Newsgroup: it.cultura.linguistica.inglese
Titolo: Accent

Hi -
I have been living in Canada for a few months now. A friend has told me
that it is a hobby of many members of this group to pick apart horrible
accents. Perhaps you can do that to mine? I would be very thankful if
some of you could tell what I am getting wrong.
http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~helfgott/elliptic.mp3
http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~helfgott/turnscrew.mp3
Best,
Harald



_No offence intended_: you sound a little bit like the character of "The
Cheap Detective" you find below my signature. (smiling face)
I might say something serious later, but you'd better not trust me too
much. (smiling face)
Bye, FB
-- 
"Suppose I say I'm not interested."
"Does five hundred dollars interest you?"
"Very much."
"Then bring it: it's an expensive restaurant".
(The Cheap Detective)

On 13 Jun 2005 12:34:49 -0700, 
harald....@gmail.com
 wrote:

You sound Spanish.


My mother tongue is, in fact, Spanish. Good call!
Now, some advice, or more detailed comments?
Harald


Are you studying French as well as English?
Joe from Massachusetts

 
http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~helfgott/turnscrew.mp3
I've listened to this several times, but was unable to work out
some of it without looking for the text. This is quite convoluted
stuff to be reading aloud: I wouldn't attempt it myself without
quite a bit of practice.
You stress inappropriate things, and sometimes rush through
quite long sequences of words very fast. I had been planning
to write more specific observations this evening but have
yet to do so. I'll try to do better shortly unless someone
else beats me to it.

Well, I speak mostly French at work.
I am not *studying* English. I lived in various parts of the US for a
while (after having been taught overseas what certain people thought
was standard British English, though, as far as the pronounciation was
concerned, this was far from being the case) and noticed that my accent
was not getting better with time, and may have actually been getting
worse. I suppose I may have been picking up different regional accents,
so that I ended up with something with an interesting set of layers,
but it may just be that I was becoming quite set in certain bad habits
(while trying to unlearn fake UK English).
In any case, now I have a long-term lecturing job in Montreal (in
English, not in French, as it happens), so (a) I certainly must try to
reduce my accent, (b) at least I know what sort of accent I should take
to be the standard which I should approach!
As pointed out by A. Atkinson, part of the problem may be delivery
rather than pronunciation itself. One of the two clips is technical,
and the other one is just the first page of one of the elements of my
bedside-reading pile (easily recognizable from the file name, and
available online). Oh, the technical bit is also available online -
it's page 1 of my dissertation:
http://www.arxiv.org/abs/math.NT/0305435
Thanks for all the help already provided - I'm looking forward to the
rest -
h

PS. I recorded this about a month ago, while still under the influence
of a set of accent-reduction tapes that may have done more harm than
good. Let me give it a second try, this time in as non-self-conscious a
fashion as possible.
All right, here it is:
http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~helfgott/anotherturnofthescrew.mp3
Tell me if there's a different text you'd prefer.
In the meantime, I'll give no more of the strange history of my accent,
in part because doing so would spoil part of the fun.


Most people (including myself) do not fare very well with recording
their own voice. That is why audio book readers are well paid.
At first listen, you do not sound like a native speaker of any of the
Romance languages, more likely a Germanic language, but you
say that Spanish is your native language. Did you study English
in Northern Europe, perhaps in Norway or Denmark?
I may be having problems with my PC, or the files may be a little
noisy, but I will listen again more carefully.
I would be interested in your opinion of the "Canadian" English accent
compared to the UK accent. As far as I'm concerned, the Canadian
and American speech is just about identical, and definitely a far cry
from UK English.
I would also be interested in how you find the French spoken in
Québec. I have never had any problems communicating there
in French, and I could not tell you in any great detail what the
differences are between the French I learned in school and used
when in Paris, and the French spoken in Québec. I understood
both equally well and without difficulty. By French spoken in Québec,
I don't mean the Joual, but the French a person of average
intelligence uses when he talks to someone who is not a Québecois.
Joe from Massachusetts

 Québec.
Oh, the differences between Quebec French and Parisian French are quite
noticeable - it is mostly a matter of accent (especially in the vowels
at the ends of words) but also a matter of anglicisms and what to the
French are actually archaisms.
Best
Harald

French are actually archaisms.
My mother-in-law, who learned French from her parents, used
to use "bienvenue" for both "welcome" and "you're welcome".
I was surprised the first time I heard someone pronounce "Sainte Foy".
Joe from Massachusetts

 
http://www.dms.umontreal.ca/~helfgott/anotherturnofthescrew.mp3
A few specific comments.
You draw out "ew" in "screw" too much.
You pronounce "house" oddly. Also "out". They're both too drawn-out.
"_as_, on Christmas eve, in an old _house_" sounds odd.
Also, I think you rush through everything between the two
underlined words too quickly. I know English is stress-timed,
but you're possibly going too far.
in "shaken him" you stress "shaken", but I think you should
stress "him".
"later" is drawn out as well (the "la" especially)
I need to go now. I'll try to say more this evening.
The only accent-related textbook type thing I know of is
the "English Pronunciation in Use" book and CD. But
that's British English.
Really, you probably need to find a conversation partner
type person who is trying to learn one of your native languages.
Read things aloud to each other and be very nit-picky about
strange stresses, pauses, unnatural rhythm.
Have you tried to imitate people in films or on TV?

 Have you tried to imitate people in films or on TV?
I am not sure that imitating people in films or TV would work any
better than imitating people in real life. You are probably right in
advising me to try to find somebody with whom I can engage in mutual
nitpicking. My main problem, I suppose, is that I need to *unlearn*
some very firmly set bad habits in stress and rhythm, rather than
simply acquire good habits. (If it weren't for the bad habits, I would
have picked up the good ones a long time ago.) It is odd that I haven't
been able to find any structured programs on how to deal with this
problem, given that it is not an extremely uncommon one.
A friend told me to go get a stroke so that I can get speech therapy.
That might be going a little too far.

The "English Pronunciation in Use" book/CD doesn't just do the sounds
of individual letters: there's quite a lot on the rhythm of sentences
and such
like. See if you can find it in the university library.
I didn't mean you should imitate random people in films or on TV. You
might pick one particular actor (not someone who uses different accents
a lot,
though) and imitate him.

When I did Italian at university we once had to read a page of strange
things into a tape recorder. We got the page back with red marks on
all the "mistakes", and assessments of our most common mistakes:
use of neutral vowels, failure to double letters, stressing the wrong
syllables in words, etc.
It's possible there's a language centre in your university that does
something similar. I'm sure it will have English language materials for
overseas students and staff. If there's a Spanish (or whatever)
department, put up a notice saying you want to do a language exchange,
possibly saying you're most interested in reading things aloud
and having your delivery analysed. You should do some normal
conversation as well, though. Reading aloud and actually talking
to people aren't the same sort of thing, really.


Some specific suggestions.
All you esses are unvoiced whereas some should be voiced. It's quite 
noticeable in words like "is" and "was". Practice saying "s" and using your 
vocal cords or singing at the same time. "Is" should have this "s", except 
after an unvoiced consonant (k, f, p, t), when it has your "s". The same 
goes for the final "s" of plurals and the third person singular of the 
present tense, as well as "has", "his", "was", "these", and any number of 
other words (fuse, nose, etc). It also make the difference between such 
pairs as "peace" and "peas", "rice" and "rise" and many others.
Try to pronounce "th" correctly and distinguish between the voiced "th", as 
in the" and "this", and the unvoiced one, as in "thing" and "path". You tend 
to pronounce the former as an unvoiced "s" (see above), so "thing" becomes 
"sing", and the latter as "d", so "the" becomes "de".
Don't aspirate too much. "h" should usually be pronounced but not so 
strongly and it's often dropped in the middle of sentences before unstressed 
words ("He took (his) things and left the room"). 

 All you esses are unvoiced whereas some should be voiced.
I think he also pronounced "of" with an unvoiced "f", but I'm not sure.
[...]
Ciao, FB
-- 
Nasalization is just a part of life.
(Joey DoWop Dee on it.cultura.linguistica.inglese)

 words ("He took (his) things and left the room").
Thanks! I had noticed those things before, but I was afraid of
overcorrecting. Let me first check that I can produce the correct
sounds; I`ll post a second reading of the same paragraph soon. Carrying
over the correct sounds to everyday conversation will be a more
complicated matter - usually I am no more conscious of the fact that I
am speaking English than I am of the fact that I am breathing; that is
a large part of the problem. (If only I had got these things right back
when I was ten...)
Thanks again to everybody for all the help,
Harald