Pronunciation Criticism

[kizolk]

No doubt the opinion of a native would be more illuminating, but I'd say it might be a case of an expat whose native accent got influenced by the local accent(s) of wherever they happen to be living. I.e. she sounds like an American whose accent took a coloring from British English, and I see in her article that she has spent some time in England, which might help explain it.

I don't think I would have said English wasn't her native tongue, but 1) it's hard to say since I read your message before listening to the recording, so I knew she was American and that may have influenced my judgment, and 2) I think I would've been mostly confused about her accent.

 

[Terry S.]

Sure enough, a bit weird, but nothing triggers me into thinking the speaker isn't a native anglophone. I'd be wondering whether she's from somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere, or perhaps from one of those really old communities on the Canada/US eastern coast.

 

[kizolk]

I'd be wondering whether she's from somewhere in the Southern Hemisphere

That was my first impression actually. An American accent with some Australian features mixed in. But since I tend to confuse British and Australian English, I wasn't sure.

 

[Terry S.]

Sometimes it's not easy at to distinguish. I knew an old South African lady in Scotland, whom many people took to be Australian. I've heard plenty Afrikaners speak English, but her accent was "gentler" somehow.

 

[interprete]

I’m not sure if this is the best place to ask, but I recently downloaded the Legentibus app which offers Latin texts read aloud by someone I don’t know.
What strikes me in this man’s pronunciation is that all his "e" are quite open (like French è) and he maintains the same degree of openness everywhere. The French tend to apply their own French pronunciation when reading Latin, which means we use different degrees of openness depending on the letters surrounding e’s (I suppose - I’m just feeling this intuitively, I don’t know the exact rules). I seem to have read somewhere that we have a pretty good idea of what Latin e’s sounded like. What is your understanding of the issue?

Thanks.

 

[kizolk]

I'm not very knowledgeable on these topics, but it is my understanding that in most restituted pronunciations, short E's and O's are open, while the long ones are close, [e: o:]. However, some variants don't have an openness distinction, and instead use open vowels regardless of the length. This is my preferred pronunciation, for aesthetical reasons (although I don't always stick to it), but recent research seems to indicate that may have been how classical Latin was pronounced.

I was influenced by that video which I saw early on in my Latin studies. It introduces the 5-vowel Calabrese system and its differences with the Vox Latina "canon". Should be taken with a pinch of salt.

 

[interprete]

I'm not very knowledgeable on these topics, but it is my understanding that in most restituted pronunciations, short E's and O's are open, while the long ones are close, [e: o:]. However, some variants don't have an openness distinction, and instead use open vowels regardless of the length. This is my preferred pronunciation, for aesthetical reasons (although I don't always stick to it), but recent research seems to indicate that may have been how classical Latin was pronounced.

I was influenced by that video which I saw early on in my Latin studies. It introduces the 5-vowel Calabrese system and its differences with the Vox Latina "canon". Should be taken with a pinch of salt.

Thank you kizolk. So you would say èa, èiouss èoum for example ?
For some reason I can’t play the video, maybe the problem is at my end...

 

[kizolk]

Thank you kizolk. So you would say èa, èiouss èoum for example ?
For some reason I can’t play the video, maybe the problem is at my end...

Sorry about that, I think it was a timestamped URL, which I didn't want, and deleted one too many characters. Let's try that again:

And yes, this is how I would pronounce (or would want to pronounce) those words.

 

[Pacifica]

Here's me trying to utter words that bear some resemblance to Arabic. Please understand that I've never made such a long attempt before. I think I already know many of the issues that will be pointed out, but fire away anyhow.

 

[kizolk]

I was thinking about that very thread earlier this week, on my way to work, mostly feeling bad about not having recorded the Chinese bit already.

 

[Clemens]

Here's me trying to utter words that bear some resemblance to Arabic. Please understand that I've never made such a long attempt before. I think I already know many of the issues that will be pointed out, but fire away anyhow.

Not bad! It certainly sounds like Arabic. I’ll have a closer listen later when I can have the text in front of me.

 

[kizolk]

This one sounds good and reasonably paced: https://webgate.ec.europa.eu/sr/speech/travelling

Here are the first few sentences. Let me know if you'd prefer something else.

Zhōng guó yǒu jù gǔhuà jiàozuo dú wàn juǎn shū, xíng wàn lǐ lù. Shuō de jiù shì : yīgè rén, rúguǒ yào zuò dào bó xué duō cái, bùjǐn yào dàliàng de qù yuèdú, tóngshí ne, yīnggāi qù sì fāng yǒu lì, yě jiù shì wǒmen jīntiān suǒ shuō de lǚyóu. Wǒ xiāngxìn dàjiā ne dōu hé wǒ yíyàng, dōu fēicháng xǐhuān lǚyóu. Nàme jīntiān ne wǒ jiù xiǎng gēn dàjiā shuō yíxià lǚyóu dàodi (hesitation) yóu jǐ de hǎochù.

I assume you are familiar with the tone system, but I might have misunderstood. I'm not sure if that's enough for you in terms of the necessary information, let me know!
Also, do take the tone marks with a grain of salt, as I used the standard (expected) ones, but Chinese also has 'zero-tone' words which actually vary between softened tones and no tone at all, and there are a number of instances of that in this excerpt, so do trust your ear more than what I wrote!

Here it is. Well, the first two sentences; the whole transcript is already a bit too much information to digest lol. I would guess it's mostly unintelligible to someone who doesn't have the transcript, due to bad tones and overall phonemic mess. Also I can't really hear her fourth tone (probably due to my untrained ear, but like you said I suspect some of my problems come from the difference between actual speech and theory), so I mostly tried to mimic what I heard rather than what's written.

 

[interprete]

Here's me trying to utter words that bear some resemblance to Arabic. Please understand that I've never made such a long attempt before. I think I already know many of the issues that will be pointed out, but fire away anyhow.

I listened to it without reading the text first, and I got it all except for one word. So I'd say mission accomplished!
What do you think are your 'issues'?

 

[interprete]

Here it is. Well, the first two sentences; the whole transcript is already a bit too much information to digest lol. I would guess it's mostly unintelligible to someone who doesn't have the transcript, due to bad tones and overall phonemic mess. Also I can't really hear her fourth tone (probably due to my untrained ear, but like you said I suspect some of my problems come from the difference between actual speech and theory), so I mostly tried to mimic what I heard rather than what's written.

That was pretty amazing. Even if you stumble on some parts, in others you get a whole string of words completely right and it makes you sound so Chinese! And you manage to keep up the speed, which adds to that authentic touch. I don't think I've ever heard anyone beginning Chinese who was able to do that. Honestly.

 

[Pacifica]

I listened to it without reading the text first, and I got it all except for one word.

Yay! Which word did you not get? The first one perhaps?

What do you think are your 'issues'?

Much of my trepidation is about all those weird sounds like ص، ع، ح—I'm probably not getting them quite right or not making them sound different enough from other, similar sounds. And, of course, ر is a problem too.

Also, I said "al-nawm" when it should have been "an-nawm". But that was a random mistake due to momentary amnesia.

 

[kizolk]

That was pretty amazing. Even if you stumble on some parts, in others you get a whole string of words completely right and it makes you sound so Chinese! And you manage to keep up the speed, which adds to that authentic touch. I don't think I've ever heard anyone beginning Chinese who was able to do that. Honestly.

Thank you! I suspect you're being a little indulgent but I suppose it wasn't as catastrophic as I feared it might be lol

I think one of the hardest things was the alternance between different kinds of sibilants, some of which are retroflex, others not, and I had a hard time keeping a consistent distinction. Also, I kinda gave up on the "daliang" part of the transcript; she seems to say something quite different and I tried to mimic it but it may have been completely off.

 

[interprete]

Yay! Which word did you not get? The first one perhaps?

Much of my trepidation is about all those weird sounds like ص، ع، ح—I'm probably not getting them quite right or not making them sound different enough from other, similar sounds. And, of course, ر is a problem too.

Also, I said "al-nawm" when it should have been "an-nawm". But that was a random mistake due to momentary amnesia.

No the only one I didn't get before reading the text was اختبأت, I think you kind of stumbled on the hamza. I did get شعر and غرفة النوم was easily understandable as a collocation. I really didn't have any particular problem with the rest.

 

[Pacifica]

Well, it doesn't take much to be understandable to a proficient listener.

 

[interprete]

Thank you! I suspect you're being a little indulgent but I suppose it wasn't as catastrophic as I feared it might be lol

I think one of the hardest things was the alternance between different kinds of sibilants, some of which are retroflex, others not, and I had a hard time keeping a consistent distinction. Also, I kinda gave up on the "daliang" part of the transcript; she seems to say something quite different and I tried to mimic it but it may have been completely off.

I swear I'm not being indulgent at all. Tones are a nightmare for most people, what is amazing is that you manage to pronounce them in quick succession where 99.99% of the normal population would utterly fail.
Funny now that you say it, she does pronounce daliang a bit strangely, the L sounds almost like a D, but I think it's just a minor slip (she's probably quite nervous about being recorded).

I just listened to you again, and the first bit (Zhongguo you ju guhua jiao zuo) is PERFECT except for ju (which sounds a bit like zhi in your recording). If you fix the ju, a native may still be able to tell that you are not a native, but I honestly couldn't.

 

[interprete]

Well, it doesn't take much to be understandable to a proficient listener.

Honestly it was quite clear. I did an Arabic summer program once and I remember the Malaysian, American, and Turkish students were impossible to understand when they read the study texts. You're a joy to listen to next to them.