Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: time to evaluate my pronunciation

It'd be very nice of you if you listened to this recording of mine and 
told me what I should focus on to improve my pronunciation.
Since I provide no transcription I hope you can at least understand what 
I'm saying.
I'll be reading to you a page from a book about psychology. I find it 
quite interesting, actually, but that's just me.
 
Warning: --- Keep the volume down ---
 
http://www.filedropper.com/recording
 
 
Kiuhnm

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It is easy to understand your English despite your strong Italian accent.
 
I'm not sure why you pronounce "confirmity" when you go through the 
trouble to spell out "conformity." I'm sure that in Italian you can 
distinguish between "firma" and "forma."
 
Your pronunciation of "just" also stood out as unusual, almost to the 
extent of being not understandable. It should start with a soft "g" 
sound, like "jet," or for that matter, the Italian "gettare."
 
It's a long passage. Over seven minutes. I got through about the first 
minute before my mind wandered to thoughts of my own personal 
characteristics that influence why I am not attracted to being a 
language teacher. Perhaps we can all share the task and point out 
particular pronunciation problems here and there.
 
 

):
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Excellent! Because your pronunciation is so good, these are really 
nit-picking things I observed.
 
For some reason, your pronunciation of "conforms" and "conformity" sounded at 
times like "confirms" or "confirmity" (which I don't think is a word.
That wasn't a consistent pronunciation, but I noticed it more than once. It 
could have been the recording quality; just pay attention to the open-o, as 
in "form."
 
The English short-u, being a sound not found in Italian, is difficult. It's 
close to Italian 'a', but much shorter. In words like "but" and "other" your 
sound approached an "a" more than it should.
 
Likewise, some of your short-i sounds were approaching an Italian 'i' as in 
"deficient" (first "i": defeeshent), "clinician" (the second, or middle "i"), 
"decisions" and "consider."
 
Your pronunciation of "Asch" is correct.
 
I lost a word or two in the phrase " to interact with a ??? subject." (I 
should have noted the time stamps of these ) Was it 'a lone naïve subject"? I 
think you said "nave". The word isn't always written with an umlaut, but we 
pretend we know something about French pronunciation and try to emulate it in 
this word.
 
But all in all, very, very good, especially with such a long passage. The 
subject matter is interesting!
 
 
 
conformity/conforms
but
deficient
other/others
clinician
consider
asch = yes
"to interact with a ??? subject"
short 'i'
distinctly
naive?
subjects
 
 
-- 
Joey from New York
Among those whom I like or admire, I can find no common denominator,
but among those whom I love, I can: all of them make me laugh.
   -- WH Auden
 

 particular pronunciation problems here and there.
 
Don't worry. You've done more than enough. Thank you.
 
Kiuhnm

 Ok. It seems like my 'r' affects the preceeding 'i'.
 
I meant "preceeding 'o'".
 
Kiuhnm

 subjects
 
Thanks for the big help. I'll focus on these issues and try to solve 
them, but I'm glad the transcription wasn't needed (apart from naive ;) ).
 
Kiuhnm

 that's just me.
 
wow che bella pronuncia, almeno rispetto alla mia :D

 It is easy to understand your English despite your strong Italian accent.
 
Strong? It's just fine. ;)
 
 
-- 
Enrico il Pentolaio.
 
 


 
spero che lo stia facendo apposta altrimenti annullo il
mio prossimo viaggio in Nuova Zelanda; se tanto mi dà
tanto, non mi capirebbero mai.
 

 them, but I'm glad the transcription wasn't needed (apart from naive ;) ).
 
By the way, I meant to point out that although it's clear from your accent 
that you're not a native speaker of English, your accent doesn't strike me as 
a stereotypical Italian accent. In fact, if I listened to your tract without 
knowing the source, I would find myself wondering where you were from, and I 
consider myself a pretty good diviner of accent origins.
 
This is neither necessarily a good nor a bad thing; I only point it out as a 
matter of interest.
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Grazie. Poi ci farai sapere com'è andata col tuo viaggio, spero :)
 
Kiuhnm