pronunciation

Question

Could you possibly evaluate my pronunciation please?

Liudmila Tarasova · Accepted Answer

This text I used for reading:
Mary is thirty-one years old. She lives in New York City, where she has lived for 18 months. She got her degree in Fine Arts and now works as a consultant for a marketing firm. She loves Manhattan and all it has to offer. So do her friends, who visit her often. When she has guests in town and it's warm, she might take them to Central Park ..... (or to walk over the East River, on the Brooklyn Bridge in the evening. Some of her guests like to shop at the famous stores. A few want to see the old churches. It is a pleasure for her to show them the town). - See more at: http://www.rachelsenglish.com/videos/1-1#sthash.aQVihvcX.dpuf

Thanks a lot in advance.

CalifJim · Answer

Liudmila TarasovaWhen she has guests in town and it's warm

I heard "Once she has kestion down and it's wern", which was confusing because neither 'kestion' nor 'wern' are English words. The good news is that I understood the rest of it fairly well.

You've got the stresses in the right places. That's good. However, there's very little variety in the pacing, so on the whole, it seems a little sing-song.

Your dark Russian L's will serve you well at the ends of words like 'bell', and 'tall', but at the beginning (as in "live" or "love") they betray you as a speaker of Russian. To sound more like you're speaking English, you'll have to lighten the L's in initial position by drawing your tongue forward more, thus blocking less air from coming up from your throat.

Your O's will also need some work, but in this case you'll have to decide whether you want the British O's or the American O's. Yours (as in "offer") didn't sound to me like either one.

A good effort over-all. Keep practicing. I'm sure you'll improve.

CJ

Liudmila Tarasova · Answer

Thanks a lot. It is very useful for me. Could you please tell me what good resources I can use to correct my sounds and everything? Thank you.

I will appreciate other comments as well. I am sure there are more problems than these mentioned by CJ, which are definitely not all, CJ just did not want to make me absolutely stressed and depressed, I am sure.)

Blue Jay · Answer

Here's my recording for comparison:

CalifJim · Answer

Liudmila TarasovaCould you please tell me what good resources I can use to correct my sounds and everything?

Oof! There must be thousands of sources. Check on Google for audio materials. You might find something online for free, or you might find something available for sale. Choose at least one that allows you to practice one sound at a time or short phrases, and at least one that is simply a text that is being read to you. If you can handle a whole novel on audio, that would be good. (Amazon has tons of spoken books for sale; however, I don't know if they deliver where you live.) You can stop the audio and repeat what you heard, or you can let the audio play and just listen to get the sounds of English in your ears. Sometimes just listening is beneficial, even if you don't understand every word. The sounds have to get into your head through your ears as accurately as possible before you can get them out of your head through your mouth!

Years ago I used to use a book called Clear Speech, by Judy B. Gilbert, but I don't know if it's still available. I believe it has audio materials that go with the book. Besides, it's for North American English, and you may prefer British English (as illustrated in BlueJay's post).

CJ

Liudmila Tarasova · Answer

CJ, thank you very much. The fact is, it is easy for me to understand any kind of accent - I have no problems here due to my 17-year-experience as an English tutor... But to sound like a native speaker, that is the problem. I will try to follow your piece of advice. Thank you again.

Blue Jay · Answer

CalifJim · Answer

Liudmila TarasovaThe fact is, it is easy for me to understand any kind of accent - I have no problems here due to my 17-year-experience as an English tutor... But to sound like a native speaker, that is the problem.

Aha. Wonderful. You have already solved the problem of understanding different accents.

But even so, I think you may need to consider which native speaker you want to sound like when you speak. One from Chicago? One from Manchester? I don't think you want your English to sound as if you've come from everywhere and nowhere!

I have a friend who learned Spanish from several different speakers—in particular, one from Argentina and one from Spain. He pronounced some words in the accent from Buenos Aires and some in the accent from Madrid. Believe me, it sounded very strange.

Of course, it's your decision to make, but I think that if the speaking exercises you practice are a combination of British and American audio materials, you're going to be torn in different directions. With one set of exercises you'll be encouraged, for example, to pronounce "water" one way (e.g., woe-tuh); with the other, a different way (e.g., wah-der).

CJ

Liudmila Tarasova · Answer

Thank you again, CJ. I think it can be a kind of problem for me, as at school I was taught to speak American variant, at university British one + I studied French and pronunciation, of course. Then I taught people from various backgrounds, now I live among Broad Accented Canadians, and very soon am going to move to Toronto, which has General Canadian. So, I think, I prefer the latter one.

CalifJim · Answer

Liudmila Tarasovavery soon am going to move to Toronto

Lucky you! A great place! You will love it.

The only differences between General American and the English spoken in Toronto that I detected on my visit there were the sound of the long O and the pronunciation, for some speakers, of "ou". These differences are trivial, however, so any audio materials you can get your hands on with any American or Canadian reader will serve your purposes very well.

I've learned French, too, and my opinion is that if you can master the French accent, you can certainly master English pronunciation. I always thought that English had a lot of vowels, but French has even more!

CJ

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