My accent
Even though I understand English reasonably well, I never speak or write so sorry for my mistakes.
I want to tell me what do you think of my accent. If I retained that intonation an whole quality of the voice from the recording could I be mistaken (in your opinion) for American or at least for a native speaker of an unspecified english speaking country.
I tried to aquire a manner (quality) of speech so it would resemble American English and also tried to learn english sounds for quite a while but in my opinion my pronunciation is still not even nearly convincing.
Could you also tell me what should I improve to sound more native-like? Should I work on my whole quality of voice (not particular sounds, only voice) or is it good enough?
As to the sound of English: does anything strikes you as unnatural (what)?
Here is a sample of my speech (some practiced sentences).
http://www1.zippyshare.com/v/65680227/file.html
Thankyou for your help.
Of course it should be:
I want you to tell me...
And: Thank you for...
I can't understand a thing. Anyway you've got a strong American accent
I found another mistakes in my first post
If I retained that intonation an whole quality of the voice from the recording could I be mistaken (in your opinion) for American or at least for a native speaker of an unspecified english speaking country? (there was no question mark)
As to the particular sounds of English: does anything strikes you as unnatural (what)? (it's more precise now)
I guess other questions are formed properly. Sorry for mistakes once again.
You would not be mistaken for a native speaker. Some of the words (such as 'moderation') sound great, others are not even close ('in a matter of days'). Slow down. I assume you're watching "House" and repeating what the actors say - see if you can capture the sound but say the words slower so nothing gets lost (while at the same time listening very closely to how the actors join the words together - mimicking that is the hardest part of acquiring/losing an accent).
Unless you are supremely talented, you can't just fake a native-sounding accent by trying to achieve a "certain manner" of speech. I tried for a long time and didn't get anywhere even though I was living in the States and talking with Americans every day. I only started making real progress when I hired an experienced accent coach - he opened my eyes to the thousand and one little details that make up an accent.
You need to begin by making sure you're making every separate sound right (you'll very likely be surprised how many false assumptions you have - I certainly was). Then you need to learn how those sounds change in words and phrases (for AmE, 'butter' sounds like 'budder', 'ride it' is the same as 'write it', 'do it' actually sounds close to 'do wit', etc). Then you work on intonation. (Plus you also need to improve your grammar, judging from both of your posts).
Completely losing your accent is extremely difficult, especially if you don't have a qualified instructor who specializes in accent elimination. That said, you can reduce it a lot working according to the above sequence.
'butter' sounds like 'budder', 'ride it' is the same as 'write it', 'do it' actually sounds close to 'do wit', etc). Then you work on intonation.
I'm not a native speaker of English but budder and butter sound differenty in British English, what about the pronuncition of do it?? I tend to pronounce it doo yt...
BrE is definitely different. I recall reading an interview in which Hugh Laurie said he couldn't think of a single sound that was exactly the same between BrE and AmE - that might have been an exaggeration, but not by all that much. Those 't's between vowels don't become 'd's in BrE, as a rule.
The 'do wit' effect is very subtle. Putting a full 'w' in there will definitely sound like an exaggeration.
>> BrE is definitely different. I recall reading an interview in which Hugh Laurie said he couldn't think of a single sound that was exactly the same between BrE and AmE - that might have been an exaggeration, but not by all that much. <<
Phonologically speaking, that's quite an exaggeration. But acoustically speaking RP and General American are quite different.
Thank you for your analysis. I have some additional questions.
"Some of the words (such as 'moderation') sound great,
others are not even close ('in a matter of days')."
1. What's the percentage (approximately) of words that I pronunce well enough?
2.
'in a matter of days'
"Matter" was mispronunced beacuse I spoke too fast. I guess it sounded weird because of that. Am I right?
"I only started making real progress when I hired an experienced accent coach - he opened my eyes to the thousand and one little details that make up an accent."
As I written in my first post I tried to learn sounds for quite a while (using IPA, and trying forcibly to put my tongue in a correct position).
Are there any particular parts of sentences or a sentence (at least few words) in my speech sample that sound convincing? Could you point them out?
All of 'I take risks - sometimes people die. Moderation is the key' sounds really quite good. The first sentence is the weakest - a lot of weird sounds there. It's almost like two different people recorded the first sentence and the rest of the recording.
Are you Russian?
Your English is very good, and your American English is also very good, but you sounds like a Russian friend I had
How about my quality of voice? I mean the point of resonance, nasality etc.
Considering the question of my nationaly: Isn't the point of resonance of my speech moved too far to the back ? I tried to set it in the good place.
In my native tongue I resonate much closer to the front of the mouth, certainly not like Russians (who resonate farther back than Americans).
Just one moree question:
Regarding the last sentence from my recording:
T had written that it sounds quite good.
Does this sentence sound native to you?
(Or --if not, could you estimate/evaluate using "%" how native the pronunciation of that sentence is?)
I appreciate your help.