compare these two imitations of American accent

if you have nothing better to do,here's the thing,it may take some time
there's been a contest between two guys on a chinese forum where i hang out,each of them uploaded 2 audio clips of their imitations of American accent,they are still arguing fiercely about whose accent is more like genuine American accent,each of them have his own flaws in his sample of speech,but since none of us are native speakers on that forum,our comments were not very convincing hence were not accepted by those two "contestants",i will put the links here,and i would like you guys to be judges,tell me in your reply what you think their problems are and more importantly which one of them is better,please only consider the phonetic aspect of these samples,proficiency of the language put aside,thanks

the website hosting these clips is in Chinese,there are a lot of advertisments on it,so dont touch anything,the clips will load themselves,be patient,it may take some time,to adjust volume,just click on the icon of loudspeaker on the lower right corner of the video window,and slide the button that appears after one click

here are samples of contestant A
http://tv.mofile.com/4KHW905G/
http://tv.mofile.com/D3BEV9LD/

here are samples of contestant B
http://tv.mofile.com/6CB2XTXB/
http://tv.mofile.com/X9YYK588/

come on guys,it only takes a few minutes,a lot of people are waiting for a fair judgement here,it's been going on and on for weeks

I am British, not American, so I'm not an expert, but I'd say that sample two sounds more like a native English speaker - however he needs to practise his 'l's, so they don't sound like 'w's.

Speaker one sounds more American, but speaker two sounds more native English (not necessarily American).

Neither of them could be confused with a native speaker of English. They both need to work on annunciating every sound that occurs in a word. There are several instances where letters were left out or mispronounced (e.g. strenth in stead of strength). I would have to disagree with Caspian. As a person who hears American English every day, I wasn't sold on either of these. Tell them to learn a careful pronunciation before they attempt to master any particular accent.

Neither speaker sounds like a native to me; a native wouldn't be fooled for a single second.

However, speaker# 2, is doing extremely well in terms of being understandable; speaker #1 is understandable, but has more work to do.

so as of right now we have 3 defferent opinions Caspian thought speaker 1 sounded more American,which they all agreed on that chinese forum.
by Wintereis's high standard,both of them dont even qualify for a contest,so there's no winner.
and Jasper,personally i agree with you
my gratitude to all of you!!
i have copied and pasted your replies onto the chinese forum where the debate takes place,and i didnt tell those people the address of antimoon,otherwise those angry thugs would mob this place in no time:)

more critisms are welcome:)

So you don't think that they know how to paste, cut and find? Hmmm. I hope you wrote in Chinese.

to K.T.,actually they dont:),they just think i made it up.you know,thugs,they dont bother to use their brains

Let me be candid. No way either of them can pass as American; they are distinctly Chinese. Took me several tries before I could understand B's every word. "A" is a bit better, but both of them sounded contrived. Tell "B" to stop slurring, and annunciate his vowels and consonants distinctly.

soberguy Wed Jul 23, 2008 4:56 am GMT
so as of right now we have 3 defferent opinions Caspian thought speaker 1 sounded more American,which they all agreed on that chinese forum.


-------------------------------------------------------------

will the chinese forum agrees american sound more american?

soberguy, you can tells them they speaks more americaner than americansss

to Bannf,good point,i will tell them,in chinese this time,i dont want to bring those people here.

"Took me several tries before I could understand B's every word. "A" is a bit better, but both of them sounded contrived. Tell "B" to stop slurring, and annunciate his vowels and consonants distinctly."

While not wishing to impugn your judgment, I respectfully disagree. American English is by nature, more nebulous, much less distinct than British English. With this thought in mind, speaker A over-enunciates to the point of sounding contrived; his Rs, in particular, are highly exaggerated.

To be fair, he's fairly easy to understand--at least to me. He just doesn't sound American.

I agree neither of them sounds native. However, I do find Speaker B appears to make more of an effort with his vowels when he is not speaking at a break-neck speed. Both guys need to work on their tones, speed, and intonation.

The general consensus seems to be that speaker B is closer.