Record yourself speaking General American

Guest   Tue Feb 20, 2007 3:57 pm GMT
Record yourself so people can comment on it. Here is my recording:

http://ax6.org/upload/3.wav

The Rainbow passage
"When the sunlight strikes raindrops in the air, they act as a prism and form a rainbow. The rainbow is a division of white light into many beautiful colors. These take the shape of a long round arch, with its path high above, and its two ends apparently beyond the horizon. There is , according to legend, a boiling pot of gold at one end. People look, but no one ever finds it. When a man looks for something beyond his reach, his friends say he is looking for the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. Throughout the centuries people have explained the rainbow in various ways. Some have accepted it as a miracle without physical explanation. To the Hebrews it was a token that there would be no more universal floods. The Greeks used to imagine that it was a sign from the gods to foretell war or heavy rain. The Norsemen considered the rainbow as a bridge over which the gods passed from earth to their home in the sky..."

The Rainbow Passage, a public domain text, can be found on page 127 of the 2nd edition of Grant Fairbanks' Voice and Articulation Drillbook. New York: Harper & Row.
Guest   Tue Feb 20, 2007 4:34 pm GMT
Are you Japanese who is speaking Generel American accent?
Guest I   Wed Feb 21, 2007 1:57 am GMT
No, I'm not Japanese.
Guest   Wed Feb 21, 2007 11:06 pm GMT
Are you Korean?
Kelly   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:06 am GMT
The intonation is very strange, very not-GA, and the pronunciation is not perfect either [for example, your vowel in ''reach'' is just too short]
Kelly   Thu Feb 22, 2007 12:08 am GMT
Furthermore, your vowel in ''gods'' is more like Chicago[a] than GA[A]
Sho   Fri Feb 23, 2007 1:47 am GMT
It kind of sounds like you're originally non-rhotic. But otherwise it sounds perfectly American to me. Where are you from?
Guest I   Sun Feb 25, 2007 1:44 am GMT
>> The intonation is very strange,<<

In what way is the intonation strange?
Travis   Mon Feb 26, 2007 7:13 am GMT
>>Furthermore, your vowel in ''gods'' is more like Chicago[a] than GA[A] <<

That's not just Chicago, but rather practically the entire Northern Cities Vowel Shift-affected area, except some more extreme idiolects which may even use [{] for such.
Mina   Tue Feb 27, 2007 4:37 am GMT
''except some more extreme idiolects which may even use [{] for such.''

you mean [tSik{go(u)]?
RĂ­ Innse Gall   Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:00 pm GMT
But your pronounciation is damn sexy, Guest! You sound like the boy next door......very tempting...mmm!
Travis   Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:34 pm GMT
>>you mean [tSik{go(u)]?<<

With [i]? I haven't heard that one before. And to be honest, I haven't heard [{] being used there either myself, even though I hear that some individuals in Chicago will use [{] for historical /A:/.

(For the record, "Chicago" is pronounced [SI"k_hQ:go:] here.)
Victoria   Tue Feb 27, 2007 11:48 pm GMT
So is this authentic GA or not?. I am confused.

[tsik{go(u)]?. lol. Now I am saying Chicago like Tea-sick-go-you. What do I know? I am just a girl from Svenska.
Travis   Wed Feb 28, 2007 12:00 am GMT
>>So is this authentic GA or not?. I am confused.

[tsik{go(u)]?. lol. Now I am saying Chicago like Tea-sick-go-you. What do I know? I am just a girl from Svenska. <<

That is a transcription of a (rather weird) pronunciation of "Chicago" in X-SAMPA, which is a means of transcribing speech phonetically; a fauxnetic transcription of this same pronunciation would be something like "Cheekago", but such is not truly accurate in reality at all. For more information on X-SAMPA, go to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/X-SAMPA

Note that X-SAMPA is closely related to another transcription system known as IPA, for which information can be found at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IPA
Guest   Wed Feb 28, 2007 2:37 am GMT
>> The intonation is very strange, very not-GA, and the pronunciation is not perfect either <<

So it's not a native speaker? He sounds sort of like Travis to me.