Please rate my accent

[tawsgo]

Hi, please listen to my recording and rate my accent. Also please guess what my first language is, THANKS

this is the passage,

"Man's dearest possession is life, and it is given to him to live but once. He must live so as to feel no torturing regrets for years without purpose, never know the burning shame of a mean and petty past; so live that, dying, he can say: all my life, all my strength were given to the finest cause in all the world——the fight for the Liberation of Mankind."


https://soundcloud.com/user122682951/voice01541

 

[Tdol]

I could follow what you were saying easily enough, though you need to work on your vowel sounds and your intonation- you spoke in a monotone. For example, you say so as to without linking the words up into a unit, which makes the meaning less clear.

 

[Roman55]

Yes, there is a big problem of intonation to the point where it almost sounded like a text of unconnected words put together from different sources. This gives it the feel of an artificially generated voice, especially in the first half.

I'm exaggerating of course, but that's the overall impression. The actual pronunciation of the individual words isn't bad.

 

[Tdol]

You were, however, reading a text, which makes intonation less natural than when speaking normally, so this may have accentuated the intonation. Try recording yourself speaking without a text. :up:

 

[tawsgo]

You were, however, reading a text, which makes intonation less natural than when speaking normally, so this may have accentuated the intonation. Try recording yourself speaking without a text. :up:

Thanks for the feedbacks. This is me speaking without a text. How does it sound?

https://soundcloud.com/user122682951/voice02631

 

[Tdol]

It does sound better and is less of a monotone, but intonation is an area for you to look at. However, words are grouped together more by meaning, which is an improvement- when people read written texts, they tend to focus on the pronunciation of individual words and pay less attention to the intonation.

 

[Tdol]

PS I would use feedback as an uncountable noun and not in the plural.

 

[Alex S]

Monotone... I would work on intonation. the pronunciation itself is quite ok.

 

[mandrews01]

Hi

I would agree that you need to work on intonation and 'phrasing' to give your speech (both when reading and speaking) a more natural and 'native' sound. I'd like to hazard a guess as to what your first language is; could it be Portuguese?

 

[tawsgo]

Thanks, i'm Chinese, i now what i need to work on. i'll be back and ask again once i feel i've made major improvement. i won't give up Thanks!

 

[tawsgo]

Hi I've been practicing for the past couple weeks , I would like some feedback

http://vocaroo.com/i/s1svPxuPL1K6

How do you think I sound in this recording?

Thanks!!!!

 

[Sh221b]

you sound more fluent

 

[emsr2d2]

you sound more fluent

Welcome to the forum, Sh221b. :hi:

It is kind of you to try to help other learners but:

1. You must start your replies with "Not a teacher".
2. You must start every sentence with a capital letter.
3. You must end every sentence with a single, appropriate punctuation mark.
4. Do you mean the OP sounds more fluent than they did in earlier recordings or more fluent than other (unspecified) people.

 

[emsr2d2]

I'm not [STRIKE]gonna[/STRIKE] going to sugar coat it. [STRIKE]like most people here...[/STRIKE] (inappropriate generalisation about the other members here).

I'll just give you my honest opinion. The placement of your accent is off so all the phonemes sound non-native, the intonation needs more work, and you should definitely pay more attention to the internal vowel lilts as well. You have a strong tendency to drag your vowels and flatten them, as opposed to descending in pitch on stressed words. I might be able to Skype with you at some point soon, and help you make some of the necessary adjustments if you like. [STRIKE][/STRIKE] If you want to use smileys, please click on and choose the appropriate one.

Please note my amendments to your post above. As a native English speaker, it's important to ensure that your posts are well-written because learners will assume everything you write is correct. On this forum, we don't use textspeak/chatlish so things like "gonna" are always corrected. We encourage all learners to use full, standard English words.

I note that you are offering help via Skype to learners here. Please confirm that you make absolutely no charge for this service. This forum can't be used for commercial gain.

 

[emsr2d2]

Just in case you haven't left yet, I note that you failed to answer my very important question about whether or not you charge for your Skype service. Please clarify.