Could you comment on my English?

Hey Kaz

Listening to your recordings is fun because in each one you improve. If you don't mind, I'd like to weigh in my opinion:

(1) the first syllable of 'tired' is too stressed and lengthened; also (question for other native speakers) should it maybe have Canadian raising there, so the diphthong sounds more like schwa/long-e, instead of long-a/long-e?

(2) the r's at the ends of 'sister', 'her', 'or', etc., should be more pronounced

(3) 'considering' still needs that d to be more pronounced

(4) 'worth' needs the th to be more pronounced

Other than these, your pronunciation sounds almost native. Keep up the good work! :)

very- sounded like Vay-ry, shorten your e to sound like vehr-y
tired- tiye-rd, dont stress (ti), you dont need to voice the r (ti'uhd)
once or twice- try to make more of a hard "S" sound instead of "Sh"
her-sounds like how, try to say huhr
but- sounds like boht, try to say buhd.
so- try to stay away from that "Sh" sound
considering-same
daisy chain"- two words,
trouble- sounds like trohble, try truhble

Thanks, Nic and Ekko. Seems like I said "afterwards" all right this time. I wasn't able to say D in there before. I will try to use the same D in considering.

Nick, I wasn't clear about your comment on Canadian

S-problem that Ekko pointed out is new to me. Could be the quality of sound file? (s accompanies some strange noise on radio-quality sound file), but let me try again, being consicous of it. Actually I have a reason to believe that in fact I am adding that h-like sound. Let me fix that.

I also asked a very famous linguist to listen to my tape. He agreed to give me phonetic notes about my English for me. I read his book in college in Japan and was so thrilled to hear from him today.

I will put a new file in which I only say the words that you mentioned.

Thank you again.

Sorry about the Canadian Raising confusion. What I meant was that the way you pronounce 'tired' (tai-rd) doesn't sound to me like Gen. Am. Instead, you might want to try saying tui-rd, with the ui diphthong gliding from a schwa sound (like in cut) to a long-e sound (like in meet). I hope this makes sense.

Nic,

Thanks for this tip. I will try it.

Kaz

Hi, all, my coauthor, who is a native speaker, coached me and now I updated my tape. I hope I improved on points that were pointed out earlier.

http://www.estat.us/kaz/eigo/trial.wav

Maybe useful for other learners, so I want to mention how I try to improve my English.

It usually is NOT a matter of practice. Rather it is more about thinking. I try to see patterns in my mistakes and try to identify the causes that are making the errors. But to identify I really need native speakers' help, which is why I put my sound file here.

My experience is that books written by non-native speakers of English are usually wrong. I haven't really read too much materials written by native speakers, but as far as I can tell on the internet, maybe they tend to rely on listen-and-repeat method, which isn't often useful.

Thanks for your advice!!!!

Kaz

american nic, I agree that, as much as Canadian Raising is not part of what is called "General American English" per se, things simply do not sound right without it for at least /aI/. Again, I'm one of those sorts to whom any spoken English that is not from the Upper Midwest generally sounds "off", and such may very well sound "off" even if it is (for example, if the dialect in question is from Indiana). Anyways, Canadian Raising is also useful from a practical standpoint, simply because it makes words that would otherwise be near-homophones in NAE, often differentiated solely by a marginal vowel length distinction, such as "writer" and "rider", have an actual clear vowel quality distinction.