A Recording of English in Cantonese Accent

CantoGuy   Sun May 28, 2006 1:39 am GMT
Hi everyone,

I'm grew up in Hong Kong but have lived in Canada for several years. My writing is above average and I have grammar and vocabulary is good. The only thing non-native about my speech is my accent.

Since I have no intention of finding a job in Hong Kong (I intend to stay in Canada), I figure that it's important for me to develop a North American accent. Last year, I spent about $2000 in accent reduction courses, books, and related material. They helped a little, but I still have a Cantonese accent.

When I taped myself, I can here there is something "weird" about my accent. I know that it's non-native, but I don't know what the problem(s) is/are.

While my accent may not be as "heavy" as some of the people currently living in Hong Kong, I want to develop a native or near-native accent so that people will think that I'm either a CBC (Canadian-born Chinese) or came to Canada at a young age. I find deep personal satisfaction in trying to do that.

Here is my recording of a passage from a Wikipedia article (ice cream):
http://www.putfile.com/spongebob1237

To the native speakers who are reading this thread: what are the most "irritating" or "non-native" things about my accent?

CantoGuy
Kirk   Sun May 28, 2006 9:12 pm GMT
Not bad! For the most part I found you quite understandable. Here are a couple things I noticed:

--"modern" was hard for me to understand. It sounded somewhat like "monda" as you said it.

--your 'r's often sound like a /w/ when in not following a vowel. For instance, "crushed" sounds like "cwushed." This didn't cause any comprehension problems for me except for how you pronounced "purer." It's hard for me to describe how to pronounce it but I did record myself saying the passage if you're interested in comparing.

--you sound mostly like a nonrhotic speaker, which is fine (plenty of native speakers are nonrhotic). However, as I'm sure you're aware the vast majority of Canadians and other English-speaking North Americans are rhotic speakers so if you want to acquire that accent more accurately you might wish to try and emphasize your 'r's after vowels. I'm a rhotic English-speaking North American so you can hear how I pronounce words like "water" and "mixture."

--Some Canadians pronounce "process" with the same 'o' [oU] as in "program," while others (and most Americans) pronounce it with the same 'o' [A] as in "promise." You'll be understoood either way but I thought I'd point it out.

Otherwise your pronunciation is fine! :) I know it's good to strive to imitate native speakers for any language you learn but as long as your pronunciation is clear you will communicate just fine. Good luck.


http://media.putfile.com/Kirk-ice-cream-reading-
Kirk   Sun May 28, 2006 9:14 pm GMT
Oh yes, and I should have said a bit more about it but the link above is to my recording of the text.
CantoGuy   Tue May 30, 2006 4:26 am GMT
Thanks for your reply. I know that the /r/ sound is one of my major problems. I can't really distinguish /r/ and /w/ when I hear them, unless the differences are exaggerated and minimal pairs are read in isolation.

What I'm doing now is using a freeware speech analysis program (called WASP) to analyze your recording and mine. Using the program, I can produce a waveform called a spectrogram.

I noticed that the /r/ and /w/ sounds have a different spectrogram, and I'm using that to monitor whether my r's are pronounced correctly.
Kirk   Tue May 30, 2006 7:21 am GMT
<<Thanks for your reply. I know that the /r/ sound is one of my major problems. I can't really distinguish /r/ and /w/ when I hear them, unless the differences are exaggerated and minimal pairs are read in isolation.

What I'm doing now is using a freeware speech analysis program (called WASP) to analyze your recording and mine. Using the program, I can produce a waveform called a spectrogram.

I noticed that the /r/ and /w/ sounds have a different spectrogram, and I'm using that to monitor whether my r's are pronounced correctly.>>

Interesting method! I hope that helps. Would you like me to post a recording of minimal pairs such as "run/one" "quick/crick" "ring/wing" "tweet/treat" etc. or are you fine just analyzing what you already have?
Cantoguy   Wed May 31, 2006 6:07 am GMT
The spectrogram is really neat... I wonder how many students use it when learning a new accent. Some Second Language Acquisition (SLA) experts say that about 5% of adults can develop a native accent, but that was when speech reduction classes weren't popular, and people didn't have access to computers and microphones. I hope that nowadays this percentage is more like 50% =).

Today I've experimented with different ways of pronouncing the letter R. The following is a file where R is pronounced twice.

http://www.putfile.com/spongebob1237

The first one doesn't have lip rounding, but the second one does. Although I perceive both of them as R according to my Chinese ears, they have slightly different waveforms, so I'm wondering if native speakers perceive the sounds differently. Which one sounds better, or are they the same?

As for minimal pairs, I think it'll be best for me to post the minimal pairs, and native speakers can decide I've said it correctly. But that's after I figure out how to pronounce a perfect R sound.

Thanks again for your help.