Please give me some advice on my English audio sample

Clari   Thu Dec 03, 2009 3:01 pm GMT
I record myself reading an English article, here it is
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BK4tcc0TlEw

Can you hear clearly?
I would like to know what is my problem area in the consonant, vowel and intonation. Thanks in advance!

BTW, I use the Windows Movie Maker to convert the original wma file to wmm file which is accepted by Youtube. But why the sound quality seems worse than the original wma with quite some noise in the background? Does anyone know what is the best way to convert wma to a format accepted by Youtube?
Uriel   Fri Dec 04, 2009 2:12 am GMT
Well, you have a little difficulty getting through the L's -- they sound a little like W's. I'm guessing that's a tongue position problem. (I have the same issue with my tapped R's in Spanish -- awkward transitions to the next letter).

Your vowels are off -- you haven't quite got the hang of short vowels like "ih" and schwas. Your "ih's" sound like "ee's". Your short A's are too tense -- "California" sounded like "Kelleefonya", and the R was missing. "Cal" is a really loose "aeh" sound, and the I should be a colorless schwa, not a strong "ee" sound.

Once I had my ear attuned to your accent I could understand you pretty well, but you do have a strong accent. I would focus more on modifying your vowel sounds than the L's and R's right now -- it's your vowels that are going to cause the impediment to being understood well. English has a lot more odd vowel variations than many other languages that just have the five standard ones, and it may seem easy to simply approximate them with the nearest natural substitute, but native speakers really do make (and hear) a big distinction between all those variations, so that would be my advice. R's and L's we can forgive more easily.
Clari   Fri Dec 04, 2009 5:49 am GMT
Uriel ,
A million thanks for you for pinpointing my problem and giving me suggestion and guidance. I always wonder why I still sound so differently from the native speakers after years of studying English, now with your great help, I come to realize that one major reason is that I keep pronouncing ee for ih. When I play back my audio, I find I almost never pronounce ih correctly. It is weird that I didn't realize this problem before, and I am shocked to see that a seemingly small change from ee to ih will have enormous impact on the accent.

As you suggested, I would firstly work on the ih sound and schwas. This morning I've tried to pronounce the ih sound, but feel a little uncomfortable, since I've got used to pronouncing ee for years. It is always hard to change one's age-old habit, but I will persist. Hopefully next time I can upload a better audio which I pronounce ih correctly!

Uriel, thank you again. You are such a kind person. I am so grateful to your guidance. Btw, are you an English educator in university?
Clari   Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:34 am GMT
I upload a new audio sample reading the same article. Here it is.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oJe7rpFSY38

I hope I've made some progress. Can anyone give me advice if I am heading the right direction? Thanks
bad   Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:37 am GMT
Bad. Sounds like a 3 year old child learning to speak. Slow down and pronounce the sounds more clearly. You are slurring the sounds together. Separate them more.
Clari   Sun Dec 06, 2009 3:41 am GMT
Hi, Bad,
Your advice are very appreciated! I also think I sound too fast.
But regarding the problems pointed out by Uriel such as --you haven't quite got the hang of short vowels like "ih" and schwas. Your "ih's" sound like "ee's"-- do you think I make some improvement in that area?
Edinburgh Medic   Sun Dec 06, 2009 4:15 am GMT
"R's and L's we can forgive more easily."

Indeed. Uriel's advice is excellent but from an exclusively American perspective. What (s)he says about the "r" in "California" is completely right, of course, but your pronunciation is not wrong either since American pronunciation is not *the only* correct one.

In most (but not all) British accents, for example, there is no "r" sound in "California". Such an accent is called "non-rhotic". In the most traditional Received Pronunciation (the prestige accent of England), "California" does actually sound a bit like "Kelleefonya". If you watch American movies from before the 1950s, that was also how the upper-class East Coast people would say "California".

This reminds me of an American customer admonishing a Chinese waitress for saying "here's your bill".

"This isn't a bill," said the customer. "This is a check."

"Actually, what you just said was totally correct", I told the waitress later in Chinese. "It IS called a 'check' but it's also called a 'bill', and 'bill' is indeed the more common term in the UK."
daveyboy   Sun Dec 06, 2009 11:38 am GMT
Clari i think your spoken english is very good, it would be a good idea to upload an audio clip in a much higher quality though.. [ the audio seems muffled ] so i cant really tell if you have mistakes very much. Maybe record through your microphone with a good program called AUDACITY [ free program ] then just upload your file to an upload site, there are loads of them on the net Clari, try it Clari..and repost.
Clari   Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:28 pm GMT
Hi, daveyboy
Thanks for your suggestions! I would like to try the freeware AUDACITY, (I am a fan of freewares!) although I normally use a digital voice recorder to do the recording, it is quite handy and the voice quality shall be OK. I've just uploaded a new file to a file hosting website. (I've tried three similar websites and this is the only one that works! ) Here is the link for downloading the file.
http://www.keepandshare.com/doc/view.php?id=1600536&da=y

I will really appreciate it if you can give me any advice.
Clari   Mon Dec 07, 2009 3:46 pm GMT
Sorry, I've just realized that the above link is only accessible to registered users. Another website allows non-registered users to access the files, here it is
http://www.4shared.com/file/167261925/f7ef1d16/VN551200.html
daveyboy   Mon Dec 07, 2009 9:54 pm GMT
I Just listened to your audio file Clari, your spoken English is still very good but there are a few things i think you could do to make your speaking even better! Try to soften the letter S down a little bit when your pronouncing words, for eg. if you were saying the word snakes it would be like sssnakesss, just try not being to strong on the letter S. You pronounce some of your words JUST a little different but not too much Clari, i understood everything you said so thats good for you. A good tip for you would be to download or buy a good audio book with the transcript and listen pause reapeat it, listen pause repeat..etc etc.. i use them for my spanish pronounciation and they work very good Clari..
Wintereis   Mon Dec 07, 2009 11:17 pm GMT
<<This reminds me of an American customer admonishing a Chinese waitress for saying "here's your bill".

"This isn't a bill," said the customer. "This is a check."

"Actually, what you just said was totally correct", I told the waitress later in Chinese. "It IS called a 'check' but it's also called a 'bill', and 'bill' is indeed the more common term in the UK." >>

Really, as an American, I've never used the word check to refer to a restaurant bill. A check is something one writes to pay ofr said bill. But that may be a regional thing.
Clari   Wed Dec 09, 2009 10:41 am GMT
daveyboy,

Thanks a lot for your encouragement! I am certainly glad that you can understand me. Being understood by natives is the first goal of learning a foreign language. But I think I am far from good, you are just too nice to me. I think there is a lot of room for improvement.

I agree with you that I need to soften the S. Thanks for the tip that a good audio book with transcript is good for me. In fact, I've been using the audio files and transcripts downloaded from BBC website
http://www.bbc.co.uk/worldservice/learningenglish/
There are different kinds of transcripts, some are about world news, some are long and casual conversation between two persons about some interesting topics. I've been trying to mimic those audio files. I think that helps a lot.

I also think it is very helpful to watch videos in Youtube. I found enormous great English teaching videos in Youtube and I subscribe to their channels. Those teachers teach almost everything, from the pronunciation of consonants and vowels, to the American English accent. So it is good for both beginners and intermediate-level learners. The advantage is that one can watch the teachers very closely to see the correct tongue position and mouth movement. The video helps me realize that I mispronounce some consonants and vowels for years, like th, R, and soft i.

Watching those videos are very helpful and a lot of fun! I’ve noticed that there are many Spanish teaching videos too. I strongly recommend Youtube as a free resource for learning language! Wish you good luck in your Spanish learning!
daveyboy   Wed Dec 09, 2009 12:05 pm GMT
No problem Clari, its true, if a native can understand your spoken english then that is a big bonus for you. Yeah you need improvment clari, we all do in learning a language really because its not easy. I have a another good tip for you, if you have windows media player 11 on your pc [ I dont know if it works on the earlier versions ] you can slow the audio down, try this:

Open your audio file with windows media player 11 [ in full screen mode ]
At the bottom left of the player there will be the graphic equalizer
Click one of the buttons next to it until it comes to the "Play Speed Settings"
Play your audio and ajust the bar until you get the speed you want.

It is very good if for example you dont understand a word because it is pronounced very fast, just slow down the audio and practise the pronounciation again and again, then when your happy with it, put it back on normal speed and practise again. It will work for any language really.

Yeah i do watch the videos some times on you tube, there are quite a few on language learning all free as well so all good !. Clari how long have you be learning English..? which country are you from..?
Caspian   Wed Dec 09, 2009 9:51 pm GMT
China?