. No concrete error*, but just the general sound of it.

*Though I perhaps did one with "whether", if Etaoin is right.

The soft f's are a bit of a giveaway. "If, of, life" to be specific. You do articulate the correct sound for that, more or less, in the word 'have'.

I knew the sound in "of" was a "v" sound, but in "if" and "life" (which would make the latter sound like "live"), really...? The dictionary says otherwise. Now perhaps it's just like that where you live. Or maybe you mean more like some intermediary sound.

 

[Godmy]

Thanks, Imperfacundus! What you mentioned is part of that final devoicining problem. I'm even aware of this instance with "of" (and the mixing you mentioned some native speakers make while spelling), but sometimes I catch myself unaware and do that