Feedback on my accent, please (file attached)

ESB   Thu Nov 22, 2007 9:53 pm GMT
I would appreciate any comments on my accent. My goal is to get a perfect American accent, since I live in the USA, and have lived here since I was 12 (about fifteen years already). However, a slight accent remains, and I'm not sure which angle to attack it from.

Here are several links with my voice (whichever one works better) -

http://download.yousendit.com/368377955E869F54
or
http://www.sendspace.com/file/cu2m5x (link at bottom of the page)

The text that I read:

"President Bush, who visited troops in Iraq on Thanksgiving after the U.S. invasion in 2003, called several servicemen and women Thursday to extend best wishes and say it was “the least I can do.”

Three of those receiving holiday greetings are in the Army, two are Marines, three are in the Air Force, two serve in the Coast Guard and two in the Navy. The troops called are serving in Iraq, Afghanistan and aboard ship, said White House press secretary Dana Perino.

“He called to wish the members of the military and their families and the troops that they are serving with a happy Thanksgiving. He said, ’I can’t tell you how impressed I am by the courage and compassion of our troops.’ He thanked them for their service,” Perino said.

“He said how proud he is of them.”

The president asked for God’s blessings on the members of the military, Perino said. He said he was thankful to be commander in chief of the finest military ever assembled and told them, “calling you is the least I can do because I admire the military so much.”

The president was celebrating the holiday at Camp David with his wife, Laura, and their twin daughters, who have a birthday this weekend. Also present were daughter Jenna’s husband-to-be Henry Hager, some of the president’s brothers and sisters with their families, and Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.

Bush, who plans to return to Washington Saturday, had no public schedule for the stay at Camp David in the Catoctin Mountains of western Maryland.

“He likes to keep it quiet when he’s away up there, and he likes spending time with family,” said deputy press secretary Tony Fratto, who added that the president didn’t have much time to do that in his regular schedule.
M. Antonio   Thu Nov 22, 2007 10:41 pm GMT
First, it sounds like if you were raping in some occasions. overall I would say that you have a better pronunciation than P. Bush.

you started good at the beginning with the stressing of words, but later you went a bit too fats I suppose.
Guest   Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:10 pm GMT
are you black? if you are than your accent is alright. you know you can go live in Texas and have a good English.
Guest   Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:17 pm GMT
He was raping somebody in the videos he attached? Antimoon moderators must check his IP address and report him to proper authorities at once!
MRB   Thu Nov 22, 2007 11:24 pm GMT
Being on dial-up (not by choice) I didn't even attempt to download the huge file, but I have to ask why your goal is to have a "perfect" American accent? Given that regional variations abound anyway, there's really no such thing, and that slight hints of "foreign" accents are interesting, it suggests to me (as a foreigner) that you are trying to assimilate. Why? There is no such thing as perfect English. Anywhere. There are simply many variations of the language. Certainly, some are more standard than others, but assuming your grammar is correct, what's the problem?
beneficii   Fri Nov 23, 2007 12:34 am GMT
ESB,

I don't know if you and Blackhawk are one and the same, but you don't seem to have an accent, per se. I guess when I listen for an accent, I listen for the vowels, intonation, and stress. All 3 sound general American, so you sound general American. You do pronounce the consonants a little weird (I noticed the 'w' in "western Maryland"). To be honest, you sound sort of like a tough guy from New York (your voice sounds like the character in _Friends_ who has black hair, looks Italian or Welsh, and always wears blue sweaters with a white collared shirt underneath) and like someone with a sock in his mouth.

You don't come across as foreign though.
ESB   Fri Nov 23, 2007 1:07 am GMT
LOL. Guys, I'm Russian.

beneficii, I definitely have an accent, because people always ask me where I'm from, almost immediately. I've talked to a language expert who said that my main problem is intonation, I have a deep neutral voice and don't vary it enough (per the American "staircase" intonation). Maybe this recording wasn't the best, because I just chose a random news article to read, the way I talk socially is not as monotonous.

But is there something specific I should focus on, in terms of consonants/vowels?

Regarding the earlier question about why anyone would wish to lose an accent -- this isn't the topic of this thread, but in many ways it's a social barrier, it can be bad for one's confidence, and I'm tired of having to answer the question "Where are you from?" whenever I open my mouth.
ESB   Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:00 am GMT
Your accent on the thing did not sound Russian or eastern European at all. There were no signs of it, at least not in the 3 things I usually look at it.

Now, I am not disputing that you are, only saying that I did not detect it. Perhaps you might want to post a more conversational recording?
beneficii   Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:01 am GMT
Sigh, this post

ESB Fri Nov 23, 2007 2:00 am GMT

was mine. I apologize.
Jason   Fri Nov 23, 2007 4:08 am GMT
You sound like a Russian lol. Where are you from?

Jason
Orlando, FL
DJ   Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:20 am GMT
Well, I am an Englishman, not an American. No, it doesn't sound like an American native speaker (some of the comments in this thread are by people who oppose the idea of trying to get a native accent and so are actually trolling rather than giving you a genuine answer). However, I must say - and I lived for 3 months in Voronezh - that it is a very nice English accent. It is by no means the strongest Russian accent in English, and you actually have a pleasant voice and an accent that is close enough. I am living in China and if I had a Chinese accent as good as your English accent, I would be delighted with myself.

I am not an expert on North American accents. Do North Americans normally have a very dark l at the beginning of words? The way you said LEAST struck me as odd each time you said it. In British English, we would use a clear l at the beginning of the word, but I have to say that from a Russian point of you that clear l is neither a soft l or a hard l (it is not ЛИЙСТ and not ЛЫЙСТ either), and you seemed to be saying ЛЫЙСТ in each case with an overly hard L. I am not sure if North Americans use a dark l at the beginning of words as I said, but even if they do it is not quite like yours.

The other thing is your enunciation of "er", the r-coloured schwa. US English is different from British English in that the r is pronounced, but I think the way you realized the r-coloured schwa was a little bit distinctive. I might be able to think of some other points, but really it is a nice accent. You shouldn't be embarrassed about your accent in any way.
beneficii   Fri Nov 23, 2007 8:43 am GMT
DJ,

"No, it doesn't sound like an American native speaker (some of the comments in this thread are by people who oppose the idea of trying to get a native accent and so are actually trolling rather than giving you a genuine answer). :

Oh, so I was trolling him? I'm not opposed either to getting a native accent and am trying to do the same in Japanese, I merely spoke as truthfully as I could about what I heard.

ESB,

I'll repeat again, I don't hear a trace of Russian in you (I don't dispute that you're from Russia though); you have none of the intonation and your vowels and stress are fine. The issue I brought up before was that your consonants made you sound like you had a sock in your mouth or sound sort of like Rocky (that 80s trucker-arm wrestler). Yes, those comments make it sound like trolling, but I don't troll on things like this and I suspect you're Blackhawk, the person to whose accent I have been wanting to listen for a while.

Basically, I see foreign accents as giving a certain "color" to a person's speech, and I can't see that Russian (or Slavic) color in your voice. Maybe not quite like Rocky, and I made a mistake mentioning Friends, I meant Tony Danza is who you reminded me of.

I'm sorry I'm not being more helpful, but all I can see is wrong is your consonants. Work on those and you can be fine. Then again, I didn't get to hear much intonation in that recording you gave.

So, think Sylvester Stylone or Tony Danza.
TLC   Fri Nov 23, 2007 9:52 am GMT
You did a fine job, although your intonation reminds me of Locust Valley Lockjaw speakers who speak with clenched teeth and lower jaw thrust forward. Relax and loosen those jaw muscles! ;-)

I wouldn't have guessed that you're Russian if you hadn't told us, however, I did detect a certain "foreign-ness" in the way you pronounced words like "blessings", "assembled" and "brothers". The way you pronounced "the" before "Army" and "Air Force" as [thuh] instead of [thee] and didn't link the words together also marked you as a non-native speaker. Also, if an American accent is what you're aiming for, then pronounce "military" and "secretary" the American way, not the British way.
ESB   Fri Nov 23, 2007 1:33 pm GMT
Actually, the reason I wasn't connecting some of the words was b/c I was seeing the article for the first time in my life, and was confused about some parts of it...like when I was reading "in his schedule" I didn't see the "his schedule" part on that site at first.

But, good point about "thEE/Army", I knew that, don't know why I mispronounced it. And it's true that I strain my jaw muscles when speaking English, just 'cause I'm trying very hard.
beneficii   Fri Nov 23, 2007 5:21 pm GMT
ESB,

I don't know what he's talking about with "thee army" verses "thuh army"; I think I personally say "thuh army" most of the time. I find "thee" and "thuh" to be mostly interchangable, just like "aither" and "eether" for "either."

I did notice you tripped over certain sections, but I don't blame that on non-nativeness either. I actually didn't consider it noteworthy at all. If I'm reading something for the first time, I as well will trip over myself. Maybe you just need to "get in the rhythm"?