Non-native speaker's accent (BE) - no download

[Crallballa]

Hello everyone :)

I'm new in this forum and without further ado, I'd like to ask professionals and native speakers to comment on this short recording.

orlandoIII.mp3 - File Shared from Box - Free Online File Storage

Any advice for improvement?

Thank you. :)

[Crallballa]

***

[Crallballa]

Now the link is in, thanks.

[Tdol]

Your pronunciation is excellent. Could you upload something where you're not reading- the problem with reading is that the intonation can be artificial because they're not your words- the reading's a bit bouncy at times (turning a page or two), but this isn't a problem with your speaking.

[Crallballa]

Thank you.

You're right, the intonation sounds a bit strange at times. I also noticed that it's read a little too "breathy". Unfortunately, I have no "unread" recordings. Only another read example - which I find rather hilarious, though.

Rate Accent & Pronunciation: Where does the speaker come from? - YouTube

[BobK]

Thank you.

You're right, the intonation sounds a bit strange at times. I also noticed that it's read a little too "breathy". Unfortunately, I have no "unread" recordings. Only another read example - which I find rather hilarious, though.

Rate Accent & Pronunciation: Where does the speaker come from? - YouTube

Excellent! (Incidentally, if you didn't write it, the writer has led you into making a slight mistake: at about 34" seconds you say /'faɪnəli:/ - an accurate reading of the printed word 'finally'. But , for sense, it should be 'finely' - pronounced, as I'm sure you know, /'faɪnli:/; an argument can be 'finely balanced' but not 'finally balanced'.)

b

[Crallballa]

Thanks for your comment

But it is, in fact, "finally". Here is a 3 year old recording of the same text, showing the original excerpt in the background (which our professor gave us in class):

Received Pronunciation "The Grand Design" - YouTube

[BobK]

Thanks for your comment

But it is, in fact, "finally". Here is a 3 year old recording of the same text, showing the original excerpt in the background (which our professor gave us in class):

Received Pronunciation "The Grand Design" - YouTube

I'm afraid 'finally' just doesn't work. The reader here is obviously reading from a text that has a typo in it, and because the text is so dense and complex they've lost track of the sense. It is, I suppose, just possible for the words 'finally' and 'balanced' to collocate (although BNC doesn't have an instance of it): you could say 'the argument is good, comprensive, and - finally - balanced'. But in your context the criticism is generally negative: 'Go away and do it again'; so this sort of collocation is ruled out.

On the other hand, 'finely balanced' is the third most common collocation of this sort:

1 FINELY CHOPPED 72
2 FINELY TUNED 44
3 FINELY BALANCED 25
4 FINELY SLICED 19
5 FINELY PROPORTIONED 12
6 FINELY GROUND 9
7 FINELY DICED 9
8 FINELY HONED 9
9 FINELY KNOTTED 8
10 FINELY GRATED 8
... [BK: there are well over 1000 in all.]

See more here: British National Corpus (BYU-BNC), using the search-string finely [*v]


PS Two words you might want to look up (and - p o s s i b l y use) are sesquipedalian and grandiloquent!

[Crallballa]

Wow, thanks for your elaborate post.

Ha, so our meticulously precise phonetics professor made a typo!

By the way: Would you say there is a general improvement, or merely a shift from "Kiwi-influenced" to "more British" between these two versions?

Received Pronunciation "The Grand Design" - YouTube (2008)

RP (Received Pronunciation) or not? - YouTube (2012)

Thank you. And yes, I'll look up those words!

[BobK]

I wouldn't say there was 'an improvement', as neither is RP. The first, as you say, is Kiwi-influenced. The vowel sounds in the second sounds to me as if there is a Northern influence (in, e.g. 'really an excellent plan', 'some of the doubts', 'in practice') - in fact it sounds a bit like a friend of mine from Shrewsbury (not that Northern. but definitely not Southern).

I initially put it at Yorkshire or Lancashire, but the second syllable of 'propose' does not have the pure [o] sound I'd excpect there. It seems to use [ǝʊ] (perhaps tending towards a triphthong, starting with something closer and less central - [e] perhaps. (I hung up my narrow transcription gloves many years ago, so this is the best I can do. ). This [eǝʊ] sound is what made me think of my Shrewsbury friend - it's the sort of accent she'd put on at a vicar's tea-party (consciously correct).


So if when you say 'improved' you mean 'less unBritish' then the second one is that, to my ear.

b