Could you all assess my spoken English?

Since I cannot post a sound file here, can you leave an email address and I will send my voice to you for your assessment.

I am from Hong Kong and I want to make sure that everyone in the world can understand me.

I would advise you NOT to leave your e-mail address in a public forum, unless you like to receive spam.

Wingyellow, why don't I upload your file, so that everyone can hear it?

The file is at
http://www.antimoon.com/temp/yingchai.wav

Tom did not give a very flavorable comment...
Am I really that bad?

The wav file has a lot of noise on it so I had to play it 3 times to understand. I would say you just need to be sure to pronounce all the syllables and word ending sounds. For example, the word 'men' sounded like 'meh' and 'seventy' sounded like 'seh...ty.'

If you can make one with less noise I might be able to be more helpful.

I sort of understood it. I think Lana is correct, there is too much noise in it, wingyellow.

The accent is good, but; could we get the lyrics? ;)

I agree about the noise, but I understood what you said without any trouble.

I can understand you perfectly, though that may be because I am too accustomed to the Hong Kong accent. Of course, the English is not perfect but it's sufficient for the other party to comprehend. I think that the recording is of a good enough quality considering that it was probably recorded using Microsoft Window's Sound Recorder.

Guofei Ma,
Do I really have an accent so broad? Any suggestion for improvement.

Lana,
I know the problem, because actually I am saying 17 instead of 70. It is just that I want you to assess my daily speech rather than the speed of a broadcaster. But I know how to treat the keywords now.

MJD,
Are you from Hong Kong too? If not, where are you from? Could you give me more specific comments?

Antonio,
What do you mean the accent is good? I would like to keep the script for a while so other can assess it fairly.


All friends,
Be frank with me. Since Tom has to hear it 8 times to understand, I am starting to lose confidence. I want to know if my English is :
1. easily understood and pleasant to listen to
2. quite easy to understand and quite pleasant
3. have to pay a certain amount of attention to understand
4. Pay attention but hardly understand
5. impossible to understanding

Just give me all your suggestions.

Tom,

Could you post my other file for their assessment?

Wingyellow,

In answer to your question, I'm American.

Wingyellow,

Like I said, you speak well and I had not trouble understanding you. If you want me to give you specifics...make sure you pronounce the "ed" on the end of "trapped." The 'th' sound kind of sounds a bit like a 'd' in your recording...this is often a difficult sound for those who are learning English.

You seem to want people to nitpick and be specific, but if you were to have spoken to me in the street the way you did on your recording, I'd have had no problems understanding you. I can, however, tell that you are Asian from your accent. This is not a bad thing....we can't help our accents and it's really no big deal.

typo:

"I had no trouble...." Sorry, I wrote "not."

mjd,

What specific features in my accent told you that I am asian rather than European, African, South American or others? Can you tell that I am from Hong Kong?

Accent does matter in Hong Kong. I am an English tutor. One of my students once told me that my accent was worse than that of a fellow classmate whose English was very broken with a not so convincing faked accent.

And Tom, the webmaster and a successful learner, said that he had to hear my recording 8 times to understand it and that the "not", "mine", "lose" in the recording should have been much clearer. Is it my problem or his? Is it true that you could understand without any, even little, effort? I will regain my confidence if you say yes.

I couldn't understand what he spoke. That's a good signal as I'm not a good English listener yet. :)