Accent Sample Thread

Travis   Tue Aug 05, 2008 1:45 pm GMT
>>The most noticeable odd features I heard were the way you said "series"--you made it sound like see-reez rather than sih-reez. I would use the vowel sound that is in the word "bit" rather than "beat" in the first syllable. Sounds quite exotic with the "beat" vowel. Also you pronounced "two" almost like "tchue" or something, and your vowel in "maglev" sounded quite strange, almost like the "a" in "apple" rather than the "au" in "audience". But other than that, and your unusual intonation and pitch contours, your English is quite understandable. I can also tell that you learned American English. With a few changes you can significantly reduce your accent, and with a few years of practice you may even be able to sound like an American.<<

Well, actually, it is quite common in NAE dialects to palatalize coronals such as /t/ before /u(ː)/, and before stressed vowels and not after a sibilant, to at least slightly affricate said /t/. Likewise, it is not uncommon to realize /u(ː)/ as [ʉ], [ʉ̯u], or even [y̯u] after coronals in NAE dialects. Hence such a pronunciation of "two" is not nearly as strange as you might think of it. Likewise, with "maglev", the normal pronunciation I myself am used to corresponds to historical /æ/, such as being [ˈmɛ̯ægɰˡɜːf] here.